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kafka-ish · 4 years

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jealousy is a disease, get well soon | r.t.

richie gets a new girlfriend. she’s smart, popular, and pretty. but where does that leave y/n?

word count: 4,657

warnings/included: nsfw (smut, public sex), cliffhanger, kinda angsty, fem!reader

request: (from anonymous) “jealous richie tozier x reader smut?”

a/n: i feel like richie is ooc in this one but lmk what you think

Three months, eight days, and six hours. It had been three months, eight days, and six antagonizing hours since Richie Tozier started dating Vicki Horowitz.

At first, it wasn’t so bad. Richie would still make his usual appearance at the lunch table with the Losers. He’d crack his usual jokes, then be on his way. He’d still walk with y/n to the library after school and he’d still make googly eyes at the cheerleaders who frequented the young adult section and hadn’t bothered to change from their uniforms yet.

But as the days got shorter and the timeline of Richie’s relationship got longer, something changed. Richie’s mouth became less trashy. He found the way his hairline was supposed to part. And along the way, the graphic tees he wore were now button-ups in a solid shade.

“What are you thinking about?” y/n asked. The question wasn’t foreign to Richie, but his answer was new to her ears.

They were sitting in the school library, as opposed to the public one they’d usually go to. Richie’s head rested in her lap; his mess of hair strewn all over the skirt of y/n’s dress—but she didn’t mind. He was sneaking a smoke even though there were no windows and offered her one of his cigs even though he knew becoming one step closer to death wasn’t something y/n was particularly fond of.

y/n accepted the cigarette anyway. She didn’t light it but tucked it behind her ear for safekeeping—a souvenir. Because this was the first time they’d hung out in weeks. Just the two of them; skipping their lunch period in an empty library because who even reads anymore?

“Nothin’ I really wanna tell you about, kid.” Richie stopped calling y/n sweetheart and babe long ago. Icky Vicki—a name y/n came up with without Richie’s knowledge—had requested she be the only babe or sweetheart in his life. And that’s how it was so on and so forth.

The heart beating in y/n’s chest grew increasingly louder because Richie used to tell her everything. Her hand left his scalp which she was once massaging under the tangles that were somehow still soft and lush. His eyebrows furrowed when she started to pull away from him.

“You’re disgusting, Tozier.” y/n then realized she didn’t have to ask Richie what he was thinking about. He was thinking about his girlfriend and the nights they’d shared on multiple occasions.

“What did I do?” He was now sitting up and facing his friend. Could he even call her a friend anymore? When was the last time they hung out? Richie stomped out his half-smoked Marlboro on the rug of the library, not caring that it would leave a mark, with the brand-new sneakers Vicki bought for him. His hands dug around in the front pocket of his jeans, searching for the Altoids container he kept on him at all times. Cinnamon. He downed half the box, the same way you’d chug a beer at a frat party because I hate it when you smoke, Rich echoed in his ears everytime he contemplated the pack of Marlboros that burned a hole in his other pocket.

y/n didn’t say anything. She got up, smoothed out her dress where Richie had left wrinkles, and stalked off.

It wasn’t like y/n to be jealous. When Bill got his first girlfriend, she jumped for joy and asked for her contact info so they could have sleepovers and give each other makeovers. When Mike started flirting with the new girl who moved into the plot of land next to his, y/n didn’t bat an eye.

So what was different this time?

y/n didn’t waste her precious time thinking about it. As much as she wanted to, she didn’t let Richie Tozier consume her thoughts, at least not consciously, during her restless nights and grey days. She assumed it wasn’t worth it to let Richie and his icky girlfriend get the best of her. Because that would mean they won.

The two hadn’t hung out since then.

They weren’t in a fight, but they weren’t on each other’s good sides. Necessarily.

Richie opted to spend the rest of the week with Vicki and y/n managed to get by the way she usually had for the past three months.

“Maybe you’re jealous?” Beverly offered. y/n found herself spending a lot more time with Bev now that she marked out Richie’s name with a red marker from her list of friends.

y/n scoffed and handed Beverly her right hand for her to paint. Jealous? That’s absurd. She admired her newly painted left hand. The dark green color surprisingly complimented her undertones perfectly.

“Why would I be jealous?” y/n couldn’t bring herself to look at her friend. She didn’t want her eyes to give away a reality she wasn’t ready to face, and she didn’t want to find a look in Beverly’s that only confirmed what she was suggesting.

“Oh, come on.” Beverly’s head threw back—a sign that she was becoming annoyed with her friend’s stubbornness and groaned. “Put two and two together. You and Richie used to spend every day together.” Her hands left y/n’s to make a sort of sandwiching motion. “Now you don’t.” They spread apart. Beverly shrugged nonchalantly as y/n started to realize something it seemed everyone already knew.

“I can’t believe you think I’m jealous of Richie.” Was all y/n could bring herself to say. But her thoughts wandered exactly where Beverly predicted.

To Richie Tozier, who was expectedly hanging out with one Vicki Horowitz. They were walking the cement of the strip mall. It was something Vicki did often, even before she had a boyfriend, and something Richie did often now that Vicki had attached himself to her like a dog on a leash.

“What do you think about that dress?” Vicki stopped outside of a small boutique. Her feet were planted firmly on the ground and her right arm was linked with Richie’s left while her free hand pointed to a small, black dress that allowed for practically no breathing space.

“’S cool,” Richie said with no sign of interest. He’d sworn they passed that dress three times by now and the pavement under his feet felt like the entryway to Satan’s humble abode.

“Cool?” Richie didn’t notice his girlfriend’s trimmed eyebrow shoot up in disbelief at the boy whose arm she held onto. “Well, what do you think of the dress on me?” Her voice dipped an octave lower and her eyes had that knowing look they always did before she was about to take a standardized test. Or when they were about to do it. Maybe that’s how Vicki roped Richie into this relationship.

Four months ago, Richie would have never thought of dating Vicki Horowitz. Not because she was out of his league. Every girl was out of his league, according to the dopes he called friends. But Richie never thought about batting an eye in Vicki Horowtiz’s direction. She was a governor’s scholar and the school’s class president ever since 1990. She was also a member of the same student council y/n was on, but to think he could score both of them would be a page from a fairytale.

It was a fairytale the day Vicki Horowitz had come up to him and the Losers at lunch, asking if she could have a word with him, no not you, him.

“What’s cookin, good-lookin’?” And Richie scolded himself for those being the first words spoken to the Vicki Horowitz.

“You’re lucky you’re cute.” Her blazing blue eyes rolled playfully, and Richie smiled because the only other time a girl had called him anything remotely close to cute was when y/n straightened out his collar and fluffed up his hair at homecoming. Don’t you clean up nice. “I want you to go out with me.”

“What sorta charity case are you workin’ here, hot stuff?” In Richie’s mind, he had every right to be incredulous. Girls didn’t ask him out. Girls didn’t even say yes when he asked them out.

And maybe it was a charity case when, a month in, Vicki had convinced Richie to iron his jeans and wear shirts that were only one color. Maybe it was a charity case when Richie found himself eating lunch with Vicki’s group of friends instead of his—talking about scholarship programs and studying abroad instead of the new werewolf movie that somehow scared the cripes out of him and when Batman’s new comic issue would be released. Maybe it was a charity case when Richie no longer used words like fuck and shit and began popping mints like they were drugs because Vicki wouldn’t let him smoke around her.

His white lace-ups kicked mindlessly at the sidewalk he stood at. He pondered the question even though there wasn’t much to ponder about. “Then I’d say that dress just got hot,” Richie smirked, and Vicki slapped him in the side.

Of course, you would were the words he expected to hear. But as much as Richie wanted her to be, Vicki wasn’t y/n and instead said, “Did you go over the vocab packet I slipped in your locker?

“I got it.” Richie’s free hand took residence in his pocket. He felt around for the box of Marlboros there and wondered if he should light one in front of her. Three months—almost four, he’d been in this relationship, and ever since a month ago he was beginning to think it was one-sided. “I, uh, didn’t get the chance to go over it.” He coughed and looked down at her, not expecting to see her eyes burning through his.

“You smell like cinnamon,” Vicki said. Her gaze softened but Richie wasn’t impressed. What was it about her? Was it her who changed, or him? Richie’s mind couldn’t wander any further—his thoughts sliced by Vicki’s voice. “What’s up with you?” She wasn’t usually the concerned type, but Richie knew she was being genuine when her eyes started hopelessly searching his.

“I’m tired,” Richie lied. “Y’know, we’ve been walkin’ so much. Ye ole feet need a rest.” Richie laughed but Vicki didn’t. She didn’t usually find him funny. She didn’t usually find anything funny except for small dogs in purses and grammatical mistakes.

“You could’ve just said so.” It was one of the few times she let up, but she was good. She was good at a lot of things, actually.

Vicki drove him home in silence. It wasn’t a talking kind of day and the radio was left untouched since neither of them could agree on a music station.

“Call me.” Were her last words to him before he stepped out of her daddy’s Mercedes.

Richie didn’t say anything. He stepped inside his house, his back slumped against the front door as he finished his thoughts from earlier that day in the comfort of his own home.

Why, out of everyone in Derry, would Vicki Horowitz choose to date someone like Richie Tozier? Of course, he’d be an idiot—which he wasn’t (that’s debatable)—to pass up an opportunity to go out with someone as eclectic as her. His thoughts betrayed him, finding their way to Vicki’s long, blonde hair and always rosy cheeks.

Obviously, he’d miss her if he broke things off between them. But there was something else that twisted his gut, telling him to do so.

And Richie always trusted his gut. He’d trust it if it told him to pick C on his math test or if it told him to jump off the golden gate bridge.

It was Monday, in the corner behind Derry High where everyone smoked, where the breakup took place. Richie had the decency to break it off somewhere private and Vicki had the decency to not cry or beg him to stay.

“Hey.” Richie’s voice was soft. His back stabilized by the bricks behind him and Vicki didn’t need to question what this was about.

“Hi.” Her tone held the same solemnness as his. “The least you could do was invite me somewhere nicer to break up with me.” It was the only time Richie laughed at one of her jokes and the last time he would. And though he wanted to, Richie couldn’t be surprised that Vicki already knew what he called her over for. She was a smart girl with a smart mouth to match.

“You know?” He stood up straight and took a drag from his cigarette.

“If you weren’t smoking, I would’ve thought otherwise,” Vicki said truthfully. Just then, a flood of students burst through the doors of Derry High. School was out. “I’m not fond of it, but I’m not going to hold you back.”

Richie wanted to scoff. He thought of the one afternoon when Vicki spent an hour combing through his hair, so the strands laid straight and naturally began to part to the side. He thought of how she scolded his unhealthy use of recreational drugs to the point he had to live a double life. He thought of how his time was no longer spent with his friends, but with her.

I’m not going to hold you back my ass.

But this was no time to argue.

Richie put out the cigarette, barely smoked, and walked away. Away from button-up shirts. Away from vocabulary packets and the debate of the use ‘impact’ in place of ‘effect’. Away from Vicki.

