The unsatisfying thrillride that is ‘IT Chapter 2’

The Losers are all grown up, Pennywise is back, and scares come cheaper than ever

The best horror movies all follow the same formula: Everything is normal → Strange things are happening but they can be explained away → Strange things are happening and they cannot be explained away → All hell breaks loose.

That’s sorta why you don’t see many sequels to horror movies. The cat is out of the bag (except in most cases, the cat is a demon or an ax murderer or a killer clown). When we know what there is to be afraid of, it’s harder to make us scared of it once again.

It, in this case, is a child-murdering clown named Pennywise who, you guessed it, is back doing his thing murdering children in the town of Derry, 27 years after the events of the first movie. The problem is that our heroes are now all grown up and scattered across the country. How are they doing as adults? Well the fight against demonic forces as children hasn’t stopped them all from becoming incredibly successful. And sexy. Seriously.

Our “Losers Club” now includes a famous author/screenwriter, a famous standup comedian, and a famous fashion designer. Even the lovingly overweight kid from the first one is now a super successful architect with a six pack and a perfect tan (“you look like all the Brazilian soccer players rolled into one” one character cracks). One is played by Bill Hader, who continues to be my favorite celebrity and be hilarious and steal the screen and display major movie star presence. Another is James McAvoy, the Michael Jordan of over-acting. And a third is Jessica Chastain, whose character has gotten about a million times less interesting since her teenage years.

Once they all return to Derry, at the behest of the “look at your man, now look at me, I’m on a horse” actor from the Old Spice commercials, they get back to their old ways: laughing, catching up, joking about having sex with each other’s mothers. I guess this stuff isn’t weird even if it’s now coming from 40-year-olds with jobs and wives and children?

Honestly, the most farfetched part of this whole movie might be that in 2019 with Facebook and social media, these people have no idea what happened in the lives of their…