It’s a testament to how powerful a film sequence can be when one finds themselves unable to shake off its shocking images long after the end credits have rolled. In IT Chapter Two, the sequel to the 2017 film It —both based on the 1986 novel It by Stephen King — this sequence comes very early on when a young gay couple is brutally assaulted by a group of local thugs, leaving one of them for dead.
Twenty seven years after defeating Pennywise (an electrifying Bill Skarsgård), we are once again reunited with the members of the “losers club”. Having collectively left their native town of Derry behind and never looked back, the group appears to have very little recollection of what really went on all those years ago.
Terrifying memories come flooding in when, one by one, the group is contacted by their old friend Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) who suspects that Pennywise is back to terrify Derry. Physically shaken by the news, the group led by Beverly (Jessica Chastain), Bill (James McAvoy), Richie (Bill Hader), Ben (Jay Ryan) and Eddie (James Ransone) have no choice but to finish the job they started almost three decades earlier.
Setting the tone from the get-go, director Andy Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman have managed to masterfully illustrate that the most terrifying aspect of any horror story comes, not from its spine-chilling supernatural boogieman, but from the monsters we encounter in real life.
Broaching a number of serious and often painful themes ranging from domestic abuse to hate-crime, Muschietti offers a film which is as terrifying as it is preposterously outlandish in tone.
Moments of chilling terror are often accompanied by a relentless cascade of deliberately awkward and lame gags, courtesy of stalwart Saturday Night Live cast member Bill Hader and the brilliant, and often underrated, James Ransone (The Wire) who are both at hand to provide some much needed comic relief.
Jessica Chastain (Interstellar, Molly's Game) and James McAvoy (Atonement, The Last King Of Scotland) give robust performances as two people traumatised by a violent past. Elsewhere, Isaiah Mustafa (Horrible Bosses) and Jay Ryan (Neighbours) are unfortunately saddled with two of the most generically archetypal characters of the film.
IT Chapter Two doesn’t pull any punches. It is relentlessly terrifying, shocking and brazenly vicious in its representation of evil, be it supernatural or otherwise. It’s safe to say that this is not for the faint-hearted.
