It, the new big-budget adaptation of the first half of Stephen King’s 1986 horror novel, might have worked better as a silent film. The movie is visually striking but lacks a single well-developed character; the human subjects are defined by one trait a piece, and they have little to say that couldn’t be conveyed by simple title cards. Director Andy Muschietti has a strong sense of blocking—his arrangement of people vis-à-vis the spaces they inhabit is always dynamic and pleasurable to look at. Yet he’s clueless with regards to directing dialogue, eliciting uncertain performances that are reminiscent of the one-dimensional acting in TV commercials. In fact It sometimes feels like a commercial for itself, with refined, postcard-style imagery that hints at deeper meaning than the movie delivers.
That inventiveness extends to the design of the well house where the kids discover the locus of the town’s nightmare. Full of cobwebs, dark hallways, and a bottomless pit, the well house takes its place in a long tradition of haunted buildings in horror movies. Peter Grundy’s art direction is a standout here—the lurid details are so nicely arranged that the building is almost too good-looking to be truly scary. Yet the cinematography, by Chan-wook Park’s regular cameraman Chung-hoon Chung, plays well with shadows and creates a strong mood. Chung’s work (as in his films for Park) suggests menace even when it isn’t immediately present, and the visual presentation offsets the overstated nostalgia of the period re-creations. That mix of nostalgia and horror, a staple of King’s fiction, aims to provide feelings of reassurance amid the scares. This might explain why the novel was so popular and why Muschietti’s It seems destined to be a favorite of young audiences.
