“Jordan Peele is so amazing and edgy and inspiring! His new film defies description, amazing on multiple levels, creative and so sophisticated that Nope is impossible to quantify! Perhaps the best film EVER! I can’t wait to see it!” —Voice from the Peele Herd- Nope, not me. Sorry to claim lone dissenter status but Nope is a film equivalent of the ageless folktale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. Everyone is impressed with well, nothing. The foolish, royal dude is proudly parading naked. Nothing on. That’s how I felt leaving the theater, reflecting on multiple layers of nothing. Here’s my summary: A fist-bumping chimp who whacks out and chews the faces off a few studio hosts was the horror. Check. A floating, mattress-like alien spacecraft was the sci-fi. Check. A quick witted, smack talking, wannabe rapper sister teamed with a stoic, single utterance, wannabe Clint Eastwood cowboy brother and a bored, techno savvy rough-and-ready Fry’s guy were the combined weird Peele deal. Yep. Check. Check. Check. But, I couldn’t make sense of any of it. Coherent? Nope. Scary? Nope. Captivating, spellbinding, riveting? Nope, nope nope! A group of 20 somethings grabbed their popcorn and walked-out sometime between the marauding monkey and the mystifying mattress. More followed. I stayed. Regrettably. But hey it’s Jordan Awesome Peele! Maybe you will spot the invisible clothes that I missed. So have a go and let me know.
If you like watching the animal kingdom chomp, crunch and swallow a swath of humans, Jaws and Crawl would make an epic double feature! If you are a diehard shark attack fan, summer audiences have been enthralled by The Shallows in 2016, 47 Meters Down in 2017, The Meg in 2018 and in 2020, sadly a reality tragedy unfolded as a 26 year old surfer lost his leg and life to a great white off the beach in Santa Cruz County at an area known as “Shark Park.” Rest In Peace. Sharks, I contest, have filled more than their fair share of screen time. 2019 belongs to gluttonous gators. Trust me, Crawl will more than satisfy your craving for carnage.
The plot, if you insist, is Dave (Barry Pepper) goes missing, sending his University of Florida competitive swimmer and estranged daughter Haley (Kaya Scodelario) hunting for him as a Category 5 hurricane begins pounding the Everglades. Following a trail of empty booze bottles, Haley finds dad injured in the crawl space under their family home. Incapacitated dad and determined daughter both are trapped as spiders, rats, sewage, unidentifiable rotting things and rising sea waters play second fiddle to two hungry, hungry, 15-foot alligators playing Hide, Seek & Eat with Haley and Dave.
Yes, there are ridiculous and absurd interludes. When seconds stand between you and being eaten alive, do you really check messages on the cell phone you just risked your life to recover from the muck? The answer is, if you are a 21st century college student, yes, by all means do stop and post to Instagram! Don’t mind us, we will hold our breath while a massive gator closes in. (Kidding, she was calling 9-1-1 but with the all the urgency given to a social media post). Speaking of holding your breath, Haley and a breath holding record in Ripley’s Believe It or Not are a done deal. For one ready-set-SWIM “Gator vs Haley” race to the drain hole, she forfeited breathing long enough for me to complete a kitchen popcorn and beverage run.
Even with the inexplicable and the absurd, Crawl was bursting with enough decent and indecent jump scares to qualify as a perfect quarantine movie night selection. At 87 minutes in length, it roars along at a gator kill ratio of one human per every 17.5 minutes so there’s more gristle and gore than actual casualties, a nod to those of you who cringe at high body counts. The big question, does Crawl’s loyal and loving Sugar the scruffy dog suffer the same fate as poor Pipet, the genial black lab in Jaws? No spoilers from me. Watch until the inevitable cut-to-black ending, the sure sign of an indie B movie for which Crawl definitely qualifies—but, it’s a fun watch, worth your time. Unfortunately, Crawl can only be watched on Amazon Prime’s relatively new EPIX channel. We signed up for the 7-day free trial just to see Crawl and afterwards got hooked on EPIX’s original series Belgravia so we may be in the hole for $5.99/month until we complete our binge. In the meantime, enjoy some gator grazing and gazing, guaranteed pandemic pandemonium.
