Andy Muschietti

  • It Chapter Two (2019)

    It Chapter Two (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) To clown a phrase; there are a whole lot of conclusions in this conclusion to the It diptych. At a staggering two hours and forty-nine minutes (for a horror film!), It Chapter Two clearly sets out to provide the ultimate definitive adaptation of Stphen King’s novel and succeeds despite some middle-act fatigue. The story skips forward twenty-seven years after the events of the first film, as the killing cycle begins again and the Losers, who won a temporary reprieve in Chapter One, are called back to Derry to finish Pennywise once and for all. If there’s one thing to be said about this film, it’s that this is big-budget high-grade horror: Director Andy Muschietti gets to use plenty of good special effects in the achievement of the film’s vision, also making an effort to dig into thematic concerns (about memory) and go beyond the obvious scares to deliver something a bit deeper. Having A-grade actors also helps, with Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy providing most of the dramatic heavy lifting, with Bill Hader as the self-recognized comic relief and some fine work by others, such as Isaiah Mustafa and obviously Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. The meta gets thick once Stephen King shows up as “The Shopkeeper” in order to criticize his stand-in writer for bad endings and the adaptation of The Shining. But, as good as It Chapter Two can be in bits, pieces, intentions and means, the overlong duration eventually takes its toll, leading to exasperation during the schematic setup of the film, and then again during the ending that can’t stop ending. On the other hand, there’s nothing more on the other side of that ending: it’s refreshing to see a horror film that dares do a definitive conclusion without any hint of a follow-up. While it has its issues, this wrap-up to the It series is a success: it knows what to adapt from the original novel and what to forget (readers know what I’m talking about), and the result is likely to be the best adaptation of that novel we’re likely to get.

  • It (2017)

    It (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2018) We’re in the middle of an interesting second-generation Stephen King cinematic renaissance, as long-time fans of the author are becoming filmmakers and producers with enough pull to propose and execute King-related projects. It helps that King writes enough books in a decade to rival another author’s entire bibliography, but recency is not a factor with It—a second adaptation of one of King’s landmark 1980s novels, a book so big and split in two eras that this first film only shows up the first half of the story. I, frankly, wasn’t expecting much: King adaptations span the whole spectrum of cinematic quality from silly to sublime, with most settling for middling horror. But this first half of It is actually quite good. It doesn’t try to be anything else but a straight-ahead horror film, but when it pulls the stops it gets surprisingly intense. Making effective use of a medium-sized budget through a lot of special effects, a large cast of main characters and a focus on a reasonable amount of plot in order to do it justice without cramming too much stuff in a too-short film. Director Andy Muschietti delivers a few inventive and iconic set-pieces (which always helps in distinguishing a good horror film from an average one) and gets good performances from his teenage actors. (The film also removes the most problematic scene of King’s book, saving us from endless debate about justifying a bad creative decision.) The result is enjoyable, spooky, nightmarish at times and feels somewhat complete even without the modern-era half of the book. I’m quite looking forward to the follow-up.