Readers, prepare yourself for a bit of a rant. 'Cause I'm #OneHappyCT and I've gotta tell you all about it.
Little C and I are into all things fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc, and you can't really be into all those things right at the moment without talking about
It. Full disclosure time: as Little C mentioned in her post on Wednesday, our older sister Coco worked on the casting team for
It. We are immensely proud of her, because damn that was some good casting, and also we love her dearly. However, I don't want anyone to think that I'm praising this movie because I've got skin in the game. That's not how we roll around these parts.
But the facts are these:
It is real good, and real scary, and Andy Muschietti might just be one of my new favorite directors.
This movie was going to succeed or fail on the cast. So it's a good thing they produced one of the best freaking young casts I've ever seen in my entire movie-watching life. If you're a regular to the blog, you know that by and large I hate child actors. Not personally, of course, they're children and I'm not a monster. But bad child performances are like nails on a chalkboard to me.
That's part of what makes these kids so astounding, although I firmly believe that their performances would stand up against any adult performance. They're not good for being kids. They're just good.
I went in knowing that I liked a few of them.
Midnight Special was one of my favorite movies last year so I knew Jaeden Lieberher was a great young actor. Little C and I can't shut up about
Stranger Things, and mostly because Finn Wolfhard is so outstanding. And those two were really, really great. Jaeden was layered and deep in that quiet way that he's so great at, and Finn showed a restraint in his performance that tells me that he's going to have an incredible career as an adult.
But I walked out of that theater obsessed with every one of those kids. Wyatt Oleff created some of the most beautiful and subtle moments in the movie, and made me cry more than once. Chosen Jacobs brought a really fantastic physicality to his movements throughout that brought his character into three dimensions. Jeremy Ray Taylor was heartbreaking and charming and so funny. Sophia Lillis found really incredible depth in every emotion she portrayed.
And I'll be honest, I walked away totally obsessed with little Jack Dylan Grazer and determined to cast him in every project we ever do from this moment forward. That kid was so effortlessly funny and real and charming and emotive that I could barely watch anything else when he was in a scene.
So now that I've gushed about this young cast (and really there aren't enough good things you can say about them, they were that good), we have to talk about the rest of the film. Here's the thing, I love horror movies. I'll watch terrible ones along with the good ones, but that's because the good ones are so few and far between. It's cheap to make a horror movie so the vast, vast majority of them look cheap and go for cheap scares.
Andy Muschietti put the love and time and effort into creating a visual world in
It that's usually reserved for the quiet Oscar dramas. He chose camera angles not just for their ability to hide a good jump scare, but for the art of the shot. He directed performances in both kids and adults that made the cinematic reality full and vast. He did what directors are supposed to do- bring the audience into a visual world to make them part of the story. He put heart into the story, which doesn't just make the stakes more real and the movie scarier (although it also does that), but it makes the film stick to your ribs after you leave the theater. Horror directors don't often pull that off, which is why I feel like you have to celebrate it when they do.
I've seen
It twice now, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about the movie even then. Both times I felt like I needed to rush home and work on our own horror script. It was truly inspiring (and terrifying) art in the best possible way. Go see it.
It's earning its place in movie history with every scene.
Happy Watching!
CT
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