It Chapter Two Movie Review - Scary but Wandering and Over-Long

By: Lynn Barker

Warning! It Chapter Two is rated R for disturbing violent content and bloody images throughout, pervasive language, and some crude sexual material.

Pennywise has been waiting for the LosersCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

It’s now Twenty-seven years after the Losers Club defeated supernatural clown Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard). The “losers” have not kept in touch and are leading very different lives when Mike (Isaiah Mustafa), now the town librarian who never left Derry, phones them all. Seems that Pennywise is back and young people are disappearing and turning up grisly dead again!  The losers must fulfill their childhood blood promise to return should this happen. All are warped by their past experiences. Can they overcome fears to come back and put down the monster once and forever?

It Chapter Two Trailer

The Promise and a Tragedy

In 1989, the Losers’ Club kids Beverly (Sophia Lillis), Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), Richie (Finn Wolfhard), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Mike (Chosen Jacobs) and Stanley (Wyatt Oleff) cut hands and do a blood promise to return to Derry if “It” ever does.

Losers' Club in the '80'sCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

In present day, a young gay couple attend the Derry Fair where thugs beat them up and nearly kill one when they throw him into the river. He’s still alive until Pennywise fishes him out. Adult Mike listens to the crime reported on police radio, goes to the scene where he finds a burst red balloon and “Come Home” written all over the river bridge.

Losers Assemble!

Mike phones all of the now adult losers who have their own careers and troubles, telling them it is time to make good on their old promise. They don’t relish coming home and nobody remembers much of what happened that summer in the ‘80’s. Stanley (Andy Bean) knows he will be too frightened to help the old gang kill Pennywise so he kills himself.  The others assemble in a Derry hotel.

Pennywise is backCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Old bully Bowers (Teach Grant) is in a mental institution and Pennywise visits in a horrible form to give him back his old knife. Once chubby Ben is how a buff hunk (Jay Ryan), Beverly (Jessica Chastain) is running away from an abusive husband, Bill is a troubled but successful screenwriter, Eddie (James Ransone) is an uptight risk analyst for an insurance company, Richie (Bill Hader) is a nervous but successful stand-up comic.

The Losers' Club all grown upCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Weird Dinner

Over a Chinese restaurant dinner, the old gang starts to remember a few things. They have a great time until the fortune cookies “hatch” into small but creepy monsters and the fortunes work into a message that Stanley couldn’t take it so he isn’t coming. 

Richie questions a local kidCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Beverly reveals that she has seen all of their deaths and Stan cut his wrists just as she foresaw. Too freaked, everyone but Bill and Mike decides to leave. Meanwhile Pennywise lures and murders a young girl and Bowers escapes the mental institution. Mike has done research and tells Bill that an ancient Native American ritual can kill “It”. It came from the stars originally. It is alien. They must all first go and find totems; something that represents them. Sacrificing these items will be part of the ritual they will perform to kill “It”.

Pennywise lures a young girlCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Separate Searches

After reasoning that since Beverly was nearly blinded by “Its” lights when she was young and that is why she can foresee the group’s deaths, they all go to their old underground clubhouse where they find something representative of Stan. Then they go their separate ways and each is tortured by different, awful childhood memories and each faces different scary versions of Pennywise but they do get tokens that represent them. Bill meets a cute little boy who now lives in his old house. He warns the kid to leave Derry and never go near drains to the sewer system. Reunited at the hotel, Bev shows Ben the poem he wrote years ago about loving her and her red hair. She thinks Bill wrote it. Ben is crushed. Bev and Bill later kiss.

Looking for the old clubhouseCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

The Old House

Escaped Bowers attacks Eddie in a bathroom but Eddie stabs him before he gets away. Bill finds the little boy at the local carnival and fights for him but Pennywise kills him. Bully Bowers tries to kill Mike but Richie kills him with a hatchet. Finally the group reunites and reasons that “It” lives in the old, spooky house where they all went as kids.

Bill challenges the group to kill the clownCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

They go inside, are separated by Pennywise and face terrors that include a spider-like Stanley head before they climb back into the sewer system where Eddie says if he goes he will get them all killed. Richie reminds him that he stabbed bully Bowers and can fight back when he needs to. They all climb into a strange cave where they perform the ritual led by Mike. They burn their tokens and chant as they hold hands but….it doesn’t work!

Bill tries to rescue a little boyCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Mike’s Confession

Mike admits that the ritual didn’t work for the Indians either. “It” killed them but he was sure that if all the “losers” believed it would work, it would. “It” chases them all and again puts the group through separate tortures tailored for each of them turning all their fears and regrets against them.

Richie and Bill in the sewerCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Finally they figure out, as the ancient Indians said, “All living things must abide by the shape they inhabit”. Pennywise is a clown. How can they use that to destroy him? Will they? Will Beverly ever figure out that it is Ben who wrote that love poem? Will the members of the Losers’ Club ever have a happy ending?

Wrapping Up

It Chapter Two has a great adult cast and Bill Skarsgard is again excellent in his portrayal of Pennywise but, at almost three hours long, the film’s scares get repetitious as different members of the Losers’ Club are put through personal terrors that zero in on each person’s regrets and fears. 

Bev, Mike and Ben get a scareCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Bill Hader provides great comic relief as Richie although the character has some effective emotional scenes as well. James Ransone as Eddie creates laughs just by nature of the character’s paranoid personality. Almost all of the characters achieve a full circle “healing” of their personal life scars and relationships are resolved but it is obvious that many scenes or “scares” could be easily cut from the film to speed up the pace.

Richie and Eddie inside the old houseCourtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

I don’t feel that the R-rated movie is more frightening than the first one and the “sexy” material isn’t very explicit. There is some cursing but, overall, not much different from the first film in intensity. Like the first movie, Chapter Two might be too intense for younger kids but if you loved the first one, you will probably be willing to sit through and enjoy this overly-long sequel. We got a little squirmy in our seat after the first two hours and not because of the creepy monsters. We award three stars.

It Chapter Two Movie Rating: 

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

See It Chapter Two in theaters now!

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Do you feel that these R-rated “It” films are just too scary for you despite the fact that many tweens and teens are going? Are you a Pennywise fan or does the clown creep you out? Which of the two films will you like best? Scare up a comment or note on your profile page!