Does Thursday’s most anticipated trailer have the “It” factor?
Andy Muschietti’s Stephen King adaptation brings the scares (Pennywise! Creepy, apathetic adults!) and an ‘80s aesthetic strong enough to give Stranger Things a run for its money. Here, The Hollywood Reporter‘s resident It enthusiasts Ryan Parker, Pete Keeley and Aaron Couch take a closer look at the trailer.
Ryan Parker: This trailer is wonderful in that I felt totally creeped out afterward, which is a nice change of pace, because all the teaser did was make me sort of intrigued, but still somewhat cynical about the remake. This trailer, however, makes my skin crawl, which is what King is the master of doing in his books.
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Aaron Couch: It pretty much nailed it for me, especially the slow build to the repeated “You’ll float too.” I haven’t read the book and I only caught a little bit of the ‘90s TV movie. Usually with the things we write about here (Marvel, DC, Star Wars), I’m the core audience, so it’s fun to be on the outside a bit to feel what it’s like to be intrigued by a movie even if I’m not a hard-core fan.
Pete Keeley: I have read the book and I may be the ‘90s TV movie’s single biggest fan. As in: When I’ve found out friends and family haven’t seen it, I’ve gone out and rented or even bought them a copy (usually, to my eternal consternation, they’re like, “Meh“). But I’d say whatever trepidation I had about a remake of a personal favorite was pretty well obliterated by the teaser, and this trailer is just more of the same. Still remains to be seen whether Bill Skarsgard can fill the, uh, extremely large shoes of Tim Curry in the Pennywise role, but overall [extremely Borat voice] I am excite.
Parker: I love the opening moments and the voiceover talking about how children just assume life is good and they are always safe. Also, Pennywise over-enunciating “it” when he said, “Here. Take it!” was fantastic.
Keeley: I agree. It’s been years since I read the book — will probably reread before Sept. 8 — but if that monologue wasn’t pulled directly from the book, at the very least it shows the screenwriters tried to incorporate the themes from the source material. Hard to glean too much about a film’s screenplay from a trailer, but again, feeling very positive.
Couch: How violent do you expect this to go? Were you cool with what we’ve been given so far?
Parker: I was hoping for a little more in the way of, I don’t more, maybe gore? We already know for a fact that this movie is rated R — for violence/horror, bloody images and language — so I was hoping to see a tad bit of that in the trailer. While it is intense and there are some good “jumps,” it still feels like this could be a PG-13 movie, which is not really what I am after. Now, I am not saying a red band trailer with a ton of blood and guts would make me more interested in seeing this. I am very down to go. I am just saying I want to know this is an “adult” take on an adult book. Clowns are creepy to begin with. And the scary clown genre is pretty crowded, so I just want to be 100 percent sure this film will be set apart. Still, with all that said, I am seeing it for sure.
Couch: Ryan, I feel like every trailer we watch you are jonesing for an “adult, R-take.” Don’t worry, I am sure this will deliver for you! But for me, the lack of gore is a huge plus. I don’t like gore at all. And the few horror movies I’ve been able to handle and really enjoy in recent years (It Follows, Don’t Breathe, The Witch) have had some, but they’ve had such engaging stories that I didn’t mind. I think that will be the same with It.
Keeley: Well again, TV movie stan here, but the ‘90s film managed to be very frightening while appeasing the network sensors. It is a movie that does not need gore. If I’m being totally honest, the R-rating makes me kind of nervous. But I’m still waiting for a reason to distrust these filmmakers so I’m ready for whatever amount of gore they want to dish out, I guess.
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New Line is releasing It Sept. 8.
