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It (2017)
One of few heavily modified book adaptations worthy of the source material. I wish it had been longer - but if that's my only complaint...
I was not disappointed. It was a lot truer to the spirit of the book than the 1990's miniseries. It didn't shy away from the violence or horror, the kids were allowed swear, and Skarsgård's Pennywise puts Tim Curry's performance to shame.
There was actually a lot changed from the book, but all of it was for the better - most of it, apparently, for the sake of taking advantage of the film's opportunities for better visuals, where it succeeds wildly. It's the first film I've seen with genuinely disturbing moments/visuals since Enter the Void. A few plot points are also changed, but that ended up being a plus, since you don't know what's going to happen even if you've read the book, and it's all done well.
My only complaint is that a lot was omitted - some of it, probably, because it wouldn't have translated as well to the silver screen (like the scene with Mike in the field with the bird), some of it because it was, almost certainly, unfilmable (like the infamous scene with Beverly), and most of it because of time constraints. The upside to this is that it's action-packed and much faster-paced than the book, but I would have liked if the movie had been allowed a longer runtime. Might have worked better as a trilogy than a two- parter, actually.
But if my main complaint is that it was so good it left me wanting more, there's really nothing to complain about at all. Excellent film, can't wait for the sequel.
August Underground (2001)
Meh.
This wasn't at all what I expected when I threw it one one night out of boredom. I'm a huge gorehound, and because this film (and, perhaps more notably, its sequels) have a reputation as decent gore flicks, I expected something trashy and violent and bloody, and, as it turns out, I expected a lot more than I got.
Some other reviewers complained about the cold and detached nature of the main characters and their attitudes regarding violence, but I actually felt like that was part of the film's charm, and perhaps what makes this otherwise sub-par gore film worth watching. The callousness displayed by our wicked young heroes is probably the most disturbing aspect of the film, giving Alex and his droogs a good run for their money in the psychopathy department.
This also does manage to feel like a "real" snuff film, being filmed on what looks like an old VHS camcorder, and while that definitely enhances the feel of some of the more brutal scenes (including the less gory brutality such as the gas station bit), the filmmakers, for whatever reason, feel the need to intersperse the actual gore with long, droning scenes revolving around comic book stores or sub- par sex scenes.
As a result, the film falls flat in the actual gore department, with only a couple of scenes featuring the bloody sort of hyper-torture that you'd expect from a film like this. A gore film without much gore is difficult to recommend to anyone, but it's worth watching for any connoisseur of the genre, if only so you can say that you've seen it. And, apparently the sequels are far more interesting than the series' first outing, so maybe this could just be seen as a teaser trailer for the real deal; not much substance here, but just enough to make me want to keep watching in the hopes that the next film picks up the pace.
Army of Darkness (1992)
This is terrible. How is this considered a classic?
I love all the other films in the Evil Dead series, but there's no getting around the fact that this one just sucks. I get the feeling that anybody who considers this film a "classic" either saw it when it came out and enjoys it purely for the nostalgia, or was raised by one of these people and forced to watch it over and over again until they felt the same way as their mentally challenged parent and/or guardian.
The "comedic" aspects are borderline-retarded slapstick that are the cinematic equivalent of a man making funny faces to amuse a newborn child, the "action" sequences are aggressively tepid and hardly worth watching, and the only "horror" to be found here is the aforementioned horrifically unfunny "jokes".
And it's not even that I don't enjoy unrefined humor, at east when it's done well. It's just that seeing a man make funny faces and voices while getting hit in the face... isn't funny.
Some of the other reviewers noted that this film as a "copious amount of gore", which sincerely makes me wonder if they watched the same movie that I watched. There's practically none here at all compared to the first two films.
Anybody who says that this is the "best film in the series" deserves to be rounded up by secret police and summarily executed in front a firing squad to protect the general public.