It (2017) ****

In my mind, Stephen King's 1986 novel, It, stands as one of his best works of horror. It tells the story of a group of misfit friends from the fictional Derry, Maine. Derry is a remarkably thriving, small town, with a history of a surprising number of accidents, murders, and disappearances. These friends discover that the success and the horror at the town's core can be traced to an ancient, shape-shifting creature that feeds on fear. It often appears to children as a murderous clown named Pennywise. The friends band together to defeat It, and then years later they return to Derry as adults to fight It again.

We've already had one film version of “It.” 1990's TV miniseries featured actor Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown, to decidedly mixed reviews. I haven't seen that version, but this was before the modern Golden Age of tv, so I'm thinking I would probably be disappointed. Fortunately, the 2017 film version is excellent. The teenage actors are outstanding, including Finn Wolfhard, from “Stranger Things,” as the smart-alecky Richie, and the striking Sophia Lillis, as Beverly. Bill Skarsgard brings the menace and dark humor as Pennywise, a truly scary monster.

No movie is a true re-creation of a book, but this version of “It” does a pretty nice job capturing the spirit of the novel. The biggest change director Andy Muschietti makes is that he doesn't jump back and forth between the characters' teenage and adult years the way the novel did. These flash-backs and flash-forwards were effective in the book, illustrating one of Stephen King's recurring themes of your past coming back to haunt you. As a movie, this probably would have been unworkable, requiring them to cut out massive chunks of the story. Instead, this film sticks with the kids' narrative, which fits pretty nicely into the length of a feature film. (This is Chapter 1, and Chapter 2, scheduled to come out September 2019, will tell the story of the kids' return, 27 years later. It will feature heavy-hitters like Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, and Bill Hader. )

The movie also cuts down on the graphic sexual content. This was fine with me, as I found the teen-bonding orgy in the book to be gratuitously creepy. What it doesn't skimp on is the horror. This is a scary movie, full of blood and jump-scares. Muschietti doesn't just rely on gore, though. The film does its best to capture the pervasive sense of dread from the book, and it partially succeeds.

The film “It” stays true to the novel in that the greatest source of horror is that there are human monsters in Derry just as bad as It, including adults who knowingly avert their gazes from the horrors happening to these kids. “It” taps into one of the elemental human fears, which is, “No one is coming to save us.” It's a well-founded fear.

4 stars out of 5