**Spoilers Abound Children!**
Okay so a little late to the party, but I finally got around to seeing this tonight. Yeah yeah, its been a few weeks, but between the protests here in St. Louis, and that spider thing last weekend, its been busy.
So me and the guys finally brought in some cheep booze and went to see this. And oh me oh my! This move is something special!
Its not good in the traditional sense, i.e. with a coherent story, good execution, threatening antagonist, good actors, etc...no, this is Plan 9 from Outspace good. This is My Science Project good. This is Robot Jox good.
This is a corny, terribly acted 80s B-movie "horror" magnificent train wreck!
Let's get the obvious out of the way. Pennywise. He's so fucking over the top and deliberately not silly its impossible not to laugh at everything he says. His first dialogue with Jordi I was bursting out laughing. He sounds like an SS officer promising a Jewish kid there's free candy inside this gun barrel. There was no effort to seem even remotely not demonic evil clown. I'm surprised they even bothered to have him speak - just bite the kids arm and call it good.
Through the movie he's a scene stealer, true. But its sooo goofy, sooo poorly done, and that smile makes him look like a beaver in white-face! And his voice was always so deep and resonate it sounded like Darth Vader trying to do stand-up.
The kids were...okay. For kids. Meaning they're not great actors, but its not really fair to hold it against them. Their dialogue is terrible - obviously written by 40 something who have no idea how teens act or talk. Sentences and conclusions that no 13 year old would draw, from situations no teen would be in. The new kid spends his time during summer researching clown related mass killing in Derry...for no reason. A librarian hands him a book on I guess old pictures of Pennywise and boom! There we go, horrible exposition for no reason. Gotta shoe-horn in that backstory somewhere, might as well have the CSI kid already be a historian specializing in centuries long mass missing persons cases.
Beverly Crusher is okay if binary - she has two facial expressions, scared(which she does pull off very well) and died 7 days ago and no-one told her.
The kid who told jokes...oh man, and I thought Seth Green was bad! He's impossible! Telling puns and jokes that in no way seem realistic. He sounds less like a kid fighting a demon clown, and more like an actor deliberately trying to make an out-take for the DVD release.
The black kid is there. Kinda' weird that the only black kid is the one who brings a gun to the final showdown, but whatever. Maybe its in the book and I don't remember the bolt-stunner.
The other kids are decent, if completely token. The Jewish kid is afraid of a Modigliani painting? Why?
Also I love how they all promise to stay together for safety, then run off on their own for no reason other than the story really needed them to run off for no reason.
Like the ending in the sewers I couldn't follow at all. Kids were just appearing in different locations, but the locations were real, but the kids were magically teleported there, but also stumbled there blindly, and well....Gabby Hayes is heavily involved.
The bullies are standard Stephen King bullies - no redeemable traits, just 100% assholes for no reason.
The adults are baffling. There doesn't seem to be a single sane one in the entire mix. I get that the losers are just that, losers. Their family lives are fucked up. Sure, good, great. Even the bullies, as technically characters, have fucked up families...ish. But everyone else acts in this bizarre Pennywise is real and we're in on it, and a we don't know anything. I mean at one point a red balloon appears in a car. What's that mean? Pennywise controls the adults? All the kids are Pennywise's children? The adults help Pennywise?
Granted its a Stephen King novel, and he's never met a single person in his life, but still...I would have hoped one of the writers had. It would have been less awkward if all the adults just said 'Its a spooky clown movie, roll with it!'
Loads of plot holes. Enough plot holes for a giant space spider to fit in! How are the new kids's parents okay with him getting carved apart so often? The hypochondriac mother doesn't believe the kids they were attacked, nor care another kid is literally holding his guts in in front of her? Also props on the fat kid for his endurance. I haven't seen that level of wound ignoring since Starship Troopers when Carmen hugged her friends with a shoulder with an 8' hole in it.
Does no-one care the chick killed her dad?
Doesn't the bully survive? I could have sworn he lives...
What, the parents still think the kids are lying about Pennywise when they show up with deep gouges and other impossible wounds?
Do they bury the kids from the sewers? They clearly show all the bodies floating down - do none of the losers inform the police? They can literally bring the bodies of a dozen kids to prove their case and...nothing?
Like I said this is an amazing movie. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong! Its the perfect mixture of comedy and 80s cheese!