His rough footsteps hit the ground under him with a thump. Richie knew exactly where he was going. And maybe it was wrong that his first instinct was to cross the path of a certain someone after he had just called things off with his girlfriend—ex-girlfriend. But maybe Richie didn’t care.

It took him approximately ten minutes to walk to the Derry Public Library and approximately two minutes for an indescribable feeling to tear through his stomach. His feet lurched forward, but Richie steadied himself by reaching for one of the wooden shelves of the bookcase he stood behind.

It was y/n. As he expected, she was sitting at one of the desks. But her nose wasn’t stuck in her chem book, cramming for tomorrow’s test. It was pointed towards Matt Brimmer, upturned, along with her crinkled eyes and dazed smile. Was Matt Brimmer really that funny?

Richie knew he could make her smile like that. He knew he could make her smile even wider. So, he didn’t know why he was having seconds thoughts right now. The other voices in his head, telling him how inferior he was to so-called Matt Brimmer. Matt Brimmer on the football team. Matt Brimmer with the golden hair. Matt Brimmer the golden boy.

Everyone knew who Matthew Brimmer was; it’d be a crime not to. Although he wasn’t the Quarterback, he was the main reason Derry High’s football team got any of the wins they had. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but his prince charming smile and locks that reminded Richie of that Rapunzel story made up for it. He got by.

Richie had two options. He could go home and feel sorry for himself or he could wait for y/n and confront her after her study session. Was what they were doing even considered studying?

He opted for the second since he had already spent enough time feeling sorry for himself. And one dreadful hour later of mindlessly picking at his shoe and flipping through various pages of children’s books, Richie caught y/n alone, about to leave the already dark library.

The lights were dimmed, and the sun outside had already set. There was no sign of the librarian or her volunteers when y/n’s worn in high-tops came into his eyeline. He was sitting cross-legged, with a book in his lap. But his mind wasn’t on the pages.

Richie’s doe eyes widened under his magnifying lenses when they trailed up the skin of his friend’s bare legs that had stopped in their tracks. y/n was wearing a denim mini skirt in the middle of winter and how she hadn’t attracted goosebumps yet was a question he’d save for later.

“H-hey!” Richie bounced to his feet, standing at his full height.

“Hi.” y/n eyed him skeptically. She was holding a book in one hand. Her other hand was attached to the strap of her backpack.

“I saw you with Matt,” Richie blurted out. His own words surprised him because although he wasn’t shy—far from it—he wasn’t confrontational either. No. That was Bill. Bill would be the type to ask about the guy you had just got done cuddling with at the football game even though he was your boyfriend. But y/n and Richie weren’t dating, and Richie didn’t like her like that. Did he?

“Okay.” Was all y/n said. Her face was blank, void of any emotion. A sign. And her eyes bore into his, the way a police car’s emergency lights catch you when you’re speeding.

She was about to leave, probably to return her book, until Richie’s hand coiled around her wrist.

“What?” The irritableness in y/n’s tone became slightly more palatable. The one word struck Richie’s core and the voice in his head telling him telling him that this would be a good idea was now making its retreat.

“Matt Brimmer, eh?”

“Please.” Her expression grew more disgusted by the second; eyebrows raised; lips puckered as if she had just sucked the life out of a lemon. “You’re the last person who gets to commentate on my love life.”

Richie’s heart panged at the last words. Love life. If this were true—if y/n were dating Matt Brimmer—Richie quite literally wouldn’t know what to do with himself. His face didn’t show it, but right now, he was a guest at his funeral. Everyone was wearing black except him and Stan was giving the eulogy.

Only Richie would do what Richie did next. It was an awful act of…whatever because this newfound feeling in his chest was too much for him to take. Both of his hands cupped either side of her cheeks which were now hot, but not from embarrassment. He dove in for a kiss, both of his lips capturing her bottom one. The quietest moan rolled off her tongue, but before any more noises could be made, she pulled away.

“You have a girlfriend,” y/n said, as much as she didn’t want to. “and I’m—”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re with Wonderboy.” Richie heaved out a sigh loud enough for y/n to forget what had just happened moments ago and raise her eyebrows, only to ask what’s wrong. In fact, she did oh so conveniently forget about his actions from earlier, and her right eyebrow quirked.

“What are you thinking about?” She asked and Richie didn’t realize how much he missed that question until now. How much he missed her.

The color in his eyes seemed to darken—like they were hooded by a shadow—and she was sure it wasn’t the doing of the lack of lighting in the room.

But Richie didn’t reply. His lips trailed back to hers again. The two melded into each other like iron being welded. This time y/n didn’t pull away. She lingered long enough to taste the cigarette he’d hardly smoked earlier and mints he didn’t swallow whole this time.

It was Richie who broke the kiss, only to press one onto her neck. The tip of his pointed nose tickled as it grazed the skin of her cheekbone and his chapped lips felt new and exciting when they left kisses below her ear.

“Richie.” y/n would be ashamed to admit this was something she’d been waiting for. That this very moment was a scene from her dreams that she hadn’t got the proper amount of time to explore because she’d awoken before the climax.

“You’ll have to be quiet, doll,” Richie mumbled against her skin. y/n could’ve fainted right then and there, but she refrained; wanting to experience this moment fully conscious. His fingers found their way to her side, gripping the fabric of her white mock neck casually as if this were something they’d done hundreds of times before. There was something about the way he handled her that made y/n insecure. Just knowing he had practiced these types of moves on girls before her had sparked a light in the pit of darkness that was her stomach. Her hands flew to his cheeks. The pad of her thumbs ran across his pale skin now blossoming pink.

Richie twisted their position, backing y/n into the case of books behind her—full to the shelf. His hands ghosted their way under her top, brushing her bare midsection. It was soft but cold, even under the sweater textile. It didn’t help that his hands could substitute for ice.

y/n giggled—a sound so sweet he’d cherish ‘til the end of time. A sound he’d never heard from Vicki’s lips. Her breath, smelling of lemon lozenges, fanned his face in a hot cloud. Richie wanted more. If he had any less dignity, he’d beg for more.

It’s not like y/n wanted to giggle during this new act of intimacy between them. To be frank, she was…upset. Who was Richie Tozier to leave her hanging for a girl who wore frilly chiffon blouses on Wednesday only to wear her jeans low rise so everyone and their grandmother could see her pink lace thong peeking from them on Friday? Who was Richie Tozier to leave her hanging at all? The late nights she’d spent at the Derry Public Library alone, in hopes the certain someone she snuck glances at during their passing period and her Pre-Calculus class only left an empty feeling in her heart and a rotten aftertaste in her mind. To let Richie know he was the reason for her pleasure and the hand between her thighs at night would be letting him win.

But what’s life without a few losses?

Richie’s movements never stopped—they were quick, but enough to send sparks to the one place y/n needed attention the most. His hands traveled lower, eventually reaching the hem of her skirt that ended just four inches above the knee. Distractedly, he pinched the thick material between his thumb and index finger. The roughness of the denim somehow satisfyingly scratched the edge of his fingers—drawing him out of his trance.

He lifted her skirt—revealing y/n’s ballerina pink underwear Richie only got to see at the quarry. There was no time for them to completely undress—and if they did, it’d be far too scandalous (as if what they were doing right now wasn’t already sinful).

Richie’s head whipped away from y/n’s neck; his eyes frantically darting around the space around them, seeing if anyone was nearby. y/n’s hands once again took his face in them, directing his attention back to her. Richie smiled as soon as her features came into view: black mascara smudged on her bottom lash line and the lipstick previously on her lips found a new home on her frenulum. She was mind-blowingly good looking even in a disordered state.

His hands left her upper thigh—where he had been leaving feathery strokes. y/n presumed he was about to unbuckle his belt. But he didn’t. He stood there, silently appreciating the scene displayed before him, and also wishing they had more time or had a setup more comfortable. His hands rested at the silver clasp of his belt, daring to make a move but also frozen in time.

“What are you waiting for?” y/n sniped, and Richie’s confidence level was found through the roof; like the green health bar when you first slip a quarter into the Street Fighter machine.

Nimbly, Richie’s fingers went to undo his belt and slip off his jeans and boxers underneath. It didn’t take long for his lips to crash against hers. A bruise would be left later for memories’ sake. His tongue swiped her bottom lip, tasting birthday cake in the process.

y/n’s own hands were small, but they made an effort to run through his hair, feeling the left-over gel from yesterday and the abnormal amount of times it had been brushed through. She tugged at the roots, eliciting a groan from him that was luckily muffled by y/n’s mouth.

His hands found their original place on the curve of y/n’s hips. But first, he made quick to strip her of her undergarments. An innocent shade for a not so innocent act. Richie was fast to slip in—not giving y/n the time to adjust around him. She whimpered and he swore he could feel a tear against both of their cheeks.

“You’re dripping.” Richie didn’t address the quiet tears that rolled down the slope of her face, too concentrated on the feeling of something else rolling against him. y/n’s hips perked up, a desperate attempt to meet his; ardent and needy. He took it as a sign. His thrusts sped up, coated in her silk.

The substance shared between them was like glue holding their bodies together. Richie’s hands surprised y/n when they squeezed the back of her legs, urging her to jump up, and stabilizing her when she did. Her legs coiled around his, allowing for Richie to find a deeper spot none of her other hookups could.

“Can Matt Brimmer fuck you like this?” Despite the shivers his words sent down her spine, y/n finally knew what this was about. She had her suspicions, but his words only confirmed them.

His voice was hushed, only for her to hear, but she supposed if he screamed it no one would hear them in the seemingly vacant building.

y/n didn’t reply. She felt her eyes roll back and his hips snap in unpredictable paces against hers. It was rare—exceptional, even—that y/n found release this fast. She could blame it on the thrill of potentially getting caught. Their bodies covered yet splayed out inappropriately for anyone to walk in on. She could blame it on Richie; that she was finally attached at the hip, literally, with her lifelong best friend and not-so-guilty pleasure fuck whenever Beverly and she ran out of sleepover games. Her grip on his hair tightened as well as the walls around him. The prolonged whines she had been biting between her teeth turned into heavy pants—her breath mixing with his.

Miraculous, it was, that Richie was able to remain noiseless when he came. He stayed inside her for a second more, dwelling in the ecstasy the two had shared for as long as he could. It was only until y/n’s eyes greeted Richie’s when he pulled out and redressed his half-naked body.

She wasn’t glaring this time, but she didn’t look happy either. Usually, girls were supposed to be happy after sex. Second thoughts started to litter his mind. Richie couldn’t help but think he came short. But he was relieved when y/n spoke up.

“Can Vicki Horowitz make you feel that way?” Her skirt was now properly covering her thighs and she must’ve pulled her underwear up and Richie hadn’t noticed. y/n left him with a quick peck to the lips, smirking into it as she did. It was dominant. Possessive. The last of what Richie saw of her was the back of her now messy hair when she picked up her backpack and walked out—through the maze of books and out the glass doors.

