★★★½ Watched 11 Apr, 2020

Revisiting good stories as an adult, which I’ve seen as a kid, usually brings up many additional layers that I could not comprehend at a young age. As I mentioned in my review of the first part, I saw this one, back in my teens in the form of a miniseries, as a nightmare-inducing horror story about kids encountering some evil entity that then follows them into adulthood and they have to deal with it again. Now, in the age of a wide range of PTSD and other traumas, helicopter parenting, widespread awareness of domestic family abuse, and pedophilia the story becomes not just multifacet but also stays very topical.

The acting chops on display here are by the leading three heavyweights Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, and Bill Hader. Hader in particular is more known for his comedy, but he already proved he can also deliver believable dramatic performances in his acclaimed series Barry. The serious tone is nicely sprinkled with comedic relief provided by Hader, while Chastain brings the sole female vulnerability as well as strength and McAvoy grounds the group with his measured approach. The book author Stephen King has many cameos in the movie adaptations of his books, but as opposed to some other famous cameos, he actually got better with the years and I dare to say if you don’t know him, you wouldn’t single him out as a non-actor in the role of a pawn shop keeper.

VFX is pushed further into the forefront in numerous psychologically tense and visually horrifying scenes the nightmares are made from. We are used to realistically looking VFX by now, so it’s not an easy task to do what was done before and provide an upgrade in some way or the other, being an imaginative or technical feast. I wouldn’t say the creators showed anything particularly new, but the visual horror was effective, as was the intent of this type of genre film.

Last but not least is Bill Skarsgård‘s creepy portrayal of Pennywise, whose power grows as long as the characters give him that power. As an old Slovene saying goes, “The fear is hollow and empty all around”, here lies the lesson the young and the old should remember.

Source: Letterboxd
Info: IMDb