#the random horror short film I found on youtube when I was a teen about murderous anthropomorphic rabbit android butlers: I mean.

[dustinslovehandles]

RIP Windham Rotunda

I know this is an AEW blog and usually happy fun/thirsty times but I don't have anywhere else to really share this.

Long story short, I wouldn't be in this fandom if it wasn't for this man. I wouldn't be going to Wembley this weekend, and I wouldn't have felt connected to my family for the first time years.

My dog adored you, and you never got to know that your promos touched even her.

I need to get some stuff off my chest in the cut below.

I don't remember how or why I stumbled across Bray and his promos, but it genuinely changed my life. Growing up, me and my brother had been huge wrestling fans. I was going through old family footage the other day and found clips of me as a 2 year old playing wrestling with my brother. Suplexs, power slams... definitely not stuff you are supposed to do as a kid at home, hah.

My brother was 9 years older than me. I remember us watching wrestling together, I remember us wrestling all the time and him trying to hold my eyelids open so I could do the Undertaker eye roll thing, hah. Me and my family would always joke that the most commonly heard phrase in our house growing up was "Paul, not on the sofa!" as he powerslammed baby me into various things, hah.

As he grew up, my brother grew out of it, but those are such strong memories of being so close to him and so loved. Some of you might be able to figure this out, reading between the lines, but my brother died. I was 13 years old when he committed suicide and I was never able to look at the things we'd shared (wrestling, yugioh, star trek) after that. Not the same way, at least.

It was some time after the lockdown, so I guess 2021? 2022? That I stumbled across Bray. I don't even know how because I wouldn't have sought it out for the reasons above. But another thing about me, my sister had been a massive fan of horror films since I was a kid. Some of the first books I read were kids horror books and I still have them to this day. When I was in my teens, my sister did a degree and ultimately a phD in ultra-violent horror films and I said alongside her, watching and analysing and giving my science input on these things. She even gave me a special thanks in her phD thesis.

My brother and sister hated each other. I was always stuck in the middle and even in death my brother made his feelings towards my sister clear. But here was Bray, combining two things that meant so much to me, that represented my siblings. I wasn't close with my sister anymore, she had moved away and moved on, so in a way I was grieving for the closeness of both my siblings. And Bray showed me both of them, both sides of myself, at the same time.

Doesn't hurt that he's gorgeous, hah. I remember looking up all the promos I could get for him on youtube. Reading about his characters over the years and catching up on everything I'd missed in wrestling. Everything I'd shut myself away from because it hurt too much. I remember a friend of mine has a 'random hot guy' thread with me and Bray was the first person I contributed to that thread.

I drank him in. I fell in love with his mind, his creativity and his storylines. And I showed my mum, because I'm autistic and hyperfixate and to be blunt, she's the only IRL person I have in my life. She didn't really get it, mostly because she was never into horror and he's not at all her type, but she loved seeing my enthusiasm and went along with it for me.

He'd just been released from WWE at the time I found his stuff, so I didn't get to see him on tv or anything. But slowly, through drinking in his matches, I learnt more about other wrestlers. I learnt about the storylines I'd missed and the people I hadn't seen and slowly, I got back into WWE and wrestling. But this time, sitting at home on the sofa with my mum, and getting to share it, and my memories of my brother, with her.

I never spent that much time around her before, never felt like we had that much in common. But now days, I spend most days a week at her place at some point. Wrestling brought us together, and made me come out of my head and into the real world, at least a little bit.

I can't tell you how excited I was when I heard Bray was going to return to the WWE. I analysed every bit of those promos with a fine tooth comb, trying to figure things out. I couldn't get enough and my mum indulged my fascination and constant rambling with amusement.

The whole time we had been watching wrestling, over a year at this point, we'd been sat at her house on the 3 seater sofa. Me at one end, her at the other, and our dog, Kiki, in the middle. Kiki loved wrestling time because it was the only time she ever got to spend with both of her mum's, snuggled up in the middle. To the point where whenever I go over now, she will say hello and have her fusses, then jump on our sofa and stare at me until we go over and watch wrestling with her.