Richie was in awe. Still in a post-orgasmic condition, his fingers ran to his neck, tracing over the newly forming blemish y/n left as a trade for the dozens he gave her. Richie stood there a few minutes more. His palm pressed against the mark only to leave so his index finger could trace his lips that a gracious residue of berry lipstick and saliva mixture tacked onto.

He’d catch her tomorrow.

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finnickodaiir · 4 years

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I know both piece of art are good in their own way. But if you good change anything about Stranger things: all seasons so far It: both movies What would it be? I repeat anything you like not one just anything you want too.

Stranger Things 3 (it's the only season I have major issues with):

• I'd not dumb Lucas and Steve down.

•I'd not make Mike and Hopper jerks, like I can some of their actions, but I'd keep that to a minimum.

• the Byers family actually interacting.

• Have Mike and Will actually reconciling, because they were at odds until the very last minute.

• Give Will and Lucas more screen time and an actual storyline (same with Dustin, but he already gets a good amount of screentime, so he should get some development).

• Minimize Mike/El's make out scenes.

• Scrap the whole Karen/Billy thing, that was pointless and gross.

That's all I could think of for ST, now onto It

IT (2017)

• I'd keep Mike and Stan's characterizations closer to their book characterization.

• Mike gets to be the history buff, not Ben.

• Ben gets to keep his role as the architect of the group.

•Beverly's reasons for being outcast are due to classicism, so we don't sexualize our 13-year-old female protagonist.

• Scrap the whole love triangle thing, Bill and Bev don't end up together, so it doesn't make sense to give them a proper romance in Ch1, instead we develop Bev and Bev's relationship.

• Have Bev interact with the other Losers.

• Actually hint that Eddie and Richie are LGBTQ+ and show that their relationship has a romantic tone.

• Include Stan's interest in ornithology and his encounter with Pennywise would be The Dead Kids in the Standpipe, not that weird painting, because that doesn't fit with character at all.

• Keep Mike's parents alive.

• Keep the Werewolf, the slingshot and the silver bullets.

• I'd not make Bev a damsel in distress, instead the Losers get chased into the sewers by the Bowers Gang.

IT Chapter Two

• Recast the actors for Tom Rogan, Audra Philipps and Patty Uris.

• I'd actually adress Adrian Mellon's murder, Bev's abusive marriage, instead of just playing it for shock value.

• Also, I wouldn't play Eddie's abuse for laughs.

• I'd scrap the whole Native American ritual. That wasn't in the book and Muschietti ended up using them as plot devices and portraying in stereotypical way.

• Let Eddie keep his gay-coding and book arc and let Richie keep his bi-coding and book arc.

• No Bill/Bev kiss.

• Stan's suicide doesn't get romanticized

That's all I could think of right now, one day I'll make post covering all the things I would have done, if I was the one in charge of the IT adaptations. Also I’ve covered my main issues with Ch2 here and I respectfully disagree about It Chapter Two being good.

#asks #answered #anonymous

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ambivalentman · 7 years

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AN ATHEIST KING: THE LOSS OF BELIEF AND CHARACTER IN MUSCHETTI’S IT (2017)

This essay features several spoilers for IT (2017). You have been warned.

A DISCLAIMER BEFORE WE BEGIN

I was, at one point, a hard core Stephen King fan. When I entered my 20s, I owned every book written by him in hardcover -- with the exception of special edition stuff like My Pretty Pony -- including several first editions (like a beautiful first of The Shining). My copies of George Beahm’s The Stephen King Companion and The Stephen King Encyclopedia were already dog-eared and annotated. My prize possessions were the four issues of Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction I had which featured the first publication of The Gunslinger, and the other I had which included “The Moving Finger.” My parents thought I was weird, most girls thought I was scary, and at one point even my grandma suggested I seek therapy.

This was until about 2000. Then, an event took place which caused me -- like those in the Loser’s Club -- to abandon childish things. It was a bad decision, but I gave up my Stephen King collection.

I didn't rediscover my love for King until recently. Sure, I dabbled a bit these last few years, reading Under the Dome and 11/22/63, but I never fully re-embraced the hero of my youth. Until I decided to re-read IT, his 1986 masterpiece about a group of wounded people forced to face a truly terrifying force as both children and adults. I saw that Andy Muschetti was adapting the novel for Warner Bros., taking over for Cary Fukunaga, who -- despite being a true auteur -- fell out of Warner’s graces. All news surrounding the new adaptation was overwhelmingly positive, and it had been a long time since we last saw a great movie based on King’s work.

Back in April, I broke my right hip. After two surgeries, being fairly immobile has given me time to read more, so I picked up IT. Revisiting IT transported me back to that time when I was obsessed with King. The experience was overwhelming, like when adult Bill Denborough gets back on his enormous metal steed, Silver, and recalls how he once raced the devil on that bike to save Eddie Kaspbrak. A flood of joy came from reading King’s pulpy prose again. Going back to that tainted town of Derry to hang with the Losers helped make my rehab a little easier. And though I am still on the mend, I am ready to rekindle my love for King.

Which brings me to my other love: cinema. I don't write much about the movies anymore, but I am chomping at the bit to discuss and evaluate IT. There hasn't been a more anticipated film this year for me.

And no film has both pleased and disappointed me more.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD KING ADAPTATION?

Because of The Dark Tower, IT, and the forthcoming Gerald’s Game, there have been lots of clickbait “Stephen King Movies . . . Ranked” lists popping up online. Nerdist had a particularly interesting one, in which their top 10 looked like this:

10. Creepshow (1980)

9. IT (2017)

8. The Dead Zone (1983)

7. Dolores Claiborne (1995)

6. Stand By Me (1986)

5. The Mist (2007)

4. The Shining (1980)

3. Carrie (1976)

2. Misery (1990)

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Despite the ranking, most King fans and movie lovers alike will agree with this list (although Creepshow over Pet Sematary or Christine? Really? Sincerely?). Two of these films are directed by Frank Darabont (Shawshank, The Mist), and two by pre-what-the-f-happened Rob Reiner (Misery, Stand by Me). And the new adaptation of IT made the cut. So, if we can acknowledge these are the canonical King adaptations, what makes them the best? It's a pretty steep drop off in quality after the top 10. There's Pet Sematary, Christine, 1408, and The Green Mile, meaning that out of 44 movies based on Stephen King’s novels (not including TV mini-series), there’s really only about 14 good-to-great ones. If this were baseball -- King’s favorite sport -- Hollywood would be batting a respectable .318. Be that as it may, this is not baseball, and producing only 1 solid movie for every 3 is pretty awful.

This suggests that adapting Stephen King is tough. Why, though? His books are packed with memorable characters, scenes, and visuals. You could almost say he writes movies. His dialogue is colloquial and specific, and he has a great sense of pacing. While you could easily point out that lots of his stories share only a couple variations for endings -- destruction or aliens -- he is a strong storyteller with a keen understanding of cause and effect and narrative fairness. There's a reason, after all, that he inspired a generation of writers and filmmakers like JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and the Duffer Brothers.

My theory is that King's greatness resides not in his ideas or execution, but in the spirit of his writing. King's voice is the soul of his work. When you read him, it feels like you are sitting down with a friend, listening to him share a great story. King feels familiar, like family. And the filmmakers who get that make films which reflect it.

Take, for example, the number 1 film on Nerdist’s list, The Shawshank Redemption. The use of Red’s voiceover narration immediately brings us into the tale of Andy Dufresne. Stand By Me and Dolores Claiborne also use great voiceovers. But in films like Misery, Carrie, and The Dead Zone, we are given protagonists who become our friends. We find Paul Sheldon to be kind and thoughtful, Carrie White to be sweet and misunderstood, Johnny Smith to be tortured and alone. These films understand deeply what King was aiming for with his characters. So, when Reiner changes events in Misery, it doesn't matter because not only did he truly “get” Paul, he also truly “got” Paul’s relationship with Annie Wilkes. Each of the films on this list, with the exception of IT (and Creepshow because it was an original script), truly grasped the core of King’s characters and their relationships to each other.

King is often considered a humanist author. His characters, including his villains, are often subjects for sympathy. In his work, there is a lot of insight into human nature, both light and dark. King is an observant author, grounding his most supernatural stories in a real world, with real people. This is best illustrated in his character relationships and interactions. Red and Andy develop first respect, then admiration, then deep friendship over their years in Shawshank. It is a relationship founded on honesty as they are the only honest men in the prison. Their mutual trust is what establishes the foundation for Andy’s escape plans, and ensures his success. In The Dead Zone, Johnny’s broken relationship with Sarah is haunted by lust and vitality, the very qualities Johnny loses touch with after his accident leaves him with a power which zaps the life from him with each use. Carrie White’s naive hope she can actually fit in is fulfilled by the compassionate Tommy Ross, which makes the tragedy of her coronation that much more devastating. The films capture these ideas to profound effect, which is why they endure. Once the novelty of plot dissipates, you are left with characters and their connections to each other and yourself. We enjoy a movie for plot; we love a movie for character.

King writes wonderful characters, and the best films based on his work never fail to capture those characters ideally.

Except IT.

Sigh.

THE PART WHERE I EXPLAIN WHY THE NOVEL IS A MASTERPIECE

It is not hyperbole to call IT “King's masterpiece.” Lots of critics have done it. By its publication in 1986, IT was the purest, most ambitious distillation of themes and ideas King had explored since Carrie in his fiction (and even in non-fiction dissertations like Danse Macabre). If you're reading this, chances are you know the story:

Every 27 years, the seemingly quaint hamlet of Derry, Maine becomes the feeding ground for an entity that has dwelled under the town’s surface for centuries. In 1958, after 6-year old Georgie Denborough is murdered by the creature -- assuming the shape of a murderous clown called Pennywise -- big brother Bill and his Losers Club come together to put an end to the evil. They are only marginally successful, as 27 years later, the Losers are called to return to Derry to kill IT for good.

IT is a multi-generational horror novel, spanning hundreds of years. We meet the Losers first as adults, all of whom (with the exception of Mike Hanlon, who chose to stay behind in Derry and become its resident historian and librarian) no longer remember the events that took place during the summer of 1958. Mike’s ominous phone calls, reminding the adults of the promise they made -- to return if IT ever resurfaced -- unlocks each adult’s dormant memory. As the novel unfolds, so does their collective remembrance of summer ‘58 and all the horrors it contained. King uses the flashbacks to highlight the differences between childhood and adulthood.

As with any epic sized novel, there are a myriad of themes to unpack. IT dives deep into ideas about childhood trauma, the power of personal shame, community corruption, racism, generational sin, and the coming of age ideas expected from a novel about kids becoming adults. For me, where the novel finds its most compelling thematic territory is in its exploration of belief. King wants us to recognize it is the purity of innocence, and the simplicity of belief that binds these kids together, and that the jaded cynicism of adulthood, with all its fears and anxieties, is what threatens to destroy them.

