Stephen King's Adaptation Of Haunted House Horror Films

The second adaptation of Stephen King’s massive 1,100-page book by Andy Mushietti, IT is a faithful adaptation to King’s original vision. The 2017 film focused entirely on the childhood sections of King’s book, advancing the time period from the 50s to the late 80s, and is a collection of consecutively horrifying, hallucinatory, and absurd nightmare imagery. The mood of the film has a very wide range from nostalgic hangout humor to haunted house horror. The theme of IT is the idea that fear takes all forms. Whether that be a killer clown, headless boy, creepy painting, or even your own father. IT redefines fear, in that the film makes each viewer decide what fear is as well as the characters. It subjectively tells you what you are afraid of.

It draws on our own subjective fears, because fear takes different forms according to different people. The director Andy Mushietti portrays this chilling theme through directing, acting, and the script.
Andy Mushietti’s smartly crafted direction for the film all point towards the theme with various Easter eggs in the background as well as clever visuals indicating each character’s own fears. The heroes of the story are the 7 members of the loser’s club: Bill Beverly, Richie, Ben, Mike, Eddie, and Stanley. For Bill’s fear, Mushietti uses the image of rain to trigger it. In the opening scene, while his younger brother Georgie is playing with his boat, it is pouring rain outside. From this atmosphere in which Georgie was killed in, IT uses this to taunt Bill and constantly remind him of his brother’s tragedy. Also, in the scene right before his confrontation with his lost brother in the basement, a drop of water falls from the ceiling onto Bill’s drawing of Beverly. He then goes into the basement to find it has been flooded, furthering the symbol of rain and his tortured memory of Georgie. For Beverly, her trigger is the image of blood.

They do hit a certain trope of an 80s kid, but they are still fleshed out characters who avoid playing a complete stereotype. The audience feels a gamut of emotions with all of the different characters from fear to humor because of the actors’ faithful portrayals. Eventually, the Losers Club must fight against this demonic monster, but before you can grow up you have to first be a child. Mushietti understood this and let the dynamic young cast relish in the screenplay’s snappy, spot-on dialogue as well as improvise many scenes. Their smack talk barely hides their individual anxieties about bullying, sexual maturity, or leaving their childhood behind and entering the adult world. The scenes in which the Losers Club explore in the sewers in search of Georgie are opportunities for the actors to reveal the unique way each kid approaches a problem, with humor, anxiety, or leadership. They also reveal the way the pubescent boys each react to their friendship with Beverly, ranging from shy, outgoing, confused, and annoyed, which makes each of these characters more relatable to the audience. The more relatable a character is to the audience, the easier it is for them to vicariously live out their individual