'It' is no laughing matter as film hits the big screen

As Wiganers flock to watch the new film adaptation of Stephen King's It, critics are predicting the movie will leave a whole new audience terrified of clowns.
How's your fear of clowns? It's about to get a whole lot worse!How's your fear of clowns? It's about to get a whole lot worse!
How's your fear of clowns? It's about to get a whole lot worse!

The supernatural horror movie version of the author’s 1986 novel follows a group of children who are terrorised by an evil clown called Pennywise.

It is the second adaptation of the book after the 1990 TV mini-series which saw Tim Curry appear as the shape-shifting supernatural villain, a role played by Bill Skarsgard in the new film.

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Many critics have declared director Andres Muschietti’s new adaptation a “horror classic”, and it currently has a rating of 100 per cent on movie rating website Rotten Tomatoes.

The Guardian said It “is an ensemble smorgasbord of scariness, or maybe a portmanteau of petrification, throwing everything but the haunted kitchen-sink at the audience in the cause of freaking us out”.

The Telegraph gave It four out of five stars, saying it was “a ring-the-changes update, with the ramped-up set pieces and state-of-the-art grisliness to match”.

The name for the irrational fear of clowns is known as coulrophobia, with the prefix “coulro” coming from the ancient Greek word for “one who goes on stilts.”

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However, some felt Skarsgard’s incarnation of the character could not eclipse Curry’s haunting portrayal in the television adaptation.

Much of the action is carried by the young cast playing a group of outsiders who call themselves The Losers’ Club.

The film, now showing at Wigan’s Empire Cinema, is expected to attract big crowds.

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