This theme hinges on the role of Pennywise. He is a shapeshifting, Lovecraftian monster, tapping into the fears of his quarry to exploit during the hunt. He appears to Ben as his dead father, to Mike as a pterodactyl-like bird, to the germaphopic Eddie as a leper, and to Richie as the lycanthropic Michael Landon in I Was a Teenage Werewolf. When Pennywise goes after Bev, it is by turning her sink into a geyser of blood which only she can see. Bill is tormented by the memory of his dearly departed brother, whose school photograph Pennywise animates and makes bleed. Children have very primal fears, and that which adults see as fake or absurd, kids often embrace as real. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, chupacabras, zombies . . . children do not reject fantasy outright as adults do, making them susceptible to both profound fear and hope.

We see this in the Losers’ response to IT’s attacks. They are terrified, but never stop seeking solution. They find their weapons in objects. Even after he learns his asthma inhaler is a mere placebo, Eddie still uses it to calm his nerves, and later fires it at Pennywise, believing its contents to be battery acid. With Bill’s help, Ben melts down two silver dollars into bearings for Bev to shoot at the monster with a slingshot. When Stan gets trapped by Pennywise after finding himself alone in the house on Neibolt Street, he manages to escape by chanting the names of every bird contained in his field guide. The kids build an underground fort, which they convert into a smoke house to go on a Native American “Vision Quest.” It is during this dangerous endeavor that Mike and Richie seem to travel through time back to a primordial era where they witness IT’s arrival. The Losers’ passionate adherence to ritual and talismans give them a collective power. This power keeps them unified, and even frightens their tormentor. Belief is their truest weapon, especially belief in each other.

The other themes King addresses throughout IT are compelling, but it is this idea about belief that gives the novel its soul. There is no cynicism in King's approach -- he captures the imagination of these children with remarkable affection, and this results in each kid winning our hearts over. Pennywise may be the allure the book needs to attract its audience, but these kids are what inspires guys like me to re-read a 1,000+ page book.

They are also what inspired me to struggle with a movie engineered for my celebration.

IN PRAISE OF MUSCHETTI’S IT

Before I tear apart IT, which is very popular, having made over $200 million domestically in its first two weekends, I want to praise it. Despite having some huge issues, the film does some things very well. There is a good reason why this movie works for so many people.

The major reason IT works is because of its energy and general nostalgia. While these elements often fade on repeat viewings, they are so engrossing during a first one. Being set in 1989 puts the setting during a period Gen Xers remember fondly and for which Millennials pine. Movie theater marquees are showing Batman and Lethal Weapon 2. A poster for A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 is a coming attraction. The kids ride Schwinns, use Kodak Carousels, don’t have cell phones, and wear denim cutoffs. The aesthetic is perfect. Producer Seth Grahame-Smith revealed in an interview with Birth.Movies.Death that he prepped nostalgia lists for all of the child actors, from music to movies to video games to fashion as a way to show them what summer ‘89 in New England was like for him. The work paid off, because the town of Derry is authentic in its nostalgia. It is impossible not to be drawn into this world.

And this world is scary, even without Pennywise. As with all idealized nostalgic perspective on days long gone, there is a darker undercurrent (as if we punish ourselves for embracing such idyllic memories). Perhaps the darkest element are the adults of Derry. Kids go missing and the “Missing Persons” posters are simply papered over as new children are added to the list. A leering pharmacist flirts with Bev. In the library, as Ben investigates Derry’s ugly history, the Librarian lingers in the fuzzy background, grinning maliciously. Not one adult exhibits empathy for these kids, including Bill’s dad or Stan’s rabbi father. Certainly not Bev’s father, who inhales his daughter’s hair like she’s fresh out of the oven, and obsesses over her virginity with a fervor that would make even President Trump uncomfortable (or envious, if we're being honest). In some ways, the more visceral nature of the film captures Derry’s innate badness more clearly than the hundreds of pages King devotes to the subject in his novel. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand pages.

Muschietti and his casting director also got the casting perfect. As with the films of JJ Abrams, criticize all you want, but it's impossible to trash the impeccable casting choices. Each of these kids perfectly embodies the characters they portray. Kudos especially go to Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Finn Wolfhard as Ben, Bev, Eddie, and Richie. Ben’s beautiful sensitivity, Bev’s intense devotion and passion, Eddie’s passive-aggressive resolve, and Richie’s unending stream of bullshit are as sharp and resonant here as they are on the page. Even Jaeden Lieberher, as Bill, and Chosen Jacobs, as Mike, look and feel right. Unfortunately, the script makes some poor choices with their characters that nearly derails the film. But more on that in a bit. Without a doubt, these kids are legit actors. No scene better proves this than the swimming scene in which everyone is stripped to their underwear and dives into the lake from the frighteningly high cliff. The scene could have been incredibly exploitative as the boys ogle Bev, but instead the quality of these performances makes their pubescent sexual discovery innocent and real. Consider this a great contrast with the perverse exchanges Bev has with the adult world. It is both ironic and terrifying that Bev is perceived more as an object by adults than by teenage boys.

While the film finds many of its most effective scares in the presentation of Derry, and the juxtaposition of innocent and corrupt images, the advertisements promise that we will be scared senseless by Pennywise the Dancing Clown. As portrayed by Bill Skarsgard, this Pennywise bears little resemblance to the seductive, menacing clown Tim Curry created for the 1990 ABC television miniseries. Skarsgard’s Pennywise is serpentine, alien, with dead eyes and a slithering voice. His costuming suggests his age, and the cracks in his makeup reveal a facade. This Pennywise is less playful and charismatic, and hungrier. He drools as he corners the kids in the Neibolt house. And his shapeshifting is frightening, especially when he presents himself to Eddie as a relentless leper. Skarsgard’s performance is wonderful and wholly his own. He will invite comparisons to the iconic Curry, but ultimately his Pennywise will stand alone.

IT’s success as a film can be broken down into these three elements: Derry, the kids, and the creepiness of Pennywise. But its failure can also be broken down into three parts, too.

1) The absence of a thematic soul

2) The abandonment of characterization

3) The confusion of style for substance

A LOSS OF SOUL

A great adaptation isn’t necessarily about doing the book, but about capturing the soul of the book (or finding a soul no one even knew existed, ala The Godfather or The Shining). A movie can look the part, but if it fails to reveal that essence of spirit, it will eventually crumble. In the case of IT, the movie is about as hollow as the space behind Pennywise’s eyes.

The soul of this story is the children's belief. Outside of a generic, “We gotta believe in each other!” idea to which much lip service is paid, these kids are bereft of belief in anything. This is an atheist interpretation of Stephen King's story, in which our Loser’s Club prefer brute force over imagination. In the film’s climax, Bill leads the charge against Pennywise by picking up a bat and swinging at the clown’s head. All the Losers join him. The result looks remarkable, as each strike causes the clown to transform into each child's fear, but it is a graceless, uninspired physical solution to a metaphysical problem. It also ruins Pennywise. How evil can he truly be when all it takes is an angry mob armed with sticks to bring him down?

Throughout King's novel, the Losers seek many ways to defeat the demon. They melt down the silver dollars. Eddie’s inhaler becomes a chemical weapon. Stan’s bird book is a shield, the names of the birds his mantra. And the kids buy into Native American rituals, like the Ritual of CHUD, to confront IT. Obviously, the shift in setting from the 1950s to 1980s meant losing some of these talismans. After all, the 50s Wolfman, when compared to the 80s Freddy Krueger, is a flaccid nightmare. But every monster has a weakness, even human ones. The Losers spend no time thinking on this.

Indeed, Muschetti strips them of their creativity completely. Gone is Ben’s architectural acumen, which nearly flooded the Barrens and provided an underground club house. Bill’s storytelling, which keeps the group focused, is generically spread amongst all of them. Even Bev's love for fashion and art is lost. It's shocking to me how Muschetti removed the core elements from each of these characters, leaving only their gimmicks -- Bill’s st-st-stutter, Ben’s girth, Bev’s cigarette smoking, Richie’s humor, Eddie's hypochondria, Stan’s Judaism, and Mike’s blackness. In the need to appeal to every demographic, these characters were stripped for parts.

It is a testament to the strength of the performances by this group of kids that the Losers have any flavor whatsoever. The script provides them no depth, only set pieces and surface sentiment, yet they are convincing for awhile in the dark. But like Pennywise’s many facades, eventually they slide off and there's nothing remaining.

The soul of King's story is belief, imagination, and the collective power of childlike purity. Andy Muschetti’s adaptation is more in love with Halloween maze scares than it is with pursuing these ideas. His vision of defeating our fears involves angry children with sticks, not wounded children with imagination. Audiences may like the cathartic release that comes with beating the shit out of the monster, but it does nothing to feed their souls.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

I already alluded to the surface qualities that pass for characterization in IT, but it goes a bit deeper than this. Character interaction is essential to building great characters, and this is where IT fails epically.

To prove this, let’s take a closer look at Bill Denborough.

Bill is arguably the most important of our protagonists, especially in King's novel. The story begins with him making a paper boat for his brother and sealing it with wax so it will float in the gutter water outside. The death of Georgie becomes a source of guilt and shame for Bill. And since his parents pay little to no attention to him, Bill is made to face these overwhelming feelings alone. It is his determination and inner strength that propels him to lead the Losers in their quest to put an end to IT. But, this quest, while certainly obsessive, is rooted in shame and love. Bill loves each of his friends and often goes off alone because he fears their fate will be his fault, as he believes Georgie’s fate to be his fault. This is the source of Bill’s maturity, which sets him apart from everyone else in the club. Because of Bill’s maturity, the Losers follow him without much question. They are devoted to him as a leader and friend, and willingly choose to lay down their lives if need be.

This is far from the way Bill is presented in the film. He is a Captain Ahab, chasing his white clown into the sewers of Derry. He likes his friends, but often doesn't concern himself with their feelings. In fact, at one point Richie throws a punch at Bill and the two fight over their pursuit of the monster. This Bill is not a leader; he is a dictator. He lacks empathy, and mostly cares for himself. Even worse, his quest is no longer rooted in shame, but in pure vengeance. Bill doesn't express his self-loathing at what happened to Georgie. Instead, at the end of the film, when Pennywise presents Itself as Georgie, Bill just punches IT in the face.

The shift in Bill is a subtle one, but has huge consequences for the story. By changing his leadership style, it makes the other Losers look more like followers of fear than a group of equals. In many ways, Bill is no different than the crazy bully Henry Bowers, whose friends follow him out of fear. Like Henry, Bill is on a mission to destroy, has little regard for the consequences of his actions, gets others involved who don't necessarily want to be, and doesn't listen to reason. Yet, we like Bill and hate Henry because Bill stutters and Henry likes carving his initials into the bellies of defenseless fat kids.

This is not to say Bill isn't the hero, but that Muschetti misfires with Bill by removing his core empathy and giving the character over completely to obsession. While the rest of the characters don't fare as badly as Bill does, each loses something, mainly through the cutting of interactions. On a basic level, we see this in the fact that Bev only interacts with Bill and Ben through most of the movie, yet is presented as the symbol of group unity. She can't even be bothered to share a smoke with Richie, or have a conversation with Stan and Mike.

