It Chapter Two

Twenty-seven years have passed since the events of It, when a malicious clown-monster named Pennywise emerged from the sewers to feast on people. Michael (played in adult form by Isaiah Mustafa and as a teenager by Chosen Jacobs) is the only member of the group of outcast kids called the Losers Club to have stayed in Derry, a sleepy yet picturesque town in Maine where adults seem to be oblivious to the fact that every thirty years or so numerous people end up missing and body parts are found. Michael, though, has kept a watchful eye, and it's time to warn his former friends of It's return.

Michael has no choice but to call them and remind them of the promise they made as children to return and defeat It, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgard). But Michael's friends have all moved on. Bill (James McAvoy as the adult Bill and Jaeden Martell as the young one) is a successful writer, Beverly (Jessica Chastain/Sophia Lillis) is married to an abusive man not too dissimilar from her father, and Richie (Bill Hader/Finn Wolfhard) is a stand-up comedian. The remaining members are Ben (Jay Ryan/Jeremy Ray Taylor), Eddie (James Ransone/Jack Dylan Grazer), and Stanley (Andy Bean/Wyatt Oleff). By the way, if you watched Wolfhard in Stanger Things 3 and/or Grazer in Shazam! this year and noticed that they've been growing up, you can now know that de-aging works on children, too. Incidentally, Lillis and Wolfhard both publicly stated two years ago that they wanted Chastain and Hader, respectively, to play the characters in their adult forms. Their wishes were granted.

Once Michael does make clear to the group that It has returned and again is consuming the people of Derry, the Losers Club members are reluctant to fight back. It's only when they are each individually tormented by Pennywise, who is terrifically delighted to see them return. These moments are either the best or the worst part of the film; it's difficult to say which. Some (like Beverly's) take place entirely in the adult form, as she returns to her childhood home and discovers that some things are not as they seem. Others (like Ben's) only take place when he's a child, being chased by Pennywise in his school. And some (like Richie's and Eddie's) show Pennywise's acts of malice against them both as children and adults. These scenes mostly work, but it takes up a lot of time (like the entire second act).

It Chapter Two, directed by Andy Muschietti and based on the 1986 novel by Stephen King, doesn't necessarily feel like an overly cumbersome horror film, but it is more than most. What ultimately harms it to the point rendering it mostly forgettable is how it adds nothing new from the previous film. It made perfect sense to adapt Stephen King's 1,138-page novel into two films, but the result is a sequel that feels less fresh. The climax especially feels like a simple repeat of the previous film. Even by deleting the infamous orgy scene from the adaption, the story can seem bloated at times (especially that dull ending). There's certainly no reason to extend this story into a third film, as some have suggested.

That being said, the cast here carries a lot of the weight (more on that later), but the production value of It Chapter Two really goes a long way. Horror films usually are among the highest (if not the highest) in terms of return on investment (ROI) largely because they are relatively inexpensive to make. The Devil Inside, for example, was made on a budget of about a million dollars, and yet it made over $100 million at the box office. It and It: Chapter Two take a different approach, not afraid to pour in loads of money. (It was made for $35 million and made of $700 million at the box office; that's a ROI of 1,900%.) The money poured into a movie like this works. The visual effects provided by Atomic Arts and Method Studios are stellar, Benjamin Wallfisch's score is alluring, and the production design by Paul D. Austerberry is haunting.

Chastain gives a stellar performance, as expected, and McAvoy also does well. But Hader's performance appears to be the most impressive to audiences, given that we haven't seen something like this from him. He's as funny and snarky as many of his screen performances have been, but he also has mastered the "shocked fish" look, as is when Pennywise haunts him in broad daylight. His paring with Ransone often works as comic relief, though sometimes it's oddly placed. Still, my favorite performance is Skarsgard's. Even without the ostentatious makeup, it's impossible not to be mesmerized by what he presents. It Chapter Two is even less scary than It (that may be a good or bad thing for you), and part of this is because all of Pennywise's tricks have already been revealed. Beyond that, the usual notes are followed: the music features a crescendo, and then there's silence. The clown might not be in front of you, but surely he's right behind you. Even with these flaws and that fact that Pennywise himself doesn't pack the cinematic thrill he did two years ago, it's still a masterful performance by Skarsgard. Clowns are scary (apparently even scarier than terrorism, death, and climate change), but a man dressed as a clown is not all that is required. Skarsgard commits, and should be rewarded.

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The Dead Zone

As the film opens, Christopher Walken, the patron saint of eccentricity in the movies, is reading out loud Poe's "The Raven" to a classroom of students. It is immediately clear that his will be an enjoyable film. David Cronenberg's "The Dead Zone," from a screenplay by Jeffrey Boam based on Stephen King's novel, is an epic picture, despite its relatively short length of about 103 minutes, and immensely enjoyable to watch.

Walken's character, in that opening classroom, presents himself as a content man with an exaggerated smile; there's no real reason to doubt that most of his students probably like him, and as the audience discovers throughout the film, his character is passionate about education (King was also an English teacher himself before he became a full-time writer). Incidentally, Walken the teacher instructs his students to read "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and if Christopher Walken could see the future as his character did in "The Dead Zone," he would know that about fifteen years later he would play that very headless demon he refers to.

Walken plays Johnny Smith (a name almost changed by Cronenberg due to its hard-to-believe simplicity). In love with his fellow teacher (Brooke Adams), Smith drives home in a storm and suffers from an accident. He finally awakens in a clinic. It is explained to him by his doctor (Herbert Loam) with dark-brimmed glasses and Polish accent (elaborated on later in the film) that he has been in a coma for five years. His girlfriend has left him, married, and now has a child. He obviously does not have his job anymore and requires physical rehabilitation.

These challenges would be difficult enough for any man, but Johnny discovers that he now has been blessed (or cursed) with the ability to see the future. One day in his hospital bed, he touches the hand of the nurse and suddenly can see that her daughter is in great danger. He shouts to the nurse that there is enough time; the daughter is saved. Johnny's life is completed altered.

Other characters appear in the story to utilize or be affected by Johnny's ability. Tom Skerrit is the local sheriff who has run out of options to find the Castle Rock Killer involving the rape and murder of young women. To the sound of the operatic score of Michael Kamen (one of the rare occasions in which Cronenberg did not use his frequent composer Howard Shore), Johnny helps the police track down the killer. Then there is a politician named Greg Stillson played by Martin Sheen in some of the film's best scenes. Stillson is a character that is the complete antithesis to some of his other characters like the loyal chief of staff in "The American President" and a practical, idealistic president in "The West Wing." He proclaims in a Pentecostal manner that he has a vision that he will one day be president (he played the title role in the miniseries "Kennedy" the same year), and Johnny becomes alarmed at the dangers of such a man and whether his power gives him the responsibility to act against the possible future.

Cronenberg's films are not usually scary so much as highly stylized, as is the case here (the exception is "The Fly," which manages to succeed in both aspects). Walken is effective from the beginning; his performance shows a man shifting from states of fright, command and anger, and he does so at complete ease. Not as accoladed as his performance in "The Deer Hunter" or as oft-quoted as his role in "Pulp Fiction," Walken's role in "The Dead Zone" is terrific and certainly one of his best performances.

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