I love anything ocean. During my teen years growing up a block from the beach in Santa Cruz, my best friend was the niece of Lloyd Bridges so I spent a fair amount of time hanging out with the Bridges family including Beau and Jeff. I still name drop at any sighting of the Bridges brothers. “Hey, I played tennis with Beau!” “There’s Jeff Bridges! I went to the Boardwalk with him.” Indeed, I was a huge Sea Hunt fan forever dreaming of my own scuba dive escapades—which never happened—turns out I don’t really like swimming in deep waters. So I get to take those daring plunges vicariously through film! But poor, ill-conceived Underwater, a project that sat mercifully on the shelf for three years, makes nary a ripple of watery adventure as it is finally released into the cold doldrum seas of January.
You barely get situated with your popcorn and drink before catastrophe hits research station Kepler 822 operating at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest sea depression in the world, seven miles underwater. A massive earthquake (or maybe marauding sea monsters) rock the station followed by a BA-BOOM explosion leaving slim pickings for the surviving crew, Norah (Kristen Stewart), an engineer who mostly runs around barefoot in skimpy underwear; weepy “we’re all going to die” biologist Emily (Jessica Henwick) and her stand and deliver boyfriend Liam (John Gallagher Jr.) who sadly fails to stand or deliver instead winding up on his back dragged across the ocean floor by now heroic but still weeping Emily; goofball, wisecracking Paul (T.J. Miller) who for no apparent reason carries a stuffed bunny under his shirt; golly gee whiz Rodrigo (Mamoudou Athie), oops, first to lose his head, literally. Sorry no professor and Mary Ann but there is a skipper too, hapless, unfortunate Captain “no one is going to die” Lucien (Vincent Cassel) under whose command almost everyone dies. Of the seven characters that’s pretty much all you need to know. Good thing because that’s all we learn before the “my, what big teeth you have” alien creatures of the deep dine, slime and swallow most of the subterranean six (subtracting long gone headless Rod) as they attempt a deep sea hike to the safety of Roebuck Station, a mile away.
Once I suspended even a modicum of belief, I still had to contend with indecipherable, gurgling dialogue— an oceanic Tower of Babel—plus a scatter gun barrage of terrified, wide-eyed, gaping faces grimacing and gasping behind cracked, clunky deep sea diving helmets. I seriously never knew who was where doing what. The filmmakers didn’t even see fit to provide a clear full frontal of the slimy sea monsters rather substituting a cinematic hide and seek version of “Where’s Waldo?” It was like my head was submerged in a 5 gallon aquarium, the starter kit pump running amok creating a fishbowl whirlpool of swirling sand and floundering, bewildered fish. Or like taking a peripheral vision test at my optometrist’s office where I annually stress over pushing a button every time a light flashes on the screen. Flash! Norah’s eyes. Flash! Emily’s eyes. Or Norah‘s? Flash! A tentacle. Flash! A monster. Or was it the captain? Flash! Flash! Flash! Arggghhhhh!
There was a faint storyline of “we’ve taken too much and now the sea is taking back” environmental politics. But in addition to that one line you had to digest the rest through newspaper clippings shoehorned amongst the ending credits. Flash! Flash! Practice your speed reading. Oh, and lest I forget, revive your childhood Sunday School memories of “Jonah and the Whale” in preparation for perhaps the most ridiculous shot in all of horrible horror films: please give it up for “Norah and the Leviathan.”
I will spare you more details—well, there really isn’t much more to say except [Spoiler Alert] two escape pods float to the surface with a duo of crew members intact. That’s it, no more hints. You too will need to forfeit 95 minutes of your life to discover who survived. Be forewarned. It took me a solid stretch of time in a mental decompression chamber to escape the bad movie bends. Instead of weathering Underwater, you may wish to invest your leisure minutes lobbying Hulu for a Sea Hunt marathon. Now that would be a splash!
The good thing about going to a movie in the waning weeks of December is you can declare, “I just saw the best/worst film of the year.” So how much better to go towards the end of the decade when you can justifiably proclaim, “I just saw the worst movie of the decade!” Indeed. Black Christmas, 92 minutes of horror released 12/13, Friday the 13th.