Bill and Bev certainly present issues in characterization, but no character is more problematic than Mike Hanlon. There have already been several insightful thinkpieces about the treatment of Mike that there is little I can add, but the gist is this: Mike is presented as a token black character for no reason. Granted, most of these characters are tokens in their own way, so it stands to reason Mike would receive no better treatment. It was a struggle for me to watch one of my favorite characters in the novel reduced to a handsome black face that has to face the racist white bully. It was harder to watch Mike's love for history handed over to Ben. Mike deserved better.

All of these wonderful characters deserved better. This is what happens when style trumps substance.

THE NEW HORROR AESTHETIC

IT is the culmination of the trend in cheap seat horror to rely on the jump scare as the source of terror. No horror film of this variety has handled this trope better than Muschetti’s film. Arguably, Muschetti has perfected the jump scare. His film is a maze at Knott’s Scary Farm or Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights waiting to happen. The soundtrack is pitched to screamtastic levels. Put a camera on audiences and every 5-7 minutes, prepare to see people grabbing each other or jumping like William Castle had come back from the dead to put a tingler in their seat.

This reliance on the jump scare is aided by a color palette washed in sepia tones and deeper reds, which enable the clown to do his Jack-in-Box routine in darkness that can't elicit laughter. Muschetti and his postproduction team nailed the look of this film like mad scientists.

The beauty of this is that audiences love IT. This is a horror movie that feels like a horror film. Yet, IT remains safe, like those scary carnival mazes. When you're creeping your way through one, every darkened corner promises danger, but behind all that tension you know none of the masked employees can touch you without legal repercussion. Sadly, IT isn't allowed to touch you either. Promises of danger lurk around every shot, but it is all bark and no bite.

Take the Neibolt Street House sequence. There's a clever moment in which Bill and Richie, separated from Eddie, try to find him before Pennywise gets him and are presented with three doors to escape. The doors are labeled “Not Scary,” “Scary,” and “Very Scary.” Of course the boys take the first one, and are presented with a frightening image. You would imagine they would be forced to take the third door, but instead they double down on the “Not Scary” path and are rewarded for their cowardice. This is the ultimate in style over substance. The scene looks perfect, but says and does nothing.

Still, the aesthetic is convincing. This is how we want horror movies to look, even if they have nothing to say.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF IT

Since Warner Bros.’s sinks are exploding with dollar bills right now, IT will have a seismic impact on the popular culture landscape. Some things are inevitable: we will get a “Chapter Two” featuring the adults returning to Derry for a final showdown with IT. We can also expect more horror movies. Will we get more clown flicks? I'm sure there's plenty of those being prepared for VOD as I write this.

What I am more concerned about is the state of horror film. Over the last decade, we have seen a renaissance in indie horror. Get Out, It Follows, The Babadook, The Witch, The Invitation, Cheap Thrills, Starry Eyes, Goodnight Mommy, and Raw are a few of the most notable titles. This movement has brought a variety of styles and an emergence of new voices unlike anything we’ve seen since the 70s. Even a big budget haunted house franchise like The Conjuring reinforced the brilliance of James Wan and reminded us of the power in the traditional horror story amidst all the rebels.

IT feels like a sea change, though. The Conjuring made tons of money, but it didn't make this kind of money. And while The Conjuring felt traditional, IT is being presented as something new. People are talking about it like it's different. Joe Hill, King's son and respected novelist, called IT “one of the five best horror movies I've ever seen.” This movie is a hydrogen bomb on pop culture, especially as it arrived on the heels of the poorest performing summer box office in 20 years. This movie isn't just new, it's a savior.

So while we can expect more Stephen King remakes and adaptations, we can also expect less money for horror indies. Studios will want more movies to look and feel like IT, and in this narrowing marketplace, that has the potential to choke out the little guy. This is the true horror.

I hope I am wrong. Horror films are cheap to make. That is their appeal for young filmmakers looking to make a mark. Hopefully this doesn't change.

The Stephen King fan in me celebrates the love IT is receiving around the world. The cinephile in me is afraid of what this means for horror cinema going forward.

#IT #Stephen King #Film Adaptation #Horror Movies #Finn Wolfhard #Sophia Lillis #Jeremy Ray Taylor #Chosen Jacobs #Jack Dylan Grazer #Andy Muschietti #Bill Skarsgard #Film Analysis

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pirirps · 7 years

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Piri’s Ultimate List Of Horror Recs (2017 Version)

my go-to compilation of ever single horror/horror-related media i’ve ever enjoyed, including slashers, paranormal, thrillers, creature features, and much, much more 🎃

note: this list has trigger warnings but i am operating under the assumption that you are okay with the standard level of explicit sexuality, vulgarity, violence, and gore present in mainstream horror

horror

original nightmare on elm street series, but especially 1, 3, 4, 6, and freddy vs. jason (tw for implied pedophilia and explicit child murder, tw for rape in #6)

friday the 13th (original and remake)

honestly all the friday the 13th sequels are A Treasure but if you want The Core Canon watch 1-3

my bloody valentine (original)

psycho (original) and tbh all its sequels (tw for sort-of-kind-of incest vibes)

psycho ii and psycho iv are my favorites because (1) meg tilly is adorable in psycho ii and (2) psycho iv has a harley quinn/norman bates cameo and nobody can convince me otherwise

child’s play, child’s play 2, bride of chucky, maybe some sequels after that idk i haven’t seen them yet :(

scream franchise

not the mtv scream series

i mean s1 is decent but there are definitely other horror shows that i would recommend more (will show up later in this post)

1-3 are the best, 4 is worth watching if you really like the characters but as a concept the series has p much run its course by then

tw for rape mentions in scream 1 and 3

predator

peeping tom

kenneth branagh’s frankenstein (tw for a graphic depiction of death in childbirth)

james whale’s frankenstein

bride of frankenstein

the phantom of the opera (1925)

the phantom of the opera (1989) (tw for mild body/surgical horror, general grossness; personally speaking, this is one of my all-time favorite phantom adaptations, because 1. robert englund as the phantom hello oh my god, 2. although it’s much more of a slasher movie than a gothic romance, it does an amazing job of portraying the tragedy in erik’s backstory and his attraction to christine, without implying that he is entitled to christine’s affection and that her love will magically fix him, as some phantom adaptations do)

the phantom of the opera (1943)

alien franchise

the wolfman (2010)

darling (tw for rape)

house on haunted hill (original and remake)

final destination franchise

medium raw: night of the wolf (tw for pedophilia and child murder)

the babadook

the final girls [horror comedy]

the shining (tw for implied child abuse)

the cabin in the woods

hellraiser (tw for incest-y vibes for very brief periods of time)

heathers (tw for eating disorders, suicide, everything high school kids are insensitive assholes about)

from dusk til dawn

an american werewolf in london

the guest

it follows (tw for dubious consent)

nightwatch (tw for implied necrophilia/descriptions of necrophilia, self-mutilation)

re-animator (tw for rape, pedophilia mentions)

carrie (original) (tw for child abuse, religious iconography)

the remake had some interesting like... subtext/imagery but other than that it was pretty *wet fart noise*

the awakening

the craft

the blair witch project

honestly i loved the book of shadows: blair witch 2 bc it kind of parallels the crucible but i can admit that objectively it is Terrible

elvira, mistress of the dark [spooky comedy]*

american mary (tw for rape, (consensual surgical) genital mutilation)

fright night (original and remake)

jaws

listen. this is a horror movie. it was a horror book before that. it was specifically written and later adapted for the purpose of scaring and entertaining people. real life is nothing like this. real sharks are nothing like this. there’s nothing wrong with this movie scaring you but there is everything wrong with using this movie as an excuse to advocate for the wholesale slaughter of animals. sharks are quite possibly the most graceful and beautiful creatures on this earth and i will personally fight anyone who says otherwise

halloween franchise

1-5 are the best imo but no matter what skip #3 because it literally has nothing to do with any of the other movies

not the rob zombie remakes, those are awful

let the right one in [swedish (?) film, watch with subtitles]

rosemary’s baby (original)

night of the living dead (original)

28 days later

suspiria

silent hill (tw for child molestation)

crimson peak (tw for incest)

the lost boys

interview with the vampire

the ring

one missed call

the raven (2012)

repo! the genetic opera

teeth (tw for rape, incest, it’s??????? about a girl who literally has razor-sharp teeth in her vagina and it’s a very tongue-in-cheek commentary on religious repression???? so idk like it’s a wild ride and i love it but watch at your own discretion)

american psycho (tw for rape, general misogyny)

sweeney todd

speaking from experience, this is much better live, the movie sucked out all the fun and humor that wasn’t literally written into the lyrics, so i recommend watching the original broadway cast on youtube or something

there’s also a 1936 movie which i haven’t seen so i can’t speak to its quality BUT i would recommend it on the basis of it being made before the musical was created and thus being based more directly on “the string of pearls” novel which is where the sweeney todd urban legend was originally documented

abott and costello meet [insert universal horror monster here] [spooky comedy]

little shop of horrors (original and remake) [spooky comedy]

the last man on earth (1964)

adapted from the same book i am legend (2007) was adapted from but the last man on earth stays much closer to the original book imo

c. h. u. d.

ghostbusters (1984 and 2016 versions)*

ghost ship

sick girl (tw for bugs, pregnancy horror)

misery (tw for torture)

puppet master series (tw for rape, nazism)

the haunting in connecticut

zombieland**

jurassic park series

lizzie borden took an axe

wolf creek (tw for rape)

it (1990, 2017)

i have........ some nitpicky issues about putting it on this list, because neither movie adaptation really did justice to the whole concept of “derry itself is an extension of an eldritch horror and the real scary part of the story isn’t the clown, it’s the horrible violent tragedies that have repeatedly occurred and then been dismissed throughout derry’s history, leaving the entire town in a large-scale sort of cycle of abuse” so ????????????? idk like i truly do recommend reading the book as well as seeing the movies for The Whole It Experience(TM), but i totally get that not everyone is gonna do that

the 1990 version tells more or less the complete story, but because of that it didn’t have time to include a lot of fun details

the 2017 version only tells the childhood portion of the story, which leaves it time to include fun details. i was really hoping to see more of derry’s backstory or more development on mike and stan as members of marginalized groups -> how that influences their life in derry, but we didn’t get much of that? mike’s importance to the losers (researcher, somewhat of a skeptic/hardass at times to keep the others together) was removed, his healthy family dynamic was removed (mike, richie, and possibly stan are the only characters in the book with healthy family dynamics, somewhat underscoring the concept that derry itself is trapped in a cycle of abuse), and derry’s history of racism is never touched on aside from the kids mentioning “the fire at the black spot” a couple times in passing. overall it was a fun movie and you can tell everyone making it had a blast but compared to the book it’s like. mmmmmmmmmmmmm

