It Chapter 2 Trailer Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

5. It Keeps The Weird To Itself (For Now)

Almost as soon as the first film was released, the director explained that he had avoided the overt weirdness of Stephen King's original novel as a very conscious decision. When you watch that film back in the context of the Stranger Things-inspired tide of affection for King's more gently nostalgic horrors, it makes a lot of sense and it's all pretty smart. But he also promised that the second film was going to dial everything up to far weirder levels.

That's great for the fans who like weirdness, but selling that too heavily at this stage would have been a mistake. For one, it's not what fans who primarily know the film and not the source material would expect and you invite accusations of misunderstanding your core audience. That's not so much an issue when you build to it within the film, but to lead with it is jarring.

And then for anyone who saw the over-appreciated TV miniseries (Tim Curry's Pennywise is to be cherished but the rest of it is poor), reminding us that this all gets weirder is a big fat red flag that that bloody spider crab thing might come along and ruin everything. And neither of those are particularly strong selling points, so the restraint in keeping it mostly more of the same is very smart.