It Chapter Two Movie Review

Simply It Chapter Two is like Avengers: Endgame of horror genre.

It Chapter Two really the continuation of It (2017) which is based from Stephen King’s novel with the same title. The movie features a super villain which feeds on the fear of children he murders, It. Same with its previous movie, It mostly appears as his favourite form, Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

27 years after the event from the ending of It, Pennywise reappeared near the local carnival in Derry and murdered a beaten gay. Mike Hanlon, the only “Losers’ Club” who never leave Derry rushed to the incident scene and realised that It has returned. Mike then recalled the rest of the Losers’ Club to came back to Derry, recalled their oath to stop It forever. Thus we can see now Bill is a successful author but always writes bad ending for his books. Beverly is a designer who has an abusive marriage. Ben success with his diet and becomes an architect. Richie is a famous standup comedian. Eddie works in a risk assessor company. Stanley, the most coward among them is a businessman, and decided to commit suicide after got called by Mike. The six then had a warm reunion, recalled the lost memories they had in Derry, and get haunted immediately by Pennywise’s trick. Mike who never forgot the horror moment they passed 27 years before, has researched the origin of Pennywise and the ritual to stop him, Ritual of Chüd. Before performing the ritual, each of them have to offer the item representing their past memories, and fight the fear they faced again in the town.

Now we understand why the trailer only appears 6 of 7 the losers.

I could say that It Chapter Two success in delivering scary moments since the beginning. It appeared as Pennywise and his signature red balloons appeared since the first stage of the movie, killed his victim with no mercy. The same thing also happened to the losers when It ruined their reunion with appearing creepy creatures. That’s It, the star of this movie, which can transform himself into everything his victims are afraid of.

The losers, except Mike have moved away from Derry for years. It made them had to recall the habit of each other, also their daily memories. So do us. We wouldn’t remember exactly each characters of this movie, how they looked alike, what distinguished them with the others. Fortunately the movie is aware of this and able to help us recognise each of adult characters with their children appearance. Delivering its stories, this movie shows the present scenes and past flashbacks seamlessly, just like the entire town is a mirror for the group. Sometimes, there are flashbacks to recount the events after the “oath scene” at the end of the first movie. To complete unanswered questions from the first movie, It Chapter Two also described what happened to Mike’s parents in the past and the fate of Henry Bowers, one of the three bullies, human antagonists from its first movie. In addition, the group would also encounter Bowers one more time while preparing for the ritual. Taking about the ritual they performed, the script writer of course doesn’t want the movie to be ended easily. Even the most thrilling moment happened after the scene of the ritual itself, when they encountered It in its true form. After that, the movie managed to give “cooling down” moment which can made us smile. The movie also gives a worthy ending for each characters, and for the town, Derry.

Regarding the process to recollect their memories, the movie showed each of the loser’s story alone, alternating with their past story. There are additional plot when they were children and It haunted them personally. In every “mini story” about the losers, the movie describes how they fought their same fear in a nostalgic tone. Despite being repetitive and brings routine plot, those “mini stories” are still necessary to develop each adult characters. What we’re afraid of in the past is different from what we’re afraid of as an adult, and it happened to some of them. Here, It’s (Pennywise’s) appearances emphasise that a fear factor doesn’t always caused by scary creatures, but also everything that makes us worry. For instance, afraid of the revelation of our top secret, or if our love to someone is unaccepted. And to face our own fear, we need to believe that we are brave than we think, that’s what this movie tries to tell to us.

Even though It Chapter Two still leave unanswered questions (for me), it’s still ends the story of It completely. Now, we could understand the whole story about It and the loser’s club he likes to haunt. When I still wonder why It seemed on the side of bullies in the town, I just had to realise that this movie tries to focus on the losers’ reunion with Pennywise. After all, this movie still deserved 8 of 10 points from me.