It’s winter break eve at Hawthorne College. Think East Coast, Ivy League. Gothic, gargoyles, stones and spires. The traditional holiday follies are underway! A chorus line of MKE sorority sisters take the stage and sing a parody set to “Up on the Housetop” that’s directed at former president and (respected) rapist of the AKO fraternity who is smirking from the back of the packed room. This #MeToo performance sends AKO—aka ghoulish underworld black magic fratboys into a murderous revenge rage fueled by a supernatural, sticky tar gunk that seeps out of the bust of college founder, Calvin Hawthorne, a known racist, sexist and misogynist. Hunker down, the hunt is on! Apparently Ivy League colleges now teach archery along with the classics because the depraved, rampaging fratbrats are armed with none other than bows and arrows to kill their feminist prey. Trinkets that identify each targeted woman are stolen by a treasonous, back-stabbing (literally) sorority sister and used to track down the #MeToo crew. Missing a hair clip? Watch out! An arrow is whizzing your way. Robin Hood would be repulsed. There are a few weapon substitutes such as extra-pointy icicles snapped off snowy eaves and attic-stashed Christmas lights, those vintage, extra large red and green bulbous strings—that never work—so the better to choke you with, my dear! The Brothers Grimm would be proud. If you’re curious about the PG-13 rating, unusual for a slasher/horror movie, the kills are blood-free. The ladies get bonked or impaled or gashed Disney-style, resulting in artsy, palatable gore, sans splatter. The bad boys don’t even have blood, just busty black goo ooze, “This can’t be real,” says one brassy coed examining a dead diablo boy. How perceptive. The ghost of bad Calvin Hawthorne, condensed into coal dust from landing one too many years on Santa’s naughty list, mucks amok.
Eventually the story shifts from women-as-victims to women-as-attackers. But not before they turn on each other, taking a respite from arrows and axes and knives to argue and bicker. Picture this, you and your BFF, nearly slasher fodder, escape by commandeering a car and are racing for your lives down a dark, isolated wintery road. But mean looks are exchanged, harsh words levied and feelings are hurt, so naturally it makes perfect sense to stop and refuse to ride any farther together. Separate. Stomp off. Now one of you must walk for your life. Oh, please. Da-dum-dum-dum, dum, dumb. Her foolish move drags Little Drummer Boy into the fray. Don’t worry. The disgruntled walker survives, appearing in the next scene slogging menacingly towards the AKO voodoo brothers with a snow shovel slung over her shoulder, the weapon du jour. Visualize a shovel-toting Annie Oakley in a Santa cap. Hard to imagine….unless you’ve seen Black Christmas. The film ends with the sisterhood unified in fiery defiance. Let the slings and arrows fly. I won’t spoil it by saying anything more. Well, maybe just one more thing. Skip it.
Let me just say that 40 years is a long time to wait for a sequel! To amp up for Stephen King’s Dr. Sleep, I dropped $3.99 and rented Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of The Shining. In memory of my money forever lost to Amazon Prime coffers, I’m coining a new film category, “Horrible Horror.” The Shining was flat ridiculous. Silly. Absurdly laughable. Who gets terrified by a little red-headed tyke wandering around hoarsely repeating red rum, red rum? He sounds like he has the croup. I pulled up list after list of “Scariest Movies Ever” and I’ll be damned, The Shining tops every list. Go figure. Anyway, unimpressed by Shining #1, I skeptically reported to Shining #2, Dr. Sleep.
The movie is admittedly a bloody cut above it’s predecessor. How much a “cut above” you ask? Not much. Creepier than the screen action was being completely alone in the theater for the 2 1/2 hour runtime, a solitary first. With just me and all those empty seats, the sound had a definite reverb. I kept nervously glancing around, hearing disembodied creaking and rustling echoing from every direction. I couldn’t stop myself. Embarrassing.
All grown up Red Rum Danny boy, Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) has regrettably turned to alcohol, cocaine and naked lady romps to blot out that one unfortunate childhood winter at the Overlook Hotel. Understandably, being chased around a haunted hotel by your axe-wielding, deranged dad (Jack Nicholson) tends to have a lasting PTSD effect. After one too many bar fights and alcohol induced blackouts, Dan moves to a small New Hampshire town where he is immediately befriended by benevolent and intuitive, Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis), joins AA, sobers up and lands a hospice job attending to the dying. He’s assisted by lap cat, feline fatale Azzie who apparently channels Dan’s clairvoyance, taking a shine to the next person to die, Azzie plops on their bed for a cat nap. If you hear purring, start praying. Azzie the psychic cat helps Dan earn the moniker Dr. Sleep.