BASICALLY what i’m saying here is that the book is really deep wrt social issues, and while neither movie really touches on those concepts in-depth, they are still good horror movies on their own and ofc a part of american pop culture

house of wax (1953)

marnie (tw for rape, abuse and coercion in a marriage dynamic, animal/pet death, graphic depictions of psychological abuse, graphic depiction of a violent death involving a child)

cabin fever (tw for sickness horror/body function horror/unsanitary horror, occasional slurs)

mega shark vs. giant octopus

i don’t even have a real reason for listing this i just can’t believe it exists and i want the whole world to know

texas chainsaw massacre (1974), texas chainsaw massacre 2, texas chainsaw 3d

ju-on: the grudge

phantoms

the plot is pretty ehhh imo but the effects are great; rose mcgowan is gorgeous as always, peter o’toole’s character is great, and ben affleck’s character lowkey has some batman circa arkham knight vibes going on. also, liev schrieber becomes a tentacle monster. i couldn’t make this shit up if i tried y’all

vamps*

this movie. this movie

krysten ritter and alicia silverstone are a couple of vampires, sigourney weaver is their hot mess of a vampire mom, dan stevens is krysten ritter’s boyfriend, wallace shawn is van helsing but he’s basically just vizzini: vampire hunter au and it’s GOLD

it’s literally the cutest and funniest vampire media i’ve ever seen in my life as well as one of the most detailed when it comes to vampire lore i cannot recommend it enough

bram stoker’s dracula

death becomes her**

what we do in the shadows**

disturbia

frankenstein (2004 miniseries, more like a 2-part movie than a tv show)

flatliners (1990) (tw for drug use, uncensored depictions of cadaver dissection)

the cabinet of dr. caligari

the limehouse golem (tw for sexual assault and csa)

repulsion (tw for sexual assault)

the trial (1962)

*spooky comedy: a comedy movie with a spooky premise that i am categorizing with horror movies due to the genre overlap, but that lacks the intense violence, gore, etc. of a horror movie

**horror comedy: a spooky comedy that does not lower the level of violence, gore, etc. that is standard in a horror movie

thrillers

stoker (tw for incest, has a scene in which the protag’s mother verbally abuses her)

m [german film, watch with subtitles] (tw for themes of pedophilia/child molestation/child murder, but it’s worth noting that the whole point of the movie is to condemn and demonize pedophilia)

also one of if not the very first detective movies

nightcrawler (tw for rape)

the vvitch/the witch/however the fuck it’s spelled

rear window (1954)

zodiac

hannibal lecter franchise (tw for cannibalism, obviously)-- the silence of the lambs, hannibal, red dragon, manhunter

manhunter is adapted from the same book red dragon is (red dragon) except manhunter was made before anthony hopkins became The Iconic Hannibal Lecter(TM) so it focuses much more on will graham and francis dolarhyde

hannibal rising is worth watching for gaspard ulliel’s performance but the book was much better

the hannibal movie adaptation changed the ending of the hannibal book while still maintaining a really good and really compelling storyline so the book and movie are definitely both highly recommended by me

gone girl

shutter island (tw for asylum horror)

pan’s labyrinth

tiger house

the champagne murders

the plot and pacing are a little ehhh; in my opinion there was too much tension buildup between characters and not enough actual plot development. BUT, anthony perkins is in it so it’s worth watching if you love him like i do

documentaries

cropsey (documentary on child murders)

urban legends (another documentary, by the same people, talks about how real-life crime affects the american psyche and lives on as urban legends/horror tropes)

the poisoner’s handbook

h. h. holmes

nightmares in red, white, and blue

his name was jason

never sleep again: the elm street legacy

american ripper [currently ongoing tv series]

television/youtube

bates motel

ahs s1 (tw for... literally everything)

slasher

similar basic premise as ahs, but imo ahs is v exploitative and builds the plot on violence and vice, whereas slasher builds the violence and vice on the plot

supernatural (LISTEN........ LISTEN....................... conceptually it’s the bees knees okay)

penny dreadful (tw for constant explicit sexuality, religious iconography/sacrilege, asylum horror)

criminal minds

bbc broadchurch

bbc river

bbc sherlock but literally only ep. 3.4 “the abominable bride”

rosemary’s baby (2-part made-for-tv movie)

unedited footage of a bear

marblehornets

true detective

frankenstein (2004 miniseries, more like a 2-part movie than a tv show)

tbs’ search party

podcasts

the black tapes podcast

small town horror

alice isn’t dead

king falls am [spooky comedy, more sci-fi than horror but there is One Episode that positively screams “love letter to 80s horror movies” so i can’t leave it out with good conscience]

limetown

welcome to night vale [spooky comedy]

the dark tome

video games

until dawn

outlast series

five nights at freddy’s

dead by daylight

bioshock

#recs #horror #*mine #masterlist

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wahbegan · 7 years

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Gather ‘round, children, while i begrudgingly hyper-analyze everything in the THIRD IT (2017) trailer

You know the drill by now i’m putting a read more here because even if i try to be brief which i’m going to try it always ends up failing soooo yeah

1. So it opens with something very similar to the MTV first look, with Stan’s frankly fucking depressing Bar Mitzvah speech that should really concern any adults present, and several similar shots to that trailer. The one thing is we see Bill and Bev engage in a bit of flirty pre-teen eye contact at the watering hole, and Stan’s bit about “you think the universe revolves around you....but that isn’t true” COULD be foreshadowing some of the more cosmic themes in the story

2. This looks like probably The Losers making their blood oath? Idk when else they stand in a circle and join hands like that and it’s definitely after the bullies have broken Eddie’s arm due to his cast. Now the LOSER with a V scrawled over the S isn’t from the book i don’t think but i assume the LOSER was put there by the same bullies who gave him the cast in the first place and someone i’m guessing Bev probably put the V over it

3. The red balloon floating out from behind the Warner Bros logo is a nice touch

4. The couple in the car is just a random couple illustrating ITs control over the people of the town, making them apathetic to the ghastly shit going on actually i think they were in the book too, they just drive past when Henry’s trying to carve his name into Ben’s stomach and a red balloon floats up in the backseat minus the red balloon i think that is a pull straight out of the novel

5. I WAS TOTALLY RIGHT ABOUT PENNYWISE’S EYES A HA!!! They in my first breakdown i said i thought it looked like they were doing the thing where Georgie sees his eyes as yellow at first and then It changes them to blue to gain his trust and this basically confirms it. Also first sample of Pennywise’s voice and it sounds pretty durn spooky

6. The shot of the empty storm drain makes me think that rather than pulling his arm off which would be extremely gruesome even for a hard R horror movie and more importantly hard to do without showing ITs transformation, which is only hinted at in the book as something soul-shatteringly horrifying, they’re probably gonna like It grabs Georgie’s arm, he looks in fear and starts screaming his head off, his screams cut off, and it’s implied that It dragged him bodily down into the sewers. That’s also later in the trailer Bill says something about “another Georgie going missing”, which seems to confirm that. That would also explain why Georgie’s “ghost” in later scenes has both arms intact

7. So Mike’s talking about his grandfather (Mike is the like town historian of the group and i’m glad they’re keeping that intact cause they totally ditched it in Fukunaga’s script), which is interesting cause it’s actually Mike’s Dad in the original that passes on the lore of It and talks about the Black Spot burning down but since the setting’s been updated to the ‘80s, it makes sense that they’d change it to his grandfather. Anyway, while Mike’s talking about that, you can see the Bangor Maine statue of Paul Bunyan that later comes to life and attacks Richie Tozier in the novel, which is a nice touch

8. Ben in the library, now i earlier talked about how Ben it’s weird that It makes Its presence known here, because in the book it’s just kind of there’s a little bit of foreshadowing with the librarian reading the Billy Goats Gruff to the children, but for the most part it’s just like Ben being a kid and writing the poem for Bev. Now this kind of explains why, apparently he’s actually doing some research on It, which i mean makes sense they’re gonna have to cut out some of the longer just like character establishing scenes or mix them with scare scenes to make it into a 2 hour movie, even if they are only doing half. Anyway, the articles he’s looking at reference the Kitchener Ironworks explosion, the event that sent It back into hibernation in 1906, and the Silver Dollar Massacre, the event that woke It up in 1904.

9. Woodcutting of It, which seems to....in going back to what i said before True Detective and Beasts of No Nation’s Cary Fukunaga wrote a script treatment for It a couple years ago and it fell apart due to him trying to shoehorn in really bizarre and fucked-up scenes of sexual violence involving children but they are taking elements of that and inspiration from it, it looks like and anyway in that script (which you can find online with a bit of digging) Ben is the town historian instead of Mike, so especially since the projector coming to life scene seems to have taken the place of the old picture book from Mike’s Dad coming to life scene this is probably where the book with the history of Derry is introduced in the plot is instead of being from Mike’s Dad, it’s just a book Ben finds in the library. I personally don’t like it cause i really, REALLY want like Mike to basically be 100% the Haunted House Historian of the group because otherwise his role is like.....y’know Token Black Kid(TM) but anyway no opinions yet just analysis moving right along

10. Georgie’s “ghost” with a red balloon leading Bill down into the basement it looks like i was right and first of all this does confirm it’s in the Denbroughs’ basement, but it looks like i was right and this is how he first encounters It, rather than a picture of Georgie leering and winking at him and then bleeding all over the place which i mean from a cinematic perspective makes sense it’s more dramatic leaves more room for tension to be built. Then again, they could also be doing both, with the picture being sort of a lead-up scare to the basement, i mean it looks at the beginning like Bill is in Georgie’s room i’m just guessing based on the wallpaper when he notices the wet tracks leading downstairs

ALSO i didn’t catch this until now but Bill is holding and subsequently drops a lego turtle which is a nice reference to the novel, although apparently according to Muschietti, that’s about the only reference we’re getting to The Turtle which....hrrrngggg

11. Pennywise attacking Bev in her bathroom. Now, she is wearing the same shirt as she is in the blood/black liquid geyser scene, so i assume it’s right after that she doesn’t appear to have anything on her but it wouldn’t very well be....see i’m having trouble with the chronology here because it doesn’t really make sense for It to grab her and THEN she hears voices in the sink, but...all i can think of is after in the book after she hears the voices and the geyser comes out and she sends her dad away, she cleans up the bathroom and sticks a tape measure down the drain trying to see how far it goes, and then It grabs it and starts running with it and laughing and then lets go and it snaps back and the end’s covered in blood and It talks to her again. This could be right after that or instead of that, that’s the only place i can think of it fitting in. Like the tape measure snaps back and she goes to leave and Pennywise is right there OR fake-out, she sticks the tape measure down nothing happens....nothing happens....nothing happens....and it looks like you’re in the clear and then Pennywise is right there which could work

12. If you pause at the shot of the gang in the street, you can still see a huge gash on Ben’s stomach, and Bev’s face looks a bit fucked up too. Now Ben’s in a different shirt than he is when Henry cuts him, and it’s not an H, plus Henry lifted his shirt up, it’s just a huge gash, which makes me think this is right after the werewolf scene at 29 Neibolt Street. Okay yeah i just looked and they’re all in the same outfits they’re in in that scene, so. Now what’s weird is Eddie doesn’t...appear to be with them in this shot? Unless he’s just off-screen, idk what that’s about cause we clearly see him going in with them and inside, maybe he just left the gang to go home first cause of his mom, i dunno.

