The gang returns as grownups to fight King’s devilish clown, but the truly scary thing about this painfully long horror show is the possibility of a third movie
It’s back. The second half of Stephen King’s horror bestseller about the terrifying clown (is there any other kind?) has now been adapted as a separate but frankly laborious film to follow the first one. That was the story of how a bunch of middle-school kids in a small
American town in the 1980s banded together to defeat a homicidal harlequin of hell called Pennywise. His relationship to them made him an antichrist version of ET. Now, almost 30 years later, they are all grown up and must return to their home town to face the horrible Pennywise all over again – as adults. Screenwriter Guy Dauberman (who worked on The Conjuring franchise) adapts the second half of King’s novel and the director once again is Andy Muschietti.
There is some lively stuff here, including a few sensational cameos and interesting ideas about confronting one’s personal demons, about homophobia, abuse and depression. It is also about the ubiquitous availability of the past in the digital age and the permanent reunion-stalkerthon of social media, and about the way guilt and shame are built into what we choose to remember and forget about our teenage years. But, like the first film, it becomes a virtual non-narrative anthology of standard jump-scares that could be reshuffled and shown in any order. The second time around, your tolerance for this is tested to destruction and beyond because, unlike the first movie, it is just so pointlessly long: approaching three hours, with our heroes finally beginning to assume a glassy-eyed solemnity like Hogwarts graduates or the Fellowship of the Ring. Muschietti is even hinting at a possible third chapter.