Did anyone else strongly dislike “IT: Chapter 2” and think that the directors should have left it alone with only one movie? When the release of “IT: Chapter 2” was rumored to the public, many people were crazy excited.

After months of hype about the movie, one would expect it to be so good. Not only had two years passed, giving technology directors plenty of time to advance the graphics, but also giving the writers a chance to come up with better ideas.

Movie sequels have a solid 50/50 chance of being terrible or being really good–and this sequel was awful. If you haven’t seen the first one, I recommend it, but this one you can avoid.
The first movie takes place in an old town in 1988 and 1989. The first movie was based on one main villain who happened to be a cannibalistic clown named Pennywise who also feeds off peoples fears. Pennywise only comes around every 27 years, according to the myths. Not many other minor “villains” were used in the first one, Whereas the second movie the villains are frequently used. The first movie didn’t show many extra characters and kept to the story-line.

The opening started off on a bad note, with two random men at a town festival. They were escorted just outside the festival with this gang of men who then beat them up and threw one off a bridge. After that, Pennywise appears out in the open and scoops up the man and leaves. Anyone around who was at that festival could have seen Pennywise, but somehow he goes unnoticed.
I think the directors did an excellent job choosing all the characters and their personalities and little traits. But, for the second movie they included the character’s stutter. It was twenty-seven years later and there weren’t any clues for the viewers to link two and two together to figure out who was who.

At least a good half hour into the movie I was confused and let down. To be honest, the three-hour long movie seemed to drag on forever. I couldn’t figure out who was who from the last movie because the characters were all adults now and looked different; that sounds like a “me” problem, but when the flashbacks played it didn’t help a lot of people because they didn’t look similar in anyway their “childhood selves”.

In the second movie, the original friends have drifted apart and have gone their separate ways. Because they left their hometown, memories of their past have faded. They don’t remember each other or any of the past events from their childhoods. Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) stayed behind to watch the town just in case Pennywise ever came back. After he gets a bad feeling about the incident with the bridge, Mike calls everyone individually and they all just go back to their home town they didn’t want to remember, which was unrealistic. Why go back if you hate the place?

I also don’t agree with the amount of use of zombies. For those of you that have seen the “Walking Dead,” I swear the zombies were taken right out of that show. They used these creatures to attack “the loser club” more than they used the clown. To me, that doesn’t make sense since the whole movie is supposed to revolve around the villain, Pennywise, who is now more powerful than ever, but the movie doesn’t give the viewer any background as to how or why Pennywise got that way. I feel like it was poorly written and poorly filmed; it seemed almost animated. After the same type of jump scare appearing over and over, it just wasn’t scary anymore. Some parts were completely ridiculous and were so unrealistic, for example, the dead zombie was driving Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) around as Pennywise had a little pocket knife and was trying kill “the loser club”.

The zombie faces were so fake and why would a zombie be driving a car? Zombies don’t speak and aren’t living; it was just there moving its head.

“IT: Chapter 2” was very repetitive. “The ending didn’t live up to expectations,” says Gianna Hardison from West Milford High School. Another student from Ramapo college said, “I didn’t really like it at all. The scary parts seemed funny to me. I didn’t even hide my eyes! It was a humorous horror movie.‘’

Although the movie was pretty bad, I do have to give credit to the actors Bill Skarsgard who played Pennywise, James McAvoy who played Bill Denbrough, Jay Ryan as Ben Hanscom, Bill Hader who played Richie Tozier, and James Ransone who played Eddie Kaspbrak. They all played their parts well in the movie. The actors did a good job with stuttering, just like the original characters did, and they didn’t just “grow out of it”.
Some plot lines were off though, like that of Beverly Marsh, who was the girl abused by her father in the first movie. She ended up with an abusive husband and took too long to leave him, which doesn’t make sense because she left that life behind when they defeated the clown the first time.

On the flipside, a former student from West Milford High School said, “I thought it was good. There were moments when I did get scared by the jump-scares, but I also thought they could have done better.” Overall, the movie could have been better but at least the directors tried.

This movie sparked an interest in audiences wanting to know more about Stephen King and his popular movies/books. A contest called the Stephen King Challenge was developed where selected people had to watch 13 of any of the 43 movies based on King’s novels by October 31 and the successful people received $1300.

People selected for the challenge got a “survival kit” to get through the movies, consisting of a blanket, flashlight, candy, and popcorn, as well as a Fitbit to track their pulse while watching these terrifying movies. Another prize was a complimentary gift card to go see “IT: Chapter 2” or “Doctor Sleep” in theaters.
“Doctor Sleep”, out in theaters now is sure to deliver another frightful adventure to those daring enough to go see it. This movie is a sequel to another Stephen King work, “The Shining”. In this novel, a young man with psychic abilities struggles with his childhood trauma. Go see it; it is sure to be a scream.