Okay so a little late to the party, but I finally got around to seeing this tonight. Yeah yeah, its been a few weeks, but between the protests here in St. Louis, and that spider thing last weekend, its been busy.
So me and the guys finally brought in some cheep booze and went to see this. And oh me oh my! This move is something special!
Its not good in the traditional sense, i.e. with a coherent story, good execution, threatening antagonist, good actors, etc...no, this is Plan 9 from Outspace good. This is My Science Project good. This is Robot Jox good.
This is a corny, terribly acted 80s B-movie "horror" magnificent train wreck!
Let's get the obvious out of the way. Pennywise. He's so fucking over the top and deliberately not silly its impossible not to laugh at everything he says. His first dialogue with Jordi I was bursting out laughing. He sounds like an SS officer promising a Jewish kid there's free candy inside this gun barrel. There was no effort to seem even remotely not demonic evil clown. I'm surprised they even bothered to have him speak - just bite the kids arm and call it good.
Through the movie he's a scene stealer, true. But its sooo goofy, sooo poorly done, and that smile makes him look like a beaver in white-face! And his voice was always so deep and resonate it sounded like Darth Vader trying to do stand-up.
The kids were...okay. For kids. Meaning they're not great actors, but its not really fair to hold it against them. Their dialogue is terrible - obviously written by 40 something who have no idea how teens act or talk. Sentences and conclusions that no 13 year old would draw, from situations no teen would be in. The new kid spends his time during summer researching clown related mass killing in Derry...for no reason. A librarian hands him a book on I guess old pictures of Pennywise and boom! There we go, horrible exposition for no reason. Gotta shoe-horn in that backstory somewhere, might as well have the CSI kid already be a historian specializing in centuries long mass missing persons cases.
Beverly Crusher is okay if binary - she has two facial expressions, scared(which she does pull off very well) and died 7 days ago and no-one told her.
The kid who told jokes...oh man, and I thought Seth Green was bad! He's impossible! Telling puns and jokes that in no way seem realistic. He sounds less like a kid fighting a demon clown, and more like an actor deliberately trying to make an out-take for the DVD release.
The black kid is there. Kinda' weird that the only black kid is the one who brings a gun to the final showdown, but whatever. Maybe its in the book and I don't remember the bolt-stunner.
The other kids are decent, if completely token. The Jewish kid is afraid of a Modigliani painting? Why?
Also I love how they all promise to stay together for safety, then run off on their own for no reason other than the story really needed them to run off for no reason.
Like the ending in the sewers I couldn't follow at all. Kids were just appearing in different locations, but the locations were real, but the kids were magically teleported there, but also stumbled there blindly, and well....Gabby Hayes is heavily involved.
The bullies are standard Stephen King bullies - no redeemable traits, just 100% assholes for no reason.
The adults are baffling. There doesn't seem to be a single sane one in the entire mix. I get that the losers are just that, losers. Their family lives are fucked up. Sure, good, great. Even the bullies, as technically characters, have fucked up families...ish. But everyone else acts in this bizarre Pennywise is real and we're in on it, and a we don't know anything. I mean at one point a red balloon appears in a car. What's that mean? Pennywise controls the adults? All the kids are Pennywise's children? The adults help Pennywise?
Granted its a Stephen King novel, and he's never met a single person in his life, but still...I would have hoped one of the writers had. It would have been less awkward if all the adults just said 'Its a spooky clown movie, roll with it!'
Loads of plot holes. Enough plot holes for a giant space spider to fit in! How are the new kids's parents okay with him getting carved apart so often? The hypochondriac mother doesn't believe the kids they were attacked, nor care another kid is literally holding his guts in in front of her? Also props on the fat kid for his endurance. I haven't seen that level of wound ignoring since Starship Troopers when Carmen hugged her friends with a shoulder with an 8' hole in it.
Does no-one care the chick killed her dad?
Doesn't the bully survive? I could have sworn he lives...
What, the parents still think the kids are lying about Pennywise when they show up with deep gouges and other impossible wounds?
Do they bury the kids from the sewers? They clearly show all the bodies floating down - do none of the losers inform the police? They can literally bring the bodies of a dozen kids to prove their case and...nothing?
Like I said this is an amazing movie. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong! Its the perfect mixture of comedy and 80s cheese!
