It

I must admit that the horror genre isn't one of my favorites, but after viewing "It", it somewhat changed my mind. Certainly it isn't like the typical 'slasher' film I'm used to seeing, which is a good thing, but I fear that when I go to any horror flick, it's going to be a "Friday the 13th" or "Nightmare on Elm Street".

In a small town in 1989 Derry, Maine, seven bullied kids including Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher), Ben Hascom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs), Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Stanley Uris (Wyatt Cleff) known as the "Loser's Club" discover that a malevolent force is preying on the local children. When they realize that the town's adults can't protect them, they band together so they can destroy the monster, an ancient clown called Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard).

Others to round out the cast are Nicholas Hamilton as Henry Bowers, Jackson Robert Scott as Georgie Denbrough, Bill's younger brother, Stephen Bogaert as Mr. Marsh, Beverly's father, Jake Sim as Belch Huggins, Logan Thompson as Victor Criss, Owen Teague as Patrick Hockstetter and Stuart Hughes as Officer Bowers, Henry's father. 

This was eerily and tightly directed by Andy Muschietti ("Historias Breves 3" '99, "Mama" '13) plus shorts. His ability to extract the correct amount of emotions given the particular scene was executed extremely well. He put the creepy element in these characters for sure. It was creatively written by Chase Palmer, Cary Pukanaga and Gary Dauberman based on the novel by Stephen King. Although Dauberman certainly has the lion's share of the experience here, it is a team effort from Palmer and Pukanaga which makes this a collaborative effort. It was a bit long-in-the-tooth--it could've been a two hour running time, but I realize that character development has to be established which made it more forgiving. And there were a few things that were questionable in why did a certain character do this or that, but humans can be fickle beings. Given that this genre isn't one of my favorites, this film was tight, cohesive and well thought out. It was a reboot of the 1990 film which was based in a 1960 setting so this being 2017, the new time period was 1989. The production values were designed well, specifically the special FX makeup which was designed by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. Even the visual effects predominantly designed by Rodeo FX and sound effects actually enhanced this film.

Considering this film was based on a Stephen King novel, this film couldn't go wrong. Even though the horror genre isn't a favorite of mine, with all objectivity, King is certainly a master writer. This is not a slasher film, but rather an intense thriller presented as a cat-and-mouse game between this evil, demonic clown and these kids, and with that it's all about who's going to win.

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                  Rated: R                                     134mins.