Netflix’s amazing movie library is constantly changing, but a new addition to the vault has boosted the charts in no time. But this movie isn’t a Netflix Original: it’s a modern classic horror movie that debuted on Netflix last Friday.
Oh, and this movie is loved by critics (86%, Certified Fresh on) rotten tomatoes (Opens in a new tab)) and the public (84% on RT) alike. And I must admit, this is not a movie that sold out when it first came out.
So, what is the movie? It’s a 2017 remake of Stephen KIng’s It. Updated with a feeling that got me thinking about Stranger Things (before Stranger Things got really scary), I just jumped into the top 10 Netflix movies on the US Today chart, after hitting Netflix last Sunday (June 19).
Right now, we see him at number two on the chart, between Netflix Originals Spiderhead and Hustle. A great reminder that Netflix bread is smeared with its own and licensed movies.
What is it all about?
Clowns can be fun, but not in horror movies, where they are hideously scary. Such is the case with four children and seven in Derry, Maine, who face a villain known as Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård). These children – a group known as The Losers Club – are preyed upon by Satan because their minds are vulnerable to emotional manipulation that he uses as a weapon.
But it all began when 12-year-old Losers Club leader Bill Denbrough (Jaden Lieberherr) lost his six-year-old brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) to the Pennywise. Although Bill doesn’t know how this happened yet.
Check out the trailer for yourself:
Bill and his friends Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Beverly (Sofia Lillis), Ritchie (Finn Wolfhard), Stanley (White Olive), Mike (Chusine Jacobs), and Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) all suffer from their own personal emotional traumas, which Pennywise will manipulate along the way.
The Losers Club also has to deal with regular teen drama every day, as Pennywise is just one of two evils in Derry. There’s also the Bowers Gang, a group of bullies led by Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton) that antagonizes Bill and his friends.
Why critics love it
The aforementioned 86% score from Rotten Tomatoes came from very strong ratings. Karen Han slash movie (Opens in a new tab) Praising the performances of the child actors who made The Losers Club so lovable, he wrote, “The film relies entirely on – and succeeds – the strength of their performance, and for two hours so fast, it wasn’t much of a stretch to feel like we were on summer vacation with them.”
Scott Tobias in NPR (Opens in a new tab) He agrees, writing that director Andy Muschietti “has gotten great performances from his young cast, who look a lot like the stars of tomorrow as did River Phoenix and his co-stars on Stand By Me, a Rob Reiner nostalgia piece, inspired by King’s The Body.”
Kristi Limer Roger Ebert.com (Opens in a new tab)praising the villain, wrote “But what Bill Skarsgård does in the role works so well precisely because he doesn’t seem to be working hard to scare us. He doesn’t bother with it. He’s shy—playing with these kids—which makes his sudden outbursts of crazy clown runner all the more shocking.” .
Peter Travers, in rolling rock (Opens in a new tab) He wrote, “Watching the kids form a bond raining hell on a psychic clown really plays into our collective instinct to huddle in the dispatch complex and watch things falter at night.”
Should you watch it tonight?
As someone who’s seen it (and loved it), I’d recommend it to any horror fan’s first watch, and re-watch (like I probably would myself). Kids being terrorized by a demonic clown may seem like they’ve been played, but with kids like this, it’s a blast.
Arguably the only reason this didn’t happen was the film’s epic runtime, as Travers also noted that “the full movie, however, can’t match the trailers for the constant terror – it runs at 2 hours and 15 minutes (which is only half of the novel)”.