A deep dive into the good, the bad, and the scary of IT Chapter 2

IT Chapter Two opened up set in the small town of Derry at a carnival eerily similar to that of Paso Robles. It then proceeded to leave audiences across the nation nauseated in their seats with an overly gruesome and explicit scene that gave off the same feeling you get when watching Hanna Baker slit her wrists in 13 reasons why.

After viewing a hate crime we get into the actual plot of the film that ultimately fell short despite the stacked cast starring Bill Skarsgard, Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, and Isaiah Mustafa who looked astonishingly similar to the kids starring in IT Chapter One.

As so many scary movies do the lack of plot was attempted to be made up for by an excruciating amount of jump scares. The jump scares were simultaneously predictable yet horrifying and I involuntarily yelped on two separate occasions as well as accidentally punched myself in the face because of fear.

Based off Stephen King’s novel the screenplay writer, Gary Dauberman accompanied by the noted director Andrés Muschietti achieved an opening box office worldwide of $323.3 million in just two weeks. Despite objective success the writing fell flat; Beverly was suddenly just a damsel in distress, Ben was haunted by his formerly fat self, Bill was haunted by his dead little brother, Richie obviously just using comedy to suppress his traumatic childhood, Eddie still just a germaphobe, and Mike who was just there as a reason for all of them to come back to Derry and some racial diversity.

The expected amazing comic relief we saw in IT Chapter One did not deliver in chapter two and instead we were left with confusion between fear and comedy. I didn’t know whether I was supposed to be scared while a zombie was making out with Eddie’s mom or find it funny. (I went with the latter)

After watching a sort of culty ritual that feigned an ending to this film we are yet again greeted by the somehow not dead Pennywise who then gets rekilled by the losers club making him feel small. Which if that ending wasn’t already cheesy enough we follow it up by Richie being the only one to care about the death of Eddie and an awkwardly fact based suicide note where Stanley explains he just chickened out of going back home by killing himself instead. What closure the audience is supposed to get from this I really don’t know but Ben and Beverly kissed underwater so we should all be distracted and forgiving of a straight up bad ending. 

Ultimately, my elevated standards for this movie were met with mediocre execution and inexplicable loose ends.