13. Betty Ripsom’s sneaker, as seen in the MTV first look, one of Its first victims

14. Henry Bowers flicking open a switchblade standing next to his mailbox pretty much confirms my theory that that’s what him walking towards the red balloon was about. His face is a bit fucked up, probably his Dad’s doing. Now in the book there’s no one incident with his abusive father that pushes him over the edge, it’s just told in backstory that he’s a war vet with PTSD and possible brain damage who’s been abusive to Henry his whole life and only shows him approval when he’s doing terrible, horrible things, but they really don’t have room to fit that in the movie, so they’ll probably just have one scene of his Dad going apeshit on him and this’ll be right after that (also kinda like Fukunaga’s script)

15. Couple shots of It in the sewers, what’s weird here is that in what appears to be the basement to the house on 29 Neibolt Street, there’s a well entrance? Which isn’t exactly present in the novel i don’t think but would explain how It gets from the sewers up into that house and why It likes to haunt it so much

16. The woman right between the shot of the well and the shot of the pharmacist, i believe is Eddie’s emotionally abusive Munchausen by Proxy-afflicted mother based on her description in the book but idk i’d have to look at the cast

17. Gotta be honest, right about here the trailer starts moving too fast for me to follow effectively and there’s some stuff that i can’t really place, even if i pause, but i’ll do my best. No idea what the red glow is. I don’t think The Deadlights given that they’d all be shrieking and insane or dead

18. It seems to be standing behind plastic curtains like they have in slaughterhouses here? I have no idea why, nothing like that in the novel, although Mike’s Dad owns a slaughterhouse in Fukunaga’s script, so idk that could be it. I hope not honestly and it doesn’t really look like anything real, It just looks like some bizarre dreamscape It’s conjured up. It is worth noting i forgot until just now, but one of Its forms the actor credited as playing it is credited as “The Butcher”, so that could be right before It transforms into that form to hunt....someone at some time, idk when or who. Also Its eyes seem to be going full Deadlights here so i’m guessing whoever It’s hunting doesn’t make it out alive

19. I’ve been racking my brain since i first watched the trailer like two hours ago and i have no earthly idea why the hell Bev’s floating. I can’t even....begin to guess. I mean floating could be....it could be this movie’s way of visualizing someone partaking in The Ritual of Chud, which Bev never does in the novel in either Ritual so this would be a radical departure but idk i wouldn’t mind somehow i don’t think that’s what it is though, especially since the spider’s nowhere to be seen. I have no idea what it is, but...one thing that does come to mind is it could be...ugh in Fukunaga’s script which it really looks like they’re sticking with in large part more and more at least the first draft of it which is...look it’s mainly the subsequent draft that’s weird and gross and shitty but i wasn’t crazy about the first draft either and one of the reasons i wasn’t is because in Its lair, rather than a giant spider, they go into this weird room where physics stops applying and they float up these waterfalls that go up to the ceiling and there’s this upside-down pool with a big one-eyed starfish monster at the bottom/top of it that’s supposed to be Its true form and i.....really, REALLY didn’t like that and her floating up like this could be something similar to that and they’re all gonna float up to wherever Its true form resides which once again i’m hoping is not the case

20. Looks like Mike’s being attacked by several pairs of burnt hands here, it looks like down in the sewer, so i think it’s safe to assume that’ll be Its preferred form when trying to terrorize him, which makes sense seeing as how his Dad (or i guess Grandfather in this) is the one who tells the story of the people who burned in the Black Spot

21. The Losers screaming and trying to pull, who is that? Eddie? Out of the sewer idk not much to go on

22. Probably how Pennywise first shows himself in the house on 29 Neibolt rather than jumping out of an exploded toilet drain, which is fine. WHAT I LOVE is that his upside-down contorted position, besides being creepy as fuck, seems to imply he’s gonna do some kind of Exorcist spider-walk out of the closet, which would be awesome foreshadowing

23. The long, creepy female arm reaching out behind Bill doesn’t correspond to any of Its known forms, but is probably this mysterious “Judith” we’ve heard teased at in production who’s said to be absolutely horrifying.

24. Andres Muschietti has said in no uncertain terms that It’s not going to turn into any “classic” monsters in this movie, including the werewolf, but It’s definitely turning into something Werewolf-esque here. I mean, well to be fair It specifically turns into The Teenage Werewolf in the novel/mini-series, and It could just be that he meant It wasn’t going to turn into that, It still turns into some kind of werewolf. Or it could be that Muschietti was straight-up lying WHO KNOWS

25. I have....no idea what the hell is around Ben’s neck here. I’ve paused and been staring at it, but....I was thinking maybe spiderwebs but it doesn’t really look like it? And also they’re so thick and sticky in the book that if you touch one when you try to pull away you leave flesh behind, so that would be...problematic to be wrapped around his neck. It also doesn’t really look like spiderwebs? More like ragged material from Pennywise’s clown costume? Actually, it could also i mean The Werewolf and The Mummy were the two forms Muschietti explicitly stated It would NOT be taking in this movie, but this definitely looks like those could be mummy wrappings around his neck so idk maybe explicitly saying “he’s not gonna turn into a werewolf or a mummy” was a deliberate misdirect and this is some kind of version of the mummy encounter

26. Stan getting grabbed by Pennywise. The background is pitch black and he’s in the same shirt he’s in in that shot in the MTV first look where he looks terrified that i theorized was the standpipe, so this is i mean i’m pretty much 100% sure it’s the same scene, the question is whether i was right about it being in The Standpipe. But seeing as how it’s pitch-black and all and drowned kids are still scary, it probably is, i don’t see why they’d change that scene

27. I think this is Patrick Hockstetter at the end with the fire? Idk in Fukunaga’s script he’s a pyromaniac and his most notable scene from the book has him lighting farts on fire in the junkyard, so it’d make sense and it looks like Owen Teague more than anyone from what i can tell. Anyway, he looks completely terrified, but he also looks like he’s down in the sewers, which means they’ve definitely changed at least some aspects of his death from the book which i’m a bit upset about because that scene was....infamous and revolting and genuinely disturbing. Oh well

28. Finally, the scene with Richie Tozier in the room full of clown dolls. Not sure where this would fit in, as it’s an entirely new scene, nothing like it in the novel, the mini-series, or Fukunaga’s scrapped script. I thought maybe it would be Richie’s encounter with It instead of getting attacked by the statue since that could definitely come across as camp, but they definitely still have the statue and idk why if they plan on ditching that scene, unless it’s just as a little nod or they plan on doing something more subtle with it. Then again, when Richie runs into the statue, he’s running from Henry Bowers and his gang, who chase him through a toy store so actually yeah it definitely could be during that part and the statue will be put to different use, maybe giving him a subtle little taunt or wink after he’s escaped the clown doll room.

I know there are things i didn’t talk about, but it’s because they’re shots from the other trailers which i’d already discussed

Oh yeah, speaking of which, if you want, you can check out

My first trailer breakdown My second trailer breakdown And my crash course in Pennywisology 101

#Stephen King's It #It 2017

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sweetdollfromhell · 7 years

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So I know it's either too early or too late for that but… Here are my theories and wishes for riverdales season 2.

1. Chip Cooper: I'm excited to see Betty's brother but I hope we will not get the same stupidity as in gossip girl. I don’t want FP to be the father of Alice's baby. But he does not have to be the son of Hal necessarily. I would also like him to be a badass as in comics (He is an FBI agent). Finally, I know that the casting is not always accurate for the age of the characters but I have my doubts about Ross Lynch be the lost brother of Betty and Polly: he look to young and it ruins the suspense. I think he is a red herring and will play another character to let us by surprise by the revelation.

2. Fred will not be dead (for now). Probably in the comas but I believe that in the end, he will die. It's a way to keep Archie in Riverdale, His mother, without being perfect, does not seem to be of the sort to separate his son from his father in such a tragic situation.

3. We'll see Gladys and Jelly Bean. I think Jelly Bean will be sick because Jughead to talk about hospital bill with no reason. FP would very well join the serpents to pay the care of his daughter. This would also make the behavior of Jughead's mother more understandable. If she alone can look after a seriously ill child, she may not be able to take care of her son too + she may sincerely not know how bad the situation of Jughead is. But if I'm wrong, look at me well come with the signs I hate Glady Jones. Oh and Jelly Bean will probably wrap the fandom around her little finger.

4. I believe Hiriam will be good for make us forget that he is not a good person. He will be a good husband, a good father, maybe even a good friend but definitely not a good person. I think he's trying to separate his daughter and Archie too. I also believe he will be an antagonist over several seasons.

5. I would like the show to explore Betty's mental illness problems and in a way realistically please.

6. Jughead will definitely find his dark side too. Whether Betty will follow him or leave him remains to be seen. (I hope they stay together but I understand if it happens).

7. I think Veronicas will become darker too, she will clearly be placed in a difficult situation between her father, her mother, Archie, Betty and the others. There will be no easy solution to satisfy everyone.

8. More Pussycats please: Josie, Valerie and Melody need more love and screen times!

9. It seems that we will have an episode centered on Kevin (yeah!!!!). I think he will have drama in his romantic life (Moose does not seem to want to get out of the closet and his heart was wounded by Joachim). We are supposed to learn more about her mother too. I have three theories about her: 1) She died under really odd circumstances and this will be one of the plots of this season. 2) She is in the army and that was the reason for her absence (Kevin is the son of two soldiers in comics). 3) She did not accept the homosexuality of her son and left them for it. I do not think we often see stories or it is the father who accepts the homosexuality of his son rather than the mother. In addition, if we lose Fred, we need a new good dad.

10. I hope the new Regiss will be as good as the previous one. As there are rumors of parring with Josie, I hope we get a jerk with a heart of gold for his personality.

11. For Sabrina, I read that she would be a human escaped from a cult perhaps played by Dove Cameron. Again I see 2 possibilities: 1) Your classical cult with a good inspiration of the chilling adventure of Sabrina with explain his bizarre beliefs. 2) She comes from a cult like the Latter-day Saints or batterros church and to believe in Wicca is his personal rebellion. (think Misty Day but not a real witch). For her aunts, I'm really split: one side I like the creepy aunts but it well cool too sees Zelda and Hilda be as a couple rather than sister and being a good family for Sabrina and Jughead.

12. Veronicas or Cherryl be bisexual. The two actresses said to be interested in played a character bis and if it is not just for the fanservice I am on board for that!

13. Now we need to talk about Chuck: I know this was a last minute replacement for a Reggis bow but that remains problematic. Two possibilities: 1) Give to him an enormous Freudian excuse and a redemption arc which makes him go through hell. Or 2) He has a cousin, brother, random guy who looks much more character and we forget not Chuck.

