Stephen King's "It" is all about fear, filtered through the perspective of children
. After all, childhood fears tend to be more visceral and vivid, manifesting in ways that adults cannot comprehend. This is also why the world of "It" features aloof, uninvolved adults who either turn a blind eye to the horrific events in Derry or participate in abusive cycles that end up hurting the already traumatized children.Given how heavy this subject matter is, any adaptation of the novel would have to be both
hard-hitting and tactful, which is exactly what Andy Muschietti's "It" manages to achieve. The dread sustained by the first film comes closest to the intense terror evoked by King's writing, with Derry coming to life like never before. Muschietti's follow-up, "It: Chapter Two," is more of a mixed bag, but it is a satisfying conclusion to the killer clown saga that also has a lot to say about cyclical trauma. Muschietti, however, is no stranger to character-driven horror, as his breakthrough flick "Mama" echoes some of his best directorial instincts that "It" has been praised for. King seems to agree with this sentiment, as he has likened the best aspects of "It" to "Mama" while praising the "visual lushness" in both films (via Movies.ie):
"Andy has the same things going in 'IT' as he had in 'Mama' – both movies have a visual lushness. But that visual lushness is always kept under control by the storytelling. The storytelling is always paramount in this movie. It never goes off track, never once. It holds onto the narrative thread completely so that everything else is just thrilling. You can really settle back and enjoy it. I like that."
King went on to praise the opening storm drain scene in "It," where Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) chases his paper boat and comes face-to-face with Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård). Effective opener aside, King highlights how "real" the sequence feels, as the atmospheric dread ramps up the immediate danger Georgie is in (the loud, torrential rain and the shadows swirling on the puddles all add to this anxiety). Muschietti employs a similar tactic to heighten the stakes in "Mama" (a film strongly endorsed by Guillermo Del Toro!), so let's dig deeper into this overlooked horror flick.
Read more: The 10 Best Stephen King Books, Ranked
Mama's Conceptual Brilliance Is Undercut By Uneven Pacing And Execution
Muschietti's "Mama" exists because of the eponymous three-minute short made by him and his sister, Barbara. In this short, two kids are hounded by a bent-neck entity — this simple premise is perfectly haunting, thanks to a clever use of light and shadows, as well as a disorienting perspective. The 2013 feature film changes things up a bit for dramatic effect, where the kids, Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lily (Isabelle Nélisse), are much older and have a more acute understanding of the horrific events.
After almost being murdered by their depressed father, the kids are saved by a shadowy entity, who nurtures them as her own, turning them into feral children. Years later, a rescue party finds the kids, where the rescuers are baffled by their insistence that a certain "mama" has been taking care of them for some time. Soon after, their father's identical twin, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), and his girlfriend, Annie (Jessica Chastain), take the kids in. Creepiness ensues, as the kids seem to be attached to an entity nobody can see at first, while Annie and Lucas quickly become targets for unwittingly sharing guardianship with the titular specter.
There's some real tension and pathos here, as "Mama" questions the traditional connotations associated with motherhood and completely overturns them. The film posits that maternal instincts can also stem from a more painful, discomfiting place, and these sentiments can easily morph into something more dangerously protective and still be valid. What's more, both Chastain and Coster-Waldau capture the escalating dread of young caregivers who realize that they've bitten more than they can chew, bringing in greater depth to the concept of protective instincts born out of circumstance.
"Andy Muschietti remembers his childhood well enough to know what really scares children," says King in the interview above, and "Mama" proves that he's absolutely right. The problem, however, lies with scaring adults with a story that plays its hand too early and demystifies its central figure a bit too much, which is why "Mama" proves to be an uneven experience. An overabundance of CGI and shoddy pacing surely doesn't help matters, as these elements end up overpowering the allure of a solid concept. Nonetheless, it is one of Muschietti's better works, and genuinely deserves a chance if you're into cabin-in-the-woods themed horror that revolves around a lone ghostly entity.
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