I remember the other day, my mum said to me "Do you want to sit down and watch the wrestling then?" and Kiki got up and ran into the other room, onto her sofa and was waiting for us, all excited, heh.

She never understood the wrestling, of course. Her breed has bad eye sight and I don't think she really understands much of what a tv is about. She could obviously see the movement because she was relaxed during matches, but promos made her restless and she'd often jump off and bring us toys and try and play during them.

When Bray came back, it's the first time I've ever seen her look at the tv, nevermind stay still during a promo. But from the first notes of his new entrance tune, from the blue lights, she was transfixed. She stared directly into the tv, both ears up, and watched the whole of Bray's promo, never moving. And she did the same for all his promos. Even if she was asleep, she would wake up when she heard the music and just stare into the screen with rapt attention I've never seen her show before or after. It was beautiful.

I always wanted to tell Bray that my dog loved him. That his words spoke even across the specie barrier. I looked up so many videos of him with fans, at cons and stuff and wanted nothing more than to get to meet him some day. To tell him thank you for connecting me with my family. Thank you for showing me that there was a place for people like me in wrestling. That the two sides of myself didn't have to be opposed to each other.

I remember letting slip once, when I saw Bray in his Fiend gear, that he looked like how -I- wanted to look. Especially when I was a teenager. My mum was confused by this, and it was the first time I ever mentioned to her about my gender feelings. I took my mum to Pride with me the last couple of years, she has a 'Proud Mum' t shirt she wears. I got that, in part, because of Bray.

I always described him as my favourite wrestler. My mum used to say that was why Kiki loved him so much.

Bray, I always wanted to meet you. To tell you how much you meant to me. I never got the chance and now I never will.

Through my renewed love of wrestling, I eventually found AEW. I found Chuck Taylor and the Best Friends, and I finally had the courage to join in with something. I've never joined a fandom before, and I was shaking like a leaf when I made this account. I still get super anxious sometimes.

But you all made me feel welcome, and I've ever made friends here. I did something I was scared of doing because of him. I've been facing my fears IRL too and trying to move forwards at my own pace, my own way, even if it doesn't seem like enough for some people.

Thank you Bray, for everything. For connecting me to my brother, my sister and my mother. For making me fall in love with wrestling again. For giving me friends, a community, a fandom and helping me face my fears.

You were only 3 years older than me. We were robbed of your brilliance.

Rest in Peace Windham Rotunda.

[tearlessrain]

any sort of connection to rabbits makes things weirder. I have been trying to unravel this phenomenon for years and I still can’t coherently explain it but it’s true. I don’t know whether weirdness is attracted to rabbits or if rabbits generate weirdness but it’s definitely one of those things. the degree of unhinged inherent to a thing is directly proportional to the degree to which it’s associated with rabbits. except for rabbits themselves which are pretty normal animals.

there isn’t really a point to this it’s just a thing I’ve always noticed and I feel like you could draw a very conclusive chart of things plotting weirdness vs degree of rabbit association. I see a rabbit involved in something aesthetically, thematically, or directly now and I’m just like “oh god shit’s about to get weird” and I’m always right.

#alice and wonderland: very weird #magicians: one of the weirder hobbies you can have #secular easter: you can't tell me it's not the weirdest major holiday by far #playboy bunnies: not as weird as hooters admittedly but still weird #donnie darko: I still don't know what the fuck it is but it haunts my dreams and it's definitely weird #rabbit spg: layers of weird #bunny themed pastel blogs: every single one has had the most batshit dni list imaginable #the random horror short film I found on youtube when I was a teen about murderous anthropomorphic rabbit android butlers: I mean. #watership down: leading name in 'weird animal cartoons that scarred you for life'

[comicsinkcorporated-blog]

Interview with Screaming Villains, developer of Night Trap 25th anniversary.

