Bill Skarsgård in IT. Courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures.
Courtney Howard // Film Critic
One thing I love about Warner Brothers is how they take great craft and care in cutting together their horror movie trailers. Their trailer for THE CONJURING still haunts my nightmares dreams. This morning they gave us all new fodder to scare the living daylights out of us with their rebooted adaptation of horror-master Stephen King’s IT.
Director Andrés Muschietti (MAMA) has got a knack for creating soul-shaking scares. And I’m warning you right now that IT’s scary – like really scary. Better go put on some Depends.
Holy. Jeebus. #NOPE (but really, #YASSS)
Considering how prevalent and cliched the technique is now (and yet still used widely), we should all be thanking our luck stars that this trailer wasn’t set to a slowed-down, child-sung version of Modest Mouse’s “Float On.”
Jaeden Lieberher (ST. VINCENT, MIDNIGHT SPECIAL) leads the cast, which also includes Finn Wolfhard (STRANGER THINGS) and Bill Skarsgård (ALLEGIANT) as Pennywise.
From what little I’ve read of the King’s tome (and I’ve just started reading it though had to put it down because it’s too horrifyingly vivid), this is EXACTLY how I envisioned the opening in my head. You know the scares are coming and yet there’s no way to truly steel yourself.
While this isn’t the first adaptation of the novel of course, it looks like it capture big screen scares in a different, perhaps complementary way. It’s clear that Skarsgård has big (clown) shoes to fill as Tim Curry’s playful, dangerous, deadly iteration has been much beloved by horror fans for decades.
IT opens on September 8.
