First footage from Stephen King's It remake gets critics excited

Anyone with concerns about the remake of Stephen King’s ‘It’ should take heart in feedback from some early trailer footage shown at the SXSW festival over the weekend.

Directed by Andres Muschietti, the Argentinean helmsman behind ‘Mama’, it was presented to attendees alongside some early footage of ‘Annabelle 2’.

After a summary of the clip, which introduces the ‘Losers Club’, the kids terrorised by Bill Skarsgård’s sewer-dwelling clown Pennywise (who, of course, also features in the trailer), Trace Thurman for horror site Bloody Disgusting, writes: “Now, I am fully aware that this is just a teaser trailer. It was maybe 90 seconds of footage, but it was a damn impressive 90 seconds of footage.

“The movie could still turn out to be terrible, but based on what was shown in Austin tonight, that seems highly unlikely.”

He adds: “As you can imagine, expectations were pretty high, but if the audience reactions were anything to go by, the footage met those expectations and then some.

“As far as teasers go, it’s one of the best that I’ve ever seen.”

So that’s encouraging. But what of the other reactions out there?

Jonathan Barkan of Dread Central echoed the sentiments: “The audience erupted into cheers and for very good reason. Any doubts that the audience had flew right out the window.

“This teaser trailer was the perfect exercise in holding back and refusing to show too much. Instead, it gave us delightfully brief teases that made me desperate to see more. Everyone was beyond thrilled and the release date of September 8th really can’t come soon enough.”

Meanwhile, Quint on Ain’t It Cool News added: “I gotta say, I’m cautiously optimistic about this one.

“No matter what, this promises to be different than the mini-series and more focused on capturing that sense of doom and dread that was so clear in King’s novel.

“You can never tell how a movie will turn out based on a trailer and one scene, but all signs are pointing to the positive right now. Man, I hope they nail this one.”

Originally written and set to be directed by ‘True Detective’ luminary Cary Fukunaga, he exited the production in 2015, having clashed with the studio over the film’s artistic direction.

This concerned some fans, and perhaps rightly so, but perhaps Muschietti has managed to pull it around.

But whether Skarsgård’s Pennywise will match up to Tim Curry’s iconic playing of the role in the two-part mini-series from 1990 remains to be seen.

For his part, Stephen King, who wrote the book in 1986, appears to have given his seal of approval too.

He tweeted:

Also starring Jaeden Lieberher from ‘Midnight Special’, and Finn Wolfhard (Mike from ‘Stranger Things’), it’s out in the UK on September 8.

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