After eight uneventful New England years, Dan is jolted back to his paranormal shadow side when middle schooler, Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), psychically surfaces and makes a metaphysical connection. Teenage Abra is a super duper shiner, far more perceptive and powerful than middle aged Dan, but she urgently needs a co-shiner and Dan will do. Through Abra’s inter-dimensional, x-ray vision, she’s discovered a roaming cult of vampire-like, RV traveling hippies, The True Knot. This morbid gang of quasi-immortals kidnap, torture, kill and consume the dying breaths of psychically gifted children—just like her. They must be stopped. On two occasions we watch the ghoulish gang lure children of the shine to their deaths, a prolonged ritual of grisly mutilation and unspeakable torture led by psychopathic cult leader Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson). Rose explains to her young victims how it works: the greater the terror and more intense the pain, the more nutritious and satisfying the ghoul’s sadistic feast. Through a rite of hellacious suffering, the child’s dying life force is released as visible “steam” sending the barbaric freaks into a macabre cannibalistic orgy. The graphic, nightmarish torture of a 9-year old little leaguer was a disturbing, degenerate scene, beyond monstrous, that took the film to a place it didn’t need to go. I can’t think of many—make that any—friends of mine who would sit through it.
When the action retreads to the snowy Colorado Rockies and the long abandoned Overlook Hotel, I perked up at the possible inventive intersections between Shine, the original and Sleep, the sequel. I even dreamed up my own fabulous ending that offered creative redemption to the denouement. Nope, this film powered down and, dare I say, ran out of steam. I was recently asked if I’d ever been to a movie that afterwards I wished I could unsee. I couldn’t think of any. New answer: Dr. Sleep. Horrible Horror.
Just when I’d relax and settle into a genre comfort zone, this Korean film would change gears until by the final shift into overdrive I was convinced I’d exit the theater with whiplash. Caught in the wildly unpredictable intersection of two South Korean families, we flow, over 132 roller coaster minutes, from slice of life satire to laugh out loud comedy to murder mystery to thriller to horror. We first meet the Kim family: former Olympian medalist, no-nonsense mom, philosophic dad and their twenty-something children, a clever, jaded daughter and a cagey, articulate son. Together they live in a cramped subbasement with a single window opening to an alley frequented by urinating drunks. Cobbling together pay-as-you-go jobs, the destitute family of four assemble pizza boxes and post advertisement fliers but still can’t stretch their collective earnings to prevent cellphone shutdown. I was instantly empathetic as they doggedly scramble about their tiny, cluttered basement quarters looking for an unprotected neighborhood wireless signal to hijack. Who amongst us can’t identify with the duress and agitation of no internet? I remember wandering around my backyard one blustery night during a power outage holding up my open laptop searching for a signal and happily tucking myself in the corner woodpile to draft off a neighbor’s service. We are won over by these Kims, a likable and resourceful pack, resigned to underclass status, not from lack of will or skill, but as victims of ravaging unemployment. Marked by a distinct working class odor from subway travel and basement travails, let’s call them “down but not out.”
Next up, their polar economic opposites, the Park family: fashionable, fretting mom, high tech dad, preening adolescent daughter and hyperkinetic young son. This family of four live in 1% luxury, their home a gated modern mansion of renown architectural pedigree, tended by a chirpy Brady Bunch Alice-type maid and chauffeured in a top of the line classic black Mercedes-Benz. We common folk cruise along voyeur-like momentarily drinking in the fascinating lifestyle of fame and fortune. As most of us are interlopers to the decadence spawned by riches, the Park family are never in danger of generating empathy, but neither do they stir antipathy. A family of nouveau wealth, deemed “of course” entitled to servants, they deflect lurking presumptions of elitism by pointing out that they pay their staff more than the market rate. Call them “nice.”
From the introductory phase of meet the Kims, greet the Parks, the plot flirts with a quasi Prince and Pauper remix, here a twist, there a turn, here a sting, there a caper. Out with the old (the Park support staff), in with the new (the Kim conniving crew). We enjoy the antics of the two families bizarrely blended by means and needs, schemes and scams. It’s a fun frolic! Then ominous storm clouds roll in, thunder booming as the Park’s original merry maid stages a dramatic return, throwing a lighting bolt of double dealing deception causing the walls of hoax and trickery to come a-tumbling down. It’s not fun anymore. It’s frightening and vicious. The once comedic clash between social classes turns into a literal flood of ugly, cruel, vindictive and murderous rage. Suddenly, I’m watching a cinematic detonation, the black comedy explodes into thriller, then slasher, splaying the complex social, cultural and economic layers wide open, leveling the playing field of the haves and the have nots in an astonishing, jaw-dropping finalé. Don’t let anyone persuade you that Parasite represents a societal showdown between good and evil. This film noses around in all the nuanced gray areas, exploring and ultimately unleashing the pent up human dynamics of hope and despair, greed and want, power and pain. This creative, complicated, masterfully orchestrated film will be a hands down Oscar contender—and, if Academy voters can look past subtitles, Parasite will rack up recognition well beyond the Foreign Language category. It may not stick around very long so best see it soon. It’s (wink, wink) a peach!!