CI: So how did development for Night Trap 25th anniversary first come about?

SV: It honestly started out as sort of a joke. Sometime after the failed Kickstarter, hardcore fans started attempting to recreate their own remake of Night Trap and some gaming sites were writing articles about it which I found kind of odd especially since they either didn't work or barely worked. I was already messing around with FMV stuff as a hobby and a friend of mine came up with the idea of myself making a working version running on a phone.

I threw it together in about 3-4 days, posted a video of myself playing it on Youtube and sort of remained anonymous about it. I got a local arcade owner that I know to post the video on his Facebook account since he was friends with an absurd amount of retro gamers and it started to spread and got about 5000 views within the first 24 hours.

The website fmvworld.com found it too and decided to contact Rob Fulop (one of the creators of Night Trap) to get his opinion on it. Another website called segabits.com also contacted Tom Zito (producer of Night Trap) to find out if he had any involvement so that sort of put me on their radar. After that I figured "what the hell?" and sent an email to Tom at about 3am and got a response in about 15 minutes. He just asked a couple of questions about it and asked for my phone number. The next day, he called me and 20 minutes into the conversation he asked if I would like to do an official version and I said yes.

CI: Limited Run Games PS4 version of Night Trap remains their fastest selling game, while the Nintendo Switch version may end up being their best selling game. Were you surprised by the popularity of this remaster?

SV: I don't think anyone was expecting that. It just came out of nowhere which I think helped a lot so thank god my friends were able to keep their mouth shut while I was working on it. Originally, there was only going to be 5000 copies of the game available. Once the announcement was made Josh Fairhurst from Limited Run Games and myself were pretty much stuck on Twitter the entire day so we definitely wasn't expecting the reaction it got.

After that, Josh said something like "We might need to increase the quantity" which at the time I don't think they ever exceeded 5000 on a game so it got bumped up to 6000. After that, he came back again and said "Maybe we should add a collectors edition" so now we're at 8000 for PS4. Then it was "Let's release a big box version for PC" so now there's another 2000. It just kept growing and growing and still didn't meet demand. What's funny is the guy that made the announcement trailer and myself was constantly googling Night Trap that day just to see what was being said but then we went to the trending section on Youtube and we're like "Oh my god! The trailer is trending higher than Gucci Mane!" For a brief moment a game that a lot of people considered terrible was all of a sudden popular and I think that's rad.

CI: What do you think it is about Night Trap that has made it so beloved amongst fans?

SV: It has a b-movie feel to it and doesn't take itself seriously. A lot of hate that it gets is sort of undeserving. The popular ones are usually "this is barely a game" or "this has bad acting". NT was made 5 years before it was finally released and intended for a console that used VHS tapes and the acting is very similar to 80's horror/thriller films. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time period when it was finally released in 1992 and at that point nobody was really reminiscing about the 80's like they do today. The fans that are super hardcore about Night Trap are usually gamers that have a great interest in movies in general. What surprised me was the number of people that I've talked to that said Digital Pictures influenced them to pursue a career in the film or tv industry.

CI: Were there any notable, unforeseen difficulties during development?

SV: Engine restrictions was the biggest issue. I figured out pretty quickly that a lot of the gaming engines available weren't really designed with FMV in mind so because of this I think the video quality suffered more than I would've liked. Luckily, this is no longer an issue with future releases.

CI: How did the Limited Run Games physical release come about?

SV: The dudes from My Life In Gaming actually brought it up. One of those guys lives down the street from me and very early in the development process I told him I was working on Night Trap and wanted a documentary to go along with it since it has a crazy history and I thought it'd be a cool promotional tool. He immediately suggested that I work with Limited Run Games. Over the next several months I kept telling him that I'd think about it whenever he brought it up.

