DISCLAIMER: IT is rated R. You must be 17 years or older, or accompanied by a guardian in order to view it. The Talon does NOT encourage underage students to see the movie illegally or without a guardian.

Stephen King published IT September 1986. It was his 18th novel and the book soon became a horror classic. In 1990 was made into an ABC two-episode mini series, and now IT is back, right on time, 27 years later.

The story takes place in Derry, Maine, where large amounts of children seem to go missing and die every 27 years. No one knows why, and for some mysterious reason, no one notices, and no one investigates.

The movie starts out with the gory death of Georgie Denbrough, in the classic scene with Pennywise the dancing clown trying to convince him to come down into the storm drain after his paper boat floats into it. When Georgie tries to leave with his boat, Pennywise rips the child’s arm off and pulls him into the storm drain, never to be seen again.

Thereafter it introduces our main characters, Bill Denbrough, the older brother of the kidnapped Georgie, Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Ben Hascom, Mike Hanlon and Beverly Marsh.

One of the stand out qualities of this movie are its characters. The characters are all the same from the original book but they’re shown as more vulnerable and raw than portrayed in the 1990 version. Their interactions with each other are what makes you really understand who they are as individuals as the movie progresses.

Not only are the characters well written and interesting, the actors for these roles were chosen extremely well. Each child brought their own flair to the characters and had great onscreen and off screen chemistry with each other. All of them have a very large future in acting, as I felt connections with them the moment they were introduced.

The stand out performance of course, was by “Stranger Things” own Finn Wolfhard. Wolfhard was by far one of the greatest parts of this film as he provided hilariously inappropriate one liners, which were mostly improvisation. He broke the tension in many serious and quite terrifying scenes that kept a light hearted tone throughout the whole film.

The ages as well were extremely refreshing, as they didn’t hire 20 year olds to play 14 year olds or even the 16 year old bullies of Henry Bowers gang.

But I absolutely cannot skip over the performance of the clown himself, played by Bill Skarskard. Skarsgård brought a completely different technique to the character than his predecessor, Tim Curry. He acted deranged, insane, had a high-pitched almost diseased like voice and added a special supernatural element even from the beginning when we see him in the very first scene of the film.

After a while however, we see Pennywise so many times that how scary he is begins to decline. His other forms, especially the flute player, were nightmare inducing in their own right, but we saw Pennywise so many time he lost the scariest element of a thriller monster: surprise. Nonetheless, Skarsgård knocked it out of the park every chance he got.

This film is not for the faint of heart. It is incredibly fast paced, with only a handful of non-scary scenes in the entire two hours and fifteen minutes.

Somehow, throughout all these terrifying qualities, the movie is heartwarming in a surprising way. I found myself wanting to watch it again as soon as I left the theater. It wasn’t much because of the horror aspects, but the performance and chemistry of these teenage actors.

I felt a sense of nostalgia even though I didn’t live through the 80’s. I also felt a strong bond between these characters even though they gave little to no exposition about them or their lives. Beneath the surface, IT is a heart wrenching and fascinating coming of age story.

Overall, IT is a masterpiece of a reboot. It was casted amazingly and did a wonderful job explaining the story to first-timers. It provided a fresh and interesting look for long time fans, and was so scary but lovable nonetheless. I’m in love with this movie, and I recommend anyone who has ever been a teenager who seeks adventure to see this fantastic film.