Page 48 Daily Mail, Friday, September 6, 2019

it’s friday! film

It: Chapter Two (15)

Verdict: Humungous clown horror

★★★✩✩

Reviews by

Kate Muir

T

he wildly anticipated sequel to

Stephen King’s It once again

features the demonic clown

Pennywise — but this time

around he ought to be renamed

Poundstretcher, as his toothy scares go

on and on for almost three hours, with

diminishing effect.

The original 2017 It became the highest-gross-

ing horror movie ever, slowly building the dread

as Bill Skarsgard’s smiling, villainous clown

appeared in apparitions, drawing on a group of

children’s worst nightmares, popping up like a

ravenous Jack-in-the-box.

After children started to mysteriously disap-

pear in the town of Derry in Maine, the gang of

seven kids, nicknamed The Losers’ Club, set out

to confront the shapeshifting Pennywise.

It: Chapter Two picks up the story 27 years

later, as ominous red balloons signifying the

return of Pennywise float over the town, and a

young gay man dies a gruesome death near a

funfair after a bone-cracking beating by thugs.

Mike (Isaiah Mustafa), the only member of The

Losers’ Club who has remained in downbeat

Derry, realises the forces of evil have re-emerged,

and one by one calls on the rest of the gang to

come home.

The other Losers are not keen. Indeed, most of

them now seem to be winners, curiously free of

worry, in top jobs.

B

ILL (James McAvoy) is a hollywood

screenwriter, Beverly (Jessica

Chastain) is a fashion mogul, eddie

(James Ransone) is a risk assessor,

Ben (Jay Ryan) is a property magnate, and

Richie (Bill hader) is a stand-up comedian.

And it would enter spoiler territory to say

what has happened to Stan (Andy Bean).

But the adult Losers bring sharp wit and

classy acting to the sequel, as each must

return to a place of childhood trauma and

fight their own demons, giving Pennywise a

chance to do some particularly

unpleasant shapeshifting.

hader is hilarious, hamming it up

and making inappropriate, dry

remarks at the scariest moments.

McAvoy’s Bill is convincing as

he revisits the sinister

moment when his little

brother Georgie died after

being enticed into a sewer

by Pennywise.

Chastain’s Beverly has

grown from a tomboy

redhead into a powerful

woman — except at home, where

she is under the coercive control of

her abusive husband.

She is ready to break

free, and now, to add

an extra frisson,

seems torn between

her childhood admirers Bill and

Ben, the latter of whom was once a

chubby loner but now is, miracu-

lously, a six-footer with a six-pack.

The film regularly flashes back to

the eighties, using the original

child cast members (two years

older by the time of filming Chap-

ter Two, so some of their faces had

to be digitally de-aged).

But the segues between the past

and present are smooth, and

screenwriters Gary Dauberman (of

the horror Annabelle) and King

himself, drawing on his 1986 novel,

do a good job of keeping seven

main characters’ stories gripping.

Plus, there is another comeback

from henry Bowers, the psycho-

pathic killer bully from the first

film, who has not improved his

social skills after nearly three

decades in a mental hospital.

Returning director Andy Muschi-

etti creates that creepy, retro, small

town atmosphere brilliantly, and

Hamming it

up: Bill Hader

as Richie in It:

Chapter Two

around

CLOWNI

Too much

Stephen King’s creepy clown

Pennywise returns in another

scare fest but, at three hours, It

just doesn’t know when to stop

STH