About a month before the game was announced, Coury came to my house to film my interview for the documentary. After we were finished he brought up Limited Run again so I told him to go ahead and tell them what I was working on. Ten minutes later, I got an email from Josh Fairhurst. Limited Run is super rad and I honestly can't imagine doing any game without their involvement so I'll most likely harrass them with each release that I do. They actually ported Night Trap to Nintendo Switch. I can't say anything bad about those dudes. They've helped me tremendously.

CI: So the Nintendo Switch version of the game comes with Japanese & French audio, was this something Screaming Villains commissioned themselves? Did Night Trap have an original Japanese and French release? And what was the reasoning behind including the new audio?

SV: The Japanese and French audio actually came from previous releases. I got ahold of copies of the game that were originally released in Europe and Japan and just ripped the audio from the disks. Before it was released I started getting messages and emails asking for additional language options so that's where that idea came from.

CI: So Night Trap as a copious history with Nintendo, when the company called out the game out in court, vowing it would never appear on a Nintendo system, which lead to some bad blood between the original Devs and Nintendo. How did it feel to finally put Night Trap on a Nintendo System?

SV: I think it's cool. Digital Pictures always released their games on Sega consoles and 3DO so it's super rad that one of them finally ended up on a Nintendo console. Definitely long overdue. With Night Trap getting released on there with a Teen rating without cutting any content might hopefully stop people from claiming that the game uses violence against women to move the story further which is absolultely ridiculous along with everything else that people claim is in there that doesn't even exist.

CI: What was the decision to go with Double Switch as the next FMV game to remaster?

SV: Double Switch just seemed like the obvious choice since it's the same type of game as Night Trap but everything is improved on. You could I guess call it the spiritual successor to Night Trap. It's also my favorite game from Digital Pictures. I think it was expected too. Back in February, I met a lot of the people that worked on Friday The 13th The Game. When I was introduced to the Executive Director Randy Greenback the first thing he said to me was "Are you doing Double Switch next?!" Josh from Limited Run was campaigning for it pretty hard too since his aunt is a childhood friend of Debbie Harry who appears in the game. A very short teaser for it was showng during the Limited Run E3 conference. While watching the conference there were people leaving comments like "Just announce Double Switch already!"

CI: Night Trap special editions in the past have come with cassette tapes, patches, and even a VHS tape. Can you tell us if Double Switch special edition will come with anything like that?

SV: It most likely will but I have no idea what since I haven't really talked to Limited Run about those options yet. Usually what happens is they throw an idea at me and I pretty much agree to all of them. They're huge Sega nerds like I am so I trust them with their ideas. The idea of pogs came up for Night Trap but we ran out of time so it wouldn't surprise me if that happened with Double Switch.

I'm sure it'll come in a Sega CD jewel case too since Limited Run ordered about 15,000 of those. I will say that it's getting a completely new cover since the original ones are kind of lame and don't really fit with the type of game that it is.

It looks super rad! DS also has a super rad soundtrack that was done by Thomas Dolby, who wrote and performed the hit song "She Blinded Me With Science" so I was hoping that a stereo version of the soundtrack existed so we could release that but sadly it's all mono.

CI: There was some rumors that Screaming Villains have been working on bringing, Marky Mark: Make My Video to the PS4. Can you confirm this?

SV: Oh dear....that was a joke that went too far. What happened was Josh Fairhurst and I kept getting our tweets captured and used as news articles for very minor stuff. I hated it because I wasn't used to this sort of thing since Night Trap was my first console release and Josh was beyond frustrated with it because of a random person making a negative comment about Nintendo, which led to a gaming site writing an article claiming that Josh spoke negatively about Nintendo when it wasn't even him or even anyone affiliated with LR.

They were forced to update the article and admit that they were wrong. After that, we started tweeting each other about a re-release of Marky Mark but making it sound official like it was an actual thing that was happening just to see if anyone would start turning that into articles.