I’m a romantic about lighthouses. I love their symbolism, beacons of light in the darkness, sources of strength, guidance, and hope. I carry around a Lighthouse Passport and collect stamps for every one visited. Friends shower me with gifts with a lighthouse motif. I’m a proud card-carrying member of the U.S. Lighthouse Society looking forward to the time when I can join their lighthouse travel tours. Then comes this movie. Well, where to begin? The Lighthouse was shot in black and white and used filming techniques that mimic the silent movie boxy look. The effect was like watching 110 screen minutes squinting through a square storm cloud. The nostalgic benefit of a silent movie is lively organ music bubbling up from the orchestra pit. The sound effect of this movie was the unrelenting deafening and deadening moan of a fog horn. At first it jarred me. Eventually it sedated me and for a short while I oozed along in morbid rhythm with the drab and drizzle. Disrupting my fog horn catatonia were crashing waves of fights, farts, mud, blood, and vomit bracketed by grotesque scenes of repulsive cistern contamination, mermaid masturbation and seagull penis-pecking. Set at the end of the 19th century on a remote, bleak island off the New England coast, two men, Keeper Thomas Wake (Willem Defoe) and flunkie Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson), find themselves tending the lighthouse together for a one month watch. Dipping into Herman Melville manuscripts to salt the dialogue of madness and drawing from maritime superstitions and seafaring tales of mermaids, seabirds, sailors, and tentacled monsters, we are held captive in this noxious cinematic hallucination just like Thomas and Ephraim are held captives on their claustrophobic, wave-pounded, misery-making, isolated island of horror. No way off. For them. No way out. For me. Somewhere after the drunken ax attack but before the psychotic Fresnel lens lunacy, I considered packing up and walking out. Instead I sat, stubbornly believing that a lighthouse movie would eventually flicker with a tiny ray of redemptive illumination. Well, it didn’t. There is an inside joke in my household about “cut to black” movies. Sensing unrequited plot resolution, the inevitable fate of many indie art house films, one of us will lean over and whisper “cut to black.” Predictably, the screen will simply go dark and the credits roll, a feeble, faux-creative strategy pressed into action when (1) the director runs out of ideas about how to end the movie, or (2) the producer runs out of money. So there you have it. The Lighthouse. Cut to black.
Despite a raft of friendly “You won’t like it,” warnings, the type of movies I’m most willing to chance are those campy, preposterous, outrageous films that hit the big screen on $5 Tuesdays. With that shameless criteria, Fandango, take me away! Destination Tallahassee (redneck Woody Harrelson), Columbus (nerdy Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (unflappable Emma Stone), Little Rock (lonely Abigail Breslin) and Madison (airhead Zoey Deutch). The national countryside is a swath of decay and rubble starting with the abandoned White House that our ragtag Zombie hunters claim as their personal amusement park home. So long as Honest Abe’s portrait is covered, preventing a judgmental leer at the squatting interlopers, life in and around the Oval Office is a playful, wacky romp. But fault lines crack the casa blanca merriment, fracture the relationship marryment and disrupt the foursome’s fidelity, launching a Rule #2 Double Tap cross-country rescue mission. From Maryland to Graceland to Babylon, a weaponless haven for peacenik hippies, this thoroughly entertaining zombie demolition derby rollicks and rolls along ramshackle highways for 99 minutes of absurd hilarity. Ten years after the 2009 original, this stellar alumni cast clearly relish their divergent roles and their full throttle enthusiasm easily reeled me in. A weekday discount matinee is also guaranteed to reel in a smattering of odd ducks who beat a retreat from the streets and find temporary respite in a theater. My matinee bonus was a back row of untethered young men who served as my de facto laugh track, helping me decipher and interpret the onscreen dialogue and action just like I was a Zombieland insider. Unfortunately one of the raucous group was so inebriated from his steady stream of bar orders that when the house lights came up, his pals were following Rule #29, The Buddy System, in an all-together-now lounger extraction effort. Good luck with that. He was stuck under his tray. So, to my doubting cohort of friends, surprise! I actually liked this playful, zany, zombie apocalypse flick. Go on now and enjoy your own discount matinee fun! Just remember to follow the rules, #32 Check the Back Seats for Zombies, #4 Buckle Up, and most importantly Rule #32: Enjoy the Little Things, this movie being one.
