{It is screening in Seattle pretty much everywhere, but we recommend seeing it at Seattle Cinerama} 

Remember those heady, lazy days with your friends on summer break? The long, sunny bike rides, music blasting from your boombox, picnics by the lake … and that time an ancient soul-eating demon tried to pick you off one by one while masquerading as a terrifying circus clown?

It introduces us to “The Losers,” a group of misfit friends who band together to try and take down a many, many, many-toothed monster who emerges from the sewers underneath Derry, Maine every 27 years to chow down on a bunch of unsuspecting kids.

The basics: Bill’s little brother Georgie meets his bloody fate via Pennywise the Dancing Clown, which honestly, is his own damn fault for talking to scary clowns INSIDE STORM DRAINS. Bill then becomes obsessed with finding his “lost” brother, and once the other Losers start seeing their nightmares come to life, they (somewhat reluctantly) agree to help Bill find and defeat the monster who took him.

The biggest changes to this version of It from the 1990 miniseries are that the timeline of Stephen King’s story bumps from 1960 to 1988, and that the second half of the story focusing on the characters as adults isn’t shown … for now. Plus, uh, Pennywise has obviously been run through some kind of James Wan Instagram filter.

So, is It scary? Yes, and no. Those suffering from coulrophobia should obviously STEER THE FUCK CLEAR of this thing, and there are some pretty effective jump scares and just creepy-as-shit skittery moments that happen throughout, with an excellent score cranking up the “eeesh” factor. Most of the parents are also really scary, especially Beverly’s father, which … yeah. If you read the book or saw the miniseries, you already know.

Basically, It 2.0 is the kind of film you need to view through the lens of preteen nostalgia in order for it to be fun. The best advice I can give you is that the more you can disconnect from your adult brain and dive into your young, un-jaded, pre-real world nightmare times self, the better.

Easy for me, since 1988 pushes my memories of summer BFF hangs into overdrive — I’ll need a second post just to talk about that soundtrack — but for now, please know that The Cure’s “Six Different Ways” makes an appearance in a key scene and my heart exploded all over the place.

It (haha) should also be easy for you too, because the kids they cast are brilliantly perfect in each of their roles: Jaeden Lieberher as Bill; Jeremy Ray Taylor as Ben Hanscom; Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh; Finn Wolfhard Richie Tozer; Chosen Jacobs as Mike Hanlon; Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie Kaspbrak, and Wyatt Olef as Stanley Uris are all. so. GOOD.

If you’re curious, go see it! I promise this remake won’t ruin your childhood (Yeah, I’m just gonna say that about every remake ever now because its’ a totally ridiculous thing to say).

{Also, just admit it: Tim Curry rocked Pennywise and the kid parts of the original were good, but the adult parts were abysmal}