14. New characters we could see: Midge (I hope she will be a nice girl who serves as a beard for Moose voluntarily) Richy Rich (He can be a rich asshole or a good guy, dam you could make his father an expy by Donald Trump who is an opponent of Josie's mother),Raj Patel (we have seen his sister after all) Nancy (For a bow of redemption for Chuck or better, make her the talented artist!)Brigitte Reilly (Who would not love a girl proud of her curves and a talented musician; she could even make a duet with Archie).

15. For the new school of Jughead and by extension the snakes: Toni Topaz (She has already confirmed and she is a good friend of Jughead in the comics) Fang Fogarty (He is a bully in comics and Fang sounds a nickname someone who is trying to be frightening) Jinx Malloy (Only for the nickname again and for a character who is supposed to be unlucky, to be born on the wrong side probably counts) Cricket O’Dell (A girl who desperately needs money and seeks it by all means for more tragic reasons this time) Ambrose Pips (He was in little Archie, so making it a former childhood friend would be doable + It would be easy to merge the character with Sabrina's cousin who bears the same name, perhaps he helped his cousin escape from the cult ?) Trula Twiyst (she was fun in comics but with retreat, she is terrifying: She manipulates people to get what she wants, play with their heads and her behavior with Jughead can be close to yandere territory) Sassy Thrasher (Replace his skateboard with a motorcycle and you'll get a rebel punk with bad temper) Harvey Kinkle (I do not think Sabrina will be a snake but her boyfriend could be and you can keep the story about escaped from the sect with him).

16. DON’T YOU DARE KILL POLLY OR THE BABIES!!!!!!!!!! If you want to put them in the background or them all live on a farm with Nana Rose, very well. Just not use their dead for cheap drama.

17. I think it would be fun if the Halloween episode was based on one of Archie's horror stories: Legend about zombie, that Riverdale is a trial story for witchcraft, werewolf or vampire with our heroes having an ancestor victim of it respectively Betty and Cheryl, Jughead, Josie.

18. A flashback episode with the parents (maybe played by their children?)

Sorry, I had a lot to say (and I had to make a million mistakes) Thank you for reading me and do not hesitate to respond or say your ideas :)

#riverdale #season 2 #archie andrews #betty cooper #veronica lodge #jughead jones #cheryl blossom #josie mccoy #kevin keller #sabrina spellman

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wahbegan · 7 years

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GATHER ‘ROUND CHILDREN WHILE I HYPER-ANALYZE EVERY LITTLE THING IN THE IT (2017) TRAILER

1. First of all, Bill doesn’t stutter at all during the trailer. Now, i know in the book he stutters a lot less around his friends and his little brother, and there’s only him saying the one thing at the beginning to his brother and in the middle when he’s talking about the sewers, but i just hope they keep it intact cause it’s actually semi-important to the plot

2. You can see GULF WAX on the table of shit Bill is building the paper boat out of, not much to see here, it’s just what he waterproofs the boat he gives Georgie with BUT it’s just really nice how much attention to detail they’re clearly putting into this

3. The brothers have a tender moment after Bill makes Georgie the boat, which one of the things the miniseries didn’t make super clear but it’s almost bizarrely tender like they’re saying goodbye like they both on some level know they’re never gonna see each other again and that looks to be the same here

4. The street names and sawhorses with DERRY PUBLIC WORKS on them are another cool little detail reference to the novel

5. The bit where Pennywise pops up is very interesting to me because okay bear with me here he has blue eyes in that shot, right? Just Bill Skarsgard’s natural eye color i’m assuming. Later when Pennywise jump-scares the fuckitty shit out of Bill in the basement (more on that in a second) his eyes are a weird spooky yellow-green color and in most promo images his eyes are just straight-up yellow. This is significant just because, and idk if they put this much thought into it, but in the book when Pennywise first pops up in the storm drain he has yellow eyes and when Georgie looks again they’re blue, specifically the same shade of blue eyes that his mom and brother have. It’s implied to be a deliberate ploy on Pennywise’s part to gain Georgie’s trust. Anyway, that’d be cool if that made it into the movie.

6. The big sweeping shot of Derry is nice, we can clearly see the canal off to the right side of the screen which is important to a lot of the action, being where Ben first sees Pennywise and where minor character Eddie Corcoran meets his death by Creature from the Black Lagoon (Eddie’s little brother Dorsey was brutally killed by their abusive stepfather, an act of violence which starts Its feeding cycle, of which Georgie is the first victim and Eddie is one of the last; more on Its life-cycle momentarily)

7. The boy on the missing poster, Patrick Hockstetter, is a fairly minor character from the book, a creepy sociopath who believes he’s the only real thing in existence and other things exist solely for his amusement. He killed his baby brother when he was 5, tortures animals to death for fun and keeps their corpses in a fridge, and barely registers fear or even physical pain. He does, however, have a deep revulsion of leeches (relatable tbh) and Pennywise sends like an appendage of Itself in the form of a swarm of leeches with fly wings and mosquito suckers, flesh-colored leeches by the way that turn pink and then dark red as they suck your blood isn’t that lovely, to hide in his animal fridge and exsanguinate him before the main part of It shows up to drag him off and eat him. Interestingly, Pennywise, since Patrick doesn’t really fear anything, seems to be unable to decide what form to adopt when It takes him, and appears as a sort of running, melting wax type of figure a scene which is scary as fuck and i really hope makes it into the movie in some way, particularly since that’s really the only reason to include Patrick Hockstetter at all and we already know he’ll be making a physical appearance in the film since someone’s been cast as him.

8. Ben in the library, probably writing the poem that he later gives to Bev. Oddly enough, I don’t think Pennywise actually appears to him in the book during this part, so it’ll be interesting to see how much he makes his presence known. Is it just gonna be the balloon or will he pop out in Dracula form like he does when Ben re-visits the library as an adult? WHO KNOWS

9. When Eddie Kaspbrak finishes Bill’s thought “....clown. Yeah, I saw him too.”, it flashes to him outside the infamous 29 Neibolt Street. This is of course where a syphilitic homeless man propositions Eddie for oral sex and Pennywise later takes the form of the same man in a clown suit, the disease advanced to the point that it can be more accurately described as leprosy. Later in the trailer (right after THIS SEPTEMBER) we get a microsecond-long flash of what appears to be Eddie running away from the Leper, shot in such a way that you can’t really see him, but production shots of him exist and it’s confirmed that Javier Botet (Mama, Crimson Peak) will be playing him, so that should be an amazing scene i’m already calling it as being one of the most iconic of the film

10. Now for the real show-stopper, the slide-show bit. Now, besides the obvious, the timeline of the movie has been moved up such that these kids aren’t kids in the ‘50s, but rather the ‘80s, right around the time IT was actually released. The slideshow freaking out appears to be a technologically updated version of/at least a scene analogous to the old picture book from Mike Hanlon’s father coming to life (the projector does appear to be Mike’s,as he’s the one who immediately starts inspecting it when it starts doing its thing)

11. Henry Bowers and the red balloon. This i believe is the part in the book, based on where the shot is set up, it looks like a front yard or something, where Bowers finds a balloon tied to his mailbox and a package inside from “Bob Gray” (another common alias of It, along with Pennywise) containing the switchblade he uses to murder his abusive father (what is it with King and parents who are fucking jackasses?) and attempt to kill the Losers in the sewers.

12. This appears to be the climactic encounter with Pennywise in the House on 29 Neibolt Street. If you watch, you can actually see Pennywise’s fingers growing out of the clown gloves and morphing into werewolf claws, which is really cool because their plan hinges on trapping It in werewolf form so they can shoot It with silver, but It initially appears to them as amorphous (It usually does when It appears to multiple people at once until one of them, i’m guessing whoever has the strongest concrete fear, says what It is and then It settles into that form) until Richie ,who had previously seen It as a werewolf in the same house, screams out “It’s the werewolf! The teenage werewolf!” so this is probably right after that

13. One of my favorite shots from the trailer because if it’s what i think it is, it indicates some BRILLIANT adaptation-work on Andres Muschietti’s part. Basically, in the book, there are a lot of “interludes”, little bits and pieces of Derry’s troubled history that are inserted into the story to help explain Its life-cycle and would be, in the form they are in the novel, basically unfilmable. It just wouldn’t work pacing-wise and would serve only to confuse the audience. One of said interludes is the fire at the Black Spot, an integrated but mostly-Black club where Mike Hanlon’s father worked that was burnt to the ground by a white supremacist group with people trapped inside. Pennywise, in the form of a giant bird with balloons tied to Its wings, is present and is temporarily sated by this display. (a massacre or otherwise hideous act of violence has to be committed to wake It up, and another must be committed to put it back into hibernation. It’s usually active for about a year before going back into hibernation for about 27). The firelight and burnt hands/door seem to imply that Muschietti has worked this interlude in by having Pennywise taunting Mike Hanlon with a vision of the people who died in the arson/massacre which is BRILLIANT.

14. The sink scene. Of course, the shit coming out of the sink has been ratcheted up a LOT from the miniseries, but is actually fairly close to the book where it first coughs up a single bubble of blood and then belches forth a geyser, coating Bev and the entire bathroom, as well as her father who can’t see it. My only gripe is the blood seems to have been replaced with a black liquid of some kind? I hope that’s just for the trailer and it’ll be red in the movie, cause it just doesn’t have the same traumatic appeal as everything and yourself and your dad being covered in blood and him not being able to see it

15. Pennywise partially obscuring his face with a balloon is something he does at least once in the book to indicate that he’s about to change forms, as the Mummy on the ice that Ben sees. Now this appears to be in front of 29 Neibolt Street, so i don’t think it’s Ben, but probably as he’s about to transform into the Leper for Eddie. But that’s just my guess

16. The final scene. The basement. Now this is a scene that isn’t in the book at all, there’s a similar one towards the end but it’s in Its lair and the rest of the losers are there so i don’t think it’s that. Anyway, even though there’s no way of knowing what basement this is, it’s possible that it’s actually in the Denbrough bothers’ house because, going all the way back to the first part of this post, Georgie so remember that whole bit where he goes into the basement to get the GULF wax, that’s the only part of the book from his POV and he talks about how he’s terrified the whole time of a monster being in the basement, and it’s mentioned that it’s flooded from all the rain Derry’s gotten recently. I’m not sure where this scene would fit in, chronology-wise, but i’m willing to bet it’d be some kind of ironic echo of Georgie’s earlier sentiments or a replacement for Georgie’s scene entirely where Bill is the one who has to go down into the basement and face his fears instead. It also might occur instead of/along with Georgie’s school picture coming to life, but once again this is all pure speculation i have no basis for this other than the location

ANYWAY THAT’S ABOUT ALL FOR NOW wow sorry that was super long i really needed to get that out of my system i’m done now i’ll have mercy and put this under a read more

#stephen king's it #it 2017

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