Stephen King’s interminable book, “It,” has been turned into an interminable movie, a film which accentuates the poverty of the idea behind this cliched coming-of-age story disguised as a faux horror story.
The essential problem with King’s killer clown conceit is that, without any larger resonance, it seems completely arbitrary. It might as well be a killer garbage man, or a killer hobo. Like so many aspects of this film, the trope of the cheery but creepy clown has been so played out that it serves only as an impotent signifier, without any real power to disturb, but which can cue a dulled audience to experience the simulacrum of unease.
The fear-inducing power of the clown in “It” relies largely upon the window dressing heaped upon it, in the form of special effects, frightening faces, haunted houses, scary noises, and physical violence. In addition, the movie focuses on the isolation of the Losers, putting them at odds with the group of intimidating older toughs, and setting them in a world of adults who are either inaccessible or cartoonishly malevolent, all while playing on the town’s documented history of missing children.
Drenching the story’s milieu in disquietude in order to amp up its scare factor is a common King technique, and while the film employs all the advantages of the visual media to create a mood of dread, in the end it has the same limited success as the book.
Part of the problem is that there is no real narrative tension. From the beginning, we already know that the clown is the bad guy. After that, what could be more boringly inevitable than the good (kids) vs. evil (clown) showdown in the haunted house? Everything that goes on between the clown’s first appearance and his (apparent) demise is just distraction, the filler required to turn a one-sentence premise into an overly long book and movie.
Just as boring is the theme of the misunderstood kids vs. the hostile adult world, another King favorite. Call it the “Stand By Me” meme. In the Losers, the story assembles a group of lovable outcasts, misfits, and nerds straight from central casting. From Bill, the stutterer, to Beverly, the pretty girl unjustly labeled a slut, the group checks off every box for heartwarmingly-awkward-kids-who-are-about-to-show-the-world-what-they-can-do, but fails to develop any one of these roles, save perhaps that of Beverly, beyond the level of caricature.