One night, I took it a step further and made a working version of the game running on a PS4 in about an hour and then the next day we both posted a link to a video showing it. That got yanked from Youtube within the first 20 minutes. We used to talk about it all the time trying to figure out how to make it happen since the idea is too ridiculous to ignore but no. No remake of Marky Mark Make My Video.CI: What other FMV games do you want to bring to modern consoles?

CI: What other FMV games do you want to bring to modern consoles?

SV: My original goal was to get as many games from Digital Pictures as I can which is pretty much happening now. Night Trap and Double Switch aren't the only ones coming. Outside of DP releases the goal is D which was originally released back in 1995. I feel like there's a ton of different things you can do with that one.

CI: Lastly is there anything you would like to say to the readers?

The obvious thing would be thank you to everyone that played NT25. It was a stressful process so it made me happy to see that people that were fans of the original enjoyed it. Also, if you're a fan of Digital Pictures releases then stick around because some super rad stuff is coming!

#Night Trap #nintendo #Sega #horror #playstation #interview

[jaskiersbard]

Thoughts on "IT" (2017)

Let me start off by saying that I haven’t seen the miniseries from 1990, and I have not yet read the book (I’m debating buying it) – I went to watch it as a lover of horror films, and because I get free tickets at the cinema where I work. My opinion isn’t professional in any sense of the word, I’m speaking merely as a cinema-goer with an opinion.

So…where to start is the question? There’s a lot to discuss with this film, more so than I thought, so I hope I can remember to get everything in.

Let’s get this out of the way now: I enjoyed the film. I enjoy horror films, I enjoy being scared, and I enjoy horror films with actual plot and not just “random serial killer hacks teens to death on a cabin retreat”. The plot of this is of a child-eating-clown/monster/alien that terrorises the small down of Derry, Maine – that’s the basic sum of it. Then there’s the Losers Club who are all bullied misfits and outcasts in some way, and they decide that they want to take down “IT” to stop it from claiming more innocent victims (to add, the “leader” of the group, Bill, is the older brother of Georgie, who is killed at the start of the film). The film wasn’t faultless by any means, of course, but I’ll get there in a second.

The film opens with Bill making his little brother, Georgie, a paper boat to play outside in the rain with (Bill is stuck in bed because he’s sick); let me just say that Georgie is adorable. I wanted to cuddle him and squeeze him; I also liked the relationship between Bill and Georgie, but that also comes up later. So Georgie goes outside to play with his paper boat in the rain, chasing after it as it travels along the water of puddles etc. until he hits his head and the boat heads towards a gutter drain… I’m a horrible person for saying this, but I still laughed when Georgie ran into that public works sign/barrier thing and fell down. It was just really amusing to me that he ran straight into it. After this, the boat goes down the drain and Georgie gets on his hands-and-knees to try and retrieve it – and that’s when the clown pops up.

Following on from the above point, I know Georgie is only little and he does mention that he’s not allowed to talk to strangers…but I can’t help but laugh at how he had a conversation with a random clown in the drain. Bless him, I certainly wouldn’t have done that even if I had lost the paper boat my brother made me, but there you go.

I’m going into way too much detail so I’ll try to be more concise or I’ll be here all night; I’m sure we all know of that infamous gutter drain scene between George and Pennywise – it’s used in marketing and I’m sure many have seen it on YouTube from the 1990s miniseries. This scene was tense to watch, even though I’d seen a preview on YouTube of it; I knew what was going to happen because it’s impossible to escape spoilers, but it was still pretty intense – knowing made it worse, I feel. There’s something I found endearing about this Pennywise that I can’t put my finger on, but even so I don’t think I would have stuck my hand in that gutter drain to take that boat from his hands.

I saw the clip from the original 1990 miniseries of when Georgie is “killed” – it’s not shown on-screen at all, merely implied. In this adaptation, there’s no problem showing gore; I suspected we’d see more in this film, but still. Let me tell you, when that clown opened its jaws and ripped that kid’s arm off, I yelped (quietly because it was a cinema, but still); there’s no way I can describe this clown’s teeth properly…it’s like the Deacon from Prometheus, it has like jaws that pop out??? The worst part wasn’t the violence or gore, though, it was Georgie crying and attempting to escape before being pulled into the sewer; there’s something really very upsetting about a little child crying in pain, and it gives me chills to think about.

