It: Chapter Two review – a brilliantly unruly monster

There is no getting around the fact that It: Chapter Two is a lumbering mess of a conclusion – as structurally unsound as a haunted house and as narratively questionable as the ending of a Stephen King novel (take your pick). Embrace this crazy monster in spite of its flaws, though, and you might just find yourself won over by the sheer size of its ambition – its relentless drive to go bigger, to pile on the excess, to push forwards into the same ludicrously cosmic territory as its brick-sized source material.

It: Chapter Two is a movie of ocassionallys. It’s occasionally scary, occasionally funny, and occasionally baffling. It’s also occasionally brilliant, although on a first viewing it suffers when compared to the more linear thrills of Chapter One; in a bid to be both that movie and also its own thing, Chapter Two is somehow neither. And yet with a far trickier job on its hands, this ungainly beast might turn out to be the most interesting chapter when the dust finally settles.

The story picks up twenty-seven years after the events of the first movie. Our heroes – the self-proclaimed “Losers’ Club” – have left their childhood home of Derry, Maine in an attempt to repress the trauma caused by their adolescent battle with the creature called “It,” most often seen taking the form of a clown called Pennywise. Indeed, most have forgotten what went down in the summer of 1989 and it takes a phone call from Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) to remind them. Mike has never left Derry, see, devoting his adult years to uncovering the mysteries behind these terrifying events. He’s also convinced that Pennywise is back and that the only way to stop him is for the old gang to reunite.

Chapter Two assembles the talents of James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Jessica Chastain, Jay Ryan, and James Ransone to play older versions of the kids, whilst the younger actors also appear here in flashbacks. Whilst I’m not sure the friendships feel quite so real this time around, McAvoy and Hader manage to make these now middle-aged characters their own. Hader, especially, reaffirms why he’s one of today’s most arresting screen performers. Then there’s Bill Skarsgård, back as Pennywise, who fully cements himself as a modern horror icon.

Though director Andy Muschietti clearly associates epicness with length (this film is two hours and fifty minutes, people), Chapter Two is made with such care on a scene by scene basis it’s difficult not to be impressed by the level of craft: as we move backwards and forwards through time by way of seamless cuts and clever transitions, the movie oozes visual flair, giving us a film that – despite two timelines and multiple versions of the same characters – still feels like a fluid whole. Production-wise, Chapter Two exists in an almost timeless place, the same way King’s novels – whether they’re set in the 80s or the present day – seem to exist in the same idolised, postcard-worthy Americana – perfect for characters who are unable to escape the past.

If there is a big problem, it’s the middle section. In 2019, it’s hard not to cringe at a plot involving a Native American vision quest and something called “The Ritual of Chüd” (seriously), an ancient practice that must be carried out if Pennywise is to be defeated. As in King’s novel – and much like Harry Potter did with those Horcruxes in that series’ own questionably conclusive episode – Chapter Two forces its protagonists on a middling fetch quest. The resulting scenes, each one involving a main character wandering around Derry alone and encountering Pennywise in a series of jump scares, are deployed back to back, one after the other. As it dawns upon you that the next hour of the movie will be this, you can’t help but wonder if there had been another way.

The final act is where it all comes together: an extended showdown of phantasmagoric proportions that gives us Pennywise in his “true form,” complete with an endless carnival of gory set-pieces that blur the line between scary and funny (this film has tonal shifts that will irritate some viewers; I wasn’t bothered). All the time Muschietti is playing homage to the practical zombies of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead movies, and even goes as far as to rip a scene right out of John Carpenter’s The Thing. As with King’s original novel, Muschietti is calling upon his own influences to create a tapestry encompassing a history of horror.

If It: Chapter Two lacks the instant gratification of its predecessor, it is at least faithful to a book that was also – by turns – unwieldy, self-indulgent, overly ambitious, and ultimately brilliant. Flawed? Very. But it’s hard to argue with what you get here for the price of a single ticket. Expect time to be a lot kinder on this chapter than it was on the Losers’ Club.

★★★★☆

By: Tom Barnard

Get It: Chapter Two showtimes in London.