7.8 | / 10 |
Users | 3.9 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.9 |
In a small town in Maine, seven children known as The Losers Club come face to face with life problems, bullies and a monster that takes the shape of a clown called Pennywise.
Starring: Jaeden Martell, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen JacobsHorror | 100% |
Supernatural | 42% |
Thriller | 37% |
Teen | 21% |
Coming of age | 13% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
English DD=narrative descriptive
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
You don't have to suffer from coulrophobia (the technical term) or bozophobia (the colloquial
equivalent) to be creeped out by Pennywise, the villainous clown-entity with the voracious appetite
haunting Stephen King's 1986 novel, It. In a literary canon rife with memorable monsters,
Pennywise remains one of the author's signature creations. It takes an actor with a special gift for
playing crazy to portray the nasty prankster on screen. Tim Curry famously nailed the role in the
1990 TV miniseries, and now actor Bill Skarsgård (brother of Alexander and son of Stellan) has
donned the red and white makeup, with electric effect.
Of course, Pennywise is only part of the reason for It's continuing appeal, as reflected in the new
film's $700 million worldwide box office. There's also another King staple: a moving depiction
of childhood friendship in all its passionate sweetness and halting fragility. Without that element,
It would just be a parade of horribles, and the film would devolve into a predictable scare
contraption of the sort that has come to dominate the horror genre in recent years. James Wan
may have cornered the market on such fare with The
Conjuring, Insidious and Annabelle series,
but It operates on a whole different level. It's the rare horror film that's populated by characters
you actually feel for.
It was shot digitally by Chung-hoon Chung, who has done elegant work for director Park Chan-wook on such stylish studies of evil
as Stoker and the original Oldboy. For It, Chung was faced
with the challenge of lighting the many dark interiors in which the film plays out, not just the
sewers and dank underground tunnels where Pennywise makes his home, but also a variety of
dim interiors like the bedroom of Bill and Georgie Denbrough or the hallways of the house that
Beverly Marsh shares with her abusive father or the slaughterhouse where Mike Hanlon's father
teaches him to kill livestock without pity. One of the visual strategies of It is to make the
"normal" adult world feel as shadowy and forbidding as Pennywise's realm, and the continuity is
effectively reproduced on Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which captures the subtle
gradations of darkness in Chung's frame, with only occasional slippage into indistinctness and
loss of shadow detail. The brightest moments are typically scenes in which some or all of the kids
gather together, but even these are somewhat muted in color and intensity, including scenic
outdoor venues like The Barrens, the vertiginous cliff overlooking the lake where the gang goes
swimming. Pennywise and his manifestations typically get the brightest colors in It, and they're
almost always shades of red, including the bright red balloons that pop ominously out of the
frame to signal the evil spirit's presence. Otherwise, color intensities have been subtly dialed
down, draining the environment of vibrancy without succumbing to the temptation—too often
indulged in contemporary cinematography—to desaturate the entire frame to the point of
artificiality.
As usual with Warner's A-list features, the disc's average bitrate runs on the low side at 23.90
Mbps, but at least the studio has utilized most of the available space. There are a few fleeting
instances of compression-based noise, but otherwise the encode appears to be capable.
It arrives with an effective Dolby Atmos soundtrack that subtly distributes the sounds of
Pennywise's terrors throughout the listening space, from rushing water to jets of flame and
everything in between. It's an immersive mix from first to last, beginning with the pouring rain in
which Georgie Denbrough chases his paper sail boat straight into Pennywise's clutches and
continuing through the noisy hallways of Derry's high school and the creepy decrepitude of the
Neibolt house that is the main portal to Pennywise's domain. Off-screen effects are plentiful
without drawing one's attention away from the screen, and the dynamic range is powerful and
broad, with deep bass extension that may rattle a few loose objects in the listening room. The
dialogue is cleanly mixed and always intelligible. The nicely understated horror score was
supplied by Benjamin Wallfisch (Blade Runner 2049
).
Note that the disc also offers a lossless 5.1 mix in DTS-HD MA, although I'm not sure what
purpose it serves, since the Atmos track contains its own lossless Dolby TrueHD "core".
Add It to the growing list of effective filmed adaptations inspired by Stephen King, whose track
record must now be rivaled only by that of William Shakespeare. (Let's just forget about
Dreamcatcher, shall we?) Muschietti and his
creative team have their work cut out for them with
Chapter Two. Having established such high standards in the story's first installment, they have
raised expectations for the completion of the tale to an intimidating height—and this time they'll
have to make do without the appealing group of child actors whose Loser portrayals are as
essential to It's impact as Bill Skarsgård's cheerfully vicious Pennywise. Highly recommended.
2017
2017
with Lenticular Slipcover & Art Cards
2017
2017
2017
2017
2017
2017
2017
Reissue with Lenticular Slip + It 2 Movie Cash
2017
2017
Travel Poster Cover
2017
2017
2019
Stephen King's It
1990
2019
2018
2016
2019
1982
Unrated Collector's Edition
2007
2012
2016
2016
2014
Unrated Director's Cut
2018
2019
2010
2003
2015
Collector's Edition
1978
2013
2016