Okay, now to the main bulk of the film – hopefully I won’t go into full detail on every scene, but I felt that the first opening scene was important since it’s perhaps the most well-known one.

The Losers Club, in full, is made up of six boys and one girl - and I can only just name them. I know one of them was from “Stranger Things”, but I couldn’t tell you which one since I don’t watch it (I know, I know). There’s obviously Bill, Georgie’s older brother; there’s also Ben, an overweight boy, Richie (the boy with glasses, I think), Stan (the Jewish one), Mike (an African American), and Eddie (asthmatic/hypochondriac), and the girl in the group is Beverley. They’re all a part of the Losers Club for various reasons, and they’re frequently bullied by a group of older boys led by Henry Bowers (who is a bit of a psychopath, it turns out).

To stop me from ranting and going in-depth on EVERY scene, I’m going to sum up my feelings in bullet points:

Beverley being bullied in the bathroom at the start of the film – this ties into the theme of bullying in the film, which is quite central. Her character is quite a bad-ass, actually, and probably one of my favourites.

Oh God, Ben was sweet; I really want all the best for him, because he’s just so lovely. He’s overweight and the new kid, and he has such a crush on Bev, and it’s just…bless him. I wanted to pat him on the shoulder.

Admittedly, Richie grated on me a little bit with his jokes – you know, the overtly sexual “your mom” jokes that a lot of fuckboys make? Yeah, that kinda annoyed me quite a bit. I read somewhere that he’s supposed to be a “trashmouth” but, I don’t know, it just grated on my nerves. Then again, these are teen boys – it’s only to be excepted really.

The part with that guy in the pharmacy, though…he really creeped me out that guy behind the counter. He was weird as fuck and creepy.

We see “IT” terrorising the kids one-by-one quite early on; Bill is tormented by visions of Georgie (“YOU’LL FLOAT TOO!”); Stan is attacked by a creepy woman from a creepy painting that plays a flute (she really is fucking terrifying); Ben is chased by a headless person in the library before being chased by Pennywise; Mike sees the hands of his parents attempting to escape from behind a door (his parents died in a fire); Richie is terrorised by several clowns at one point (including Pennywise), and Eddie sees a Leper which chases him, diseased and carrying god knows how many germs/bacteria. Beverley is a little odder; she hears voices from down the sink, and a blood bubble bursts that covers her entire bathroom.

I feel compelled to mention the part where Patrick, one of the bullies in the gang, is in the sewer and is killed by Pennywise after being chased by zombies. That really was quite frightening, actually, at least for me.

Beverley’s relationship with her father is heavily implied to be incestuous; I think it’s quite apparent that her father sexually abuses her from the start, coaxing her to say that she’s still his “little girl”. Again, a deeply unsettling theme that I’ll talk about in a sec.

Adding onto the above, Bev cutting all of her hair off was really compelling and sad but I was also silently cheering her on? I just felt like this was something she had control over; her father would stroke her long hair and call her his little girl, and now with her hair cut short he can’t do that. I just felt that this was really very freeing.

There’s a scene where the kids are watching a slideshow/projector thing to figure out where “IT” lives; it soon starts to flicker and show images of Bill’s family with Georgie, with Pennywise in the pictures in place of their mother. They knock the slide-thing over, and for a moment it’s like it’s all over – and then this MASSIVE Pennywise appears out of fucking nowhere and I nearly shat myself. I was shaking afterwards.

I just…every time Pennywise appeared, I ended up sitting with both middle fingers raised and my eyes half-shut. I really do not like clowns.

I’m slightly concerned about how Henry Bowers murdered his father, attacked the kids and then fell down the hole and just…never turned up again? Did no one have questions about his father being murdered? Or perhaps about the missing 15-year-old? Or are these answered in the second film where the kids are adults?

