'IT' REVIEW: Supremely acted, intense and scary as hell, IT is one of the best Stephen King

'IT' is the latest Stephen King adaptation of the book of the same name and is the second adaptation of this particular book previously being a 2-part television special released in the year 1990. The thing to know about me is that I don't read a lot of books. It's not that I don't like reading it's just that I almost never find the right book that interests me at the time. What I'm getting at is that I haven't read a single Stephen King novel, but that doesn't mean I don't value them as great novels as proven to me by some of the other great feature film adaptations such as Carrie (1976), The Shining (1980), Misery (1990) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994). All of which I'd say are great films on their own right. When I comes to the television special of IT (1990), it was a controversial special among kids at the time and perhaps even scarred some of them for life. For me, I liked the special overall. It was engaging, but it wasn't all that scary as a whole and tad bit dated as of now. Upon hearing that the newest feature adaptation of IT was coming I was very excited. I thought that this was a novel worth putting on the big screen with a higher budget and most likely better actors. The trailers were intriguing and it soon became one of my most anticipated horror flicks of the year. After leaving the theater, IT is easily one of the best horror films of the year.

For those of you who don't know what IT is about, it's about a group of seven kids of the Loser's Club as they are the only ones who are constantly getting picked on by the time by bullies face an evil encounter when a shape-shifting entity that calls itself 'Pennywise the Dancing Clown' terrorizes the town of Derry, the kids have to do whatever they can the defeat it.

What I'm just glad that this manages to do is to improve vastly on the 2-part television special. For those who remember the more memorable scenes of the special such as the scene with Georgie's boat, this film takes those scenes and amplifies the scare factor to 100%. When I say this film is relentlessly scary, I mean it. Left and right, there's going to be a scare at every corner. One the major aspects of this film that elevates this beyond a stereotypical horror film are the compelling performances by the kids. They work marvelously together and have great chemistry due to just them being good actors as they manage to convince you of the danger that is Pennywise. Speaking of Pennywise, Bill Skarsgard's version of the horror antagonist definitely rises above Tim Curry's performance in that special. Here he's creepy, menacing and just plain diabolical. I was initially afraid that constantly seeing Pennywise would just make his presence less and less scarier as the film goes on, but no. Every scene with him is always something new and inventive, especially with a scene where some of the kids have to decide between 3 doors. That had me on the edge of my seat. The script I'd say is also fantastic. The dialogue manages to be realistic and have urgency. It's also often times quite funny without ever detracting from the dread of the film. The kids would curse and some of them are even perverts which makes them feel more down to earth and portrayed with honesty. As this is a feature film adaptation there is also likely to have special effects which I'd say are good here as well.

Negatives that I could think of don't really affect me, but could rise to others is that the movie may be exhausting by the time we get to the last scary scene. It does well at being an efficient horror film with its 135 minutes of screen time.

By the end, this newest version of IT manages to be an extremely effective horror film that boasts loads of heart due to the gravitating friendship between the 7 little leads. I'll be sure to remember this version of the antagonist much better than the 1990 version. While I can't say how this works as a direct adaptation of the novel, I can say that this works as a great horror film overall.

'IT' gets an A