I grew up at a Sierra sawmill. We mountain kids developed strong brand allegiances and we would argue and occasionally resort to fisticuffs to protect the honor of our chosen trade name. Ford or Chevy? Ford! Jif or Skippy? Skippy! DC or Marvel? DC! Once a month the tiny general store across the creek received a shipment of new comics. I’d empty my piggy bank and be first in line when the store opened gathering up Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Justice League and Batman comics at 10¢ each. A reading orgy commenced. This is the era I met Batman’s nemesis, the Joker, originally created as a homicidal serial killer but who morphed into a goofy, ridiculous, thieving trickster when in 1954 the newly formed Comic Code Authority descended !SWOOP! on the comic book world, promoting mass burnings and demanding a ban on carnage and sexual innuendo so young males would be deterred from !BOOM! juvenile delinquency and HUH? homosexuality. !ZAP! Fast forward 50 years and meet Joaquin Phoenix, DC’s 2019 Joker and we’ve circled back to the beginning, Joker as Gotham’s homicidal serial killer. Phoenix’s psychotic channeling of Arthur Fleck, the Joker, is so nightmarish and god awful, skin-crawling creepy !POW! that we may have to brace ourselves for a revival of the Comic Code Authority. !SMASH! Arthur, the abused clown, writhes and slithers into the role of maniacal abuser, flowing into twisted, contorted dancing to navigate demented, disturbing, and delusional episodes. !SPLAT! The more whiteface and rouge Arthur applies and the longer and more grotesque the dance, the greater the madness and mayhem ahead. Consider yourself warned. !WHAM! Mark my words, if the stodgy Academy can shake off their anti-comic book/graphic novel bias, Joaquin Phoenix will win Best Actor for his raw interpretive performance of insanity. !KABOOM!
The best thing about thrillers is the surge and ebb of the collective audience fear factor. I like it when people around me are cringing, pulling hoodies over their eyes, jumping out of their skin, screaming in unison…..well, I saw It Chapter 2 in an audience of three, including myself. The only fear factor was whether I was going to miss the ending with a desperation restroom run. Have pity, the movie is almost three hours long. Plan ahead. The movie is vintage Stephen King with a menagerie of blood gushing ghouls and spittle oozing monstrosities. Because I had no auditorium allies to amp up my terror, I settled for counting how many differently designed hobgoblins and freaks pop out of nowhere to chase down the reconvened Loser’s Club, 27 years after Pennywise the sewer clown was defeated. I lost count. It was like a Halloween parade. The instigator, the audacious leader of this entourage of creeps, Pennywise is back, dismembering and cannibalizing Derry, Maine children and townspeople. Consequently, six of the seven, now adult members of the Loser’s Club, honor their preadolescent promise to return home and kill It if the killer clown ever came back. Hunt on. What I appreciated far more than the onslaught of bizarre creatures of gore was the storytelling juxtaposition of the personable kids of yore, perfectly matched to their adult counterparts. When the 2017 It was released—becoming the highest-grossing horror film of all time—I fell in love with those seven kids. It made me happy no end when It, the 2019 sequel, effectively weaved all the characters, youth and adult, present and past, in the righteous fight to kill the supernatural monster It once and for all. Even better, in order to eradicate It, each adult character was required to confront and slay their own personal monsters once and for all. We witness how familial and environmental stressors take root with the kids, eventually exacting a damaging toll on their adult lives. The intersection of a paranormal, terrestrial Monster with human psychological monsters is a strategic and creative plot device. It Chapter 2 is more gory than scary. The psychic layers are predictable but compelling. The adult cast isn’t as powerful or engaging as the young actors but the matchups work and the action flows without compromise. In the horror film genre, Stephen King stories are reliably entertaining, often terrifying and sometimes provocative. Think Christine, Carrie and Cujo. If you like the genre, take it from me and see both Its. You won’t be disappointed.