Also slightly concerned over Beverley murdering her father and getting off scott-free. I mean, I know he was sexually abusing her and stuff, but she wasn’t punished at all for it – she’s merely being sent away to live with an aunt. Maybe I’m just dwelling too much :’)

Eddie standing up to his mother was great, though; there’s something satisfying in him leaving her to go with his friends after she’s been way too overbearing – like, I get caring and stuff but then there’s making him afraid of everything “to protect him”.

Right, okay, I have to put this out there: that scene where Beverley is in the sewer after “IT” drags her done there, and he suddenly appears doing a dance…I was crying and laughing and cringing because I was just so…? I had no words to describe this. It’s so funny that it’s actually scary.

I’m assuming that those lights that made Bev comatose were “deadlights”, right? I’ve heard about those too. Also, Pennywise/IT opening his mouth again…I was so close to physically vomiting.

Man, those kids really beat the crap out of Pennywise though. I was at first surprised but then I reasoned “seven kids against one clown – could work”. And I think that that’s what the film is about, really – about them sticking together to survive.

I think it’s nice that they did blood oaths, and they set up the next movie pretty well with the whole “if IT comes back then we’ll reunite again” thing – because there’s a second part, of course. At the same time, it ended in a way that meant that it stands on its own without the second part.

I just want to add that I’m extremely glad that they didn’t add the orgy scene from the book into the film – yes, I know about that scene since someone told me about it. I’m relieved that there was no orgy between the kids, because that would have been way too traumatising for everyone involved.

The pop music from the 80s...I was mixed on. I like an 80s tune as much as the next person, but at times I wondered if it was strictly necessary to blast it over certain scenes.

And, most importantly:

Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise is brilliant, in my opinion – he wasn’t just scary, he was playfully scary…he incorporated the playfulness with the fear, and that frightened me more than just “evil clown”. But at the same time, I was weirdly attracted to him?? (okay, that’s just me knowing what Bill Skarsgard looks like in real life, I admit) He seemed to go full out in the film, too, drooling and spitting and screaming and just…I think he really pushed himself into it.

-

Now, moving on, while looking at reviews after I saw the film, I noticed a headline that sums up my feelings of the film perfectly: “a superb movie less about clowns than real-world evil”. For me, a lot of the horror and unease came from the real life “evils”; bullies, Beverley’s father, Eddie’s over-bearing mother. Don’t get me wrong, Pennywise is still fucking terrifying, but there’s a lot of other evils to consider too. We have implied incest/sexual abuse, adults who don’t listen, overbearing parents, and parents who don’t seem to care much at all. Like, where were Bill’s parents when all of this was going on? We saw his dad in one scene having a go at him, but that was it. Stan’s parents…well, we saw his dad briefly chastise him for not knowing his reading from the Torah (if I’m incorrect, please let me know), but that was literally it. I don’t think we saw Ben or Richie’s parents at all in the film. I think that this is all pretty scary in its own way, actually, the fact that the parents have unhealthy relationships with their children.

The film isn’t perfect, I’m not saying it is; on some of the jump scares, I wasn’t scared (but that could easily been me getting used to horror films or me moving around in my seat too much to take it all in), and I’ve mentioned bits that seemed off to me. But I did enjoy the film, and I’d happily watch it again, if only to try and get more into the story of it. I keep saying this, but I think that Bill Skarsgard did a great job in making his own Pennywise and not just copying Tim Curry’s version (or what I’ve seen of it on YouTube…I’ve seen a lot on YouTube).

I want to add that the soundtrack was pretty good - I'm listening to it now as I write this and I keep jumping, so kudos to Benjamin Wallfisch.

I’m curious to know what anyone else thought? And also, to those who have read the book, if you believe it’s worth reading the book before viewing the film again?

#movies #it #it 2017 #Stephen king's it #Stephen king #pennywise the dancing clown