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Friday, December 13, 2024
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HOLLYWOOD IT
EDITOR'S PICK
'It': Excels with Horror Tropes (Review By Troy Ribeiro ;
Rating: **1/2)
Based on Stephen King's similarly titled novel, Director Andy Muschietti's
‘It' termed as ‘Chapter One', sets the ball rolling for a series of horror films
to follow.
This one is a popcorn flick. ‘It' is an adventurous tale of seven friends who
bring closure to the cases of missing children in town.
Set in Derry, a fictional small town in the cinematic universe, the film begins
with a promise. with a young boy Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) frolicking in
the rain. He sets sail a paper boat, made by his older brother Bill (Jaeden
Lieberher) and follows it into a storm drain, where he meets a sinister figure
calling itself "Pennywise the dancing clown" (Bill Skarsgard), who befriends him
only to violently attack him. This scene is disturbingly effective and sets a
bench mark of the brutalities and horrors to follow.
Roughly eight months later, we are informed that like Georgie several other kids
are missing and believed to be dead. While the entire town is casual about the
missing kids, Bill burdened with guilt of sending his younger brother out alone
that rainy night, makes an earnest effort to find his younger brother, despite
being told off by his father.
As the school breaks for the summer vacation, Bill enlists his clique of dorky
friends to help scout out the drains and nearby streams for clues. Though Bill's
friends; Richie (Finn Wolfhard) - a crass bespectacled know-it-all, Eddie (Jack
Dylan Grazer - an inhaler-wielding hypochondriac and Stanley (Wyatt Oleff) a
sceptic slow learner, are all initially reluctant to help him out, they agree to
be supportive because they learn there is a rhythm to the mysterious tragedy
that appears to strike the town every twenty seven years.
The group gradually grows to include Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) - a shy new kid who
spends his time in the library, Mike (Chosen Jacobs) - a lonely black kid and
Beverly (Sophia Lillis) - the only girl, a tomboy who is eager to escape her
abusive home life.
The seven friends call themselves "The Losers' Club". How they confront the
shape-shifting demonic monster, forms the crux of the tale.
The plot is packed with scenes that are a collection of interchangeably
terrifying, hallucinatory and absurd nightmare imagery. They range from jarring
moods to gruesome haunted-house horror set-pieces. With no smooth transitions,
the film seems like a disjointed messy narrative. What makes the tale seem
shallow is the casual attitude of the adults as the burden of solving the case
lies squarely on the shoulders of these young kids
On the performance front, the actors are charming and they are in sync with the
characters they portray. Unfortunately with hardly much screen time, Bill
Skarsgard as Pennywise though intriguing and menacing is ineffective and wasted.
Overall, the film excels in the horror perspective with few stand-out
horror-moments that are spine-tingling and blood-curdling and these action
sequences are accompanied by composer Benjamin Wallfisch's enchanting notes that
elevate the viewing experience.
And finally, the film seems like an episode from Enid Blyton's adventures of the
Secret Seven.
"Hereditary"; Director: Ari Aster; Cast: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd and Mallory Bechtel; Rating: ***1/2.Director Ari Aster's immaculately crafted, black-hearted, horror-in-the-home fantasia "Hereditary" eerily keeps you glued to the screen.Read More
Be ready to meet 'Peter Rabbit' once again in 2020!A sequel to fantasy film 'Peter Rabbit' is on the cards for 2020, which will bring the bunny back with his old tricks.Titled 'Peter Rabbit 2', the movie will revolve around the popular character from the Beatrix Potter books and his shenanigans with his friends.The maker, Sony Pictures, is intent to bring in the next installment after the original film saw a huge success at the box office, early this year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.Read More
New Line Cinema's horror thriller 'IT,' directed by Andrés Muschietti
('Mama'), is based on the hugely popular Stephen King novel of the same name,
which has been terrifying readers for decades.
When children begin to disappear in the town of Derry, Maine, a group of young
kids are faced with their biggest fears when they square off against an evil
clown named Pennywise, whose history of murder and violence dates back for
centuries.
'IT' stars Bill Skarsgård ('Allegiant,' TV's 'Hemlock Grove') as the story's
central villain, Pennywise. An ensemble of young actors also star in the film,
including Jaeden Lieberher ('Midnight Special'), Jeremy Ray Taylor ('Alvin and
the Chipmunks: The Road Chip'), Sophia Lillis ('37'), Finn Wolfhard (TV's
'Stranger Things'), Wyatt Oleff ('Guardians of the Galaxy'), Chosen Jacobs
(upcoming 'Cops and Robbers'), Jack Dylan Grazer ('Tales of Halloween') and
Nicholas Hamilton ('Captain Fantastic').
Muschietti is directing 'IT' from a screenplay adapted by Chase Palmer & Cary
Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman. Dan Lin, Roy Lee, Seth Grahame-Smith, David
Katzenberg and Barbara Muschietti are producing, with Marty P. Ewing, Doug
Davison and Jon Silk serving as executive producers.
The behind-the-scenes creative team includes director of photography Chung-Hoon
Chung ('Me and Earl and the Dying Girl'), production designer Claude Paré ('Rise
of the Planet of the Apes'), editor Jason Ballantine ('The Great Gatsby'), and
costume designer Janie Bryant (TV's 'Mad Men')
