It
Classic
Coming-of-Age
Horror
Crowd-Pleaser
Dark
AdaptationThe review
Andy Muschietti's adaptation of Stephen King's doorstop novel does something most King adaptations fail at: it works as both horror and heart. Critics overwhelmingly agree the film's greatest strength is its ensemble of child actors — the outcast friends at its center feel like real kids with genuine chemistry, grounding the supernatural dread in an emotionally affecting coming-of-age story. Bill Skarsgård's menacing turn as the shape-shifting evil is widely singled out as an instant-icon performance, and the film's atmosphere — late-80s small-town Maine, dripping with period nostalgia — earned frequent praise alongside its craft behind and in front of the camera.
Critics are more divided on the scares themselves. The consensus view is that the film is most effective in its quieter, creepier stretches, while some reviewers found its reliance on conventional jump scares and occasionally glossy creature effects (especially as it builds to its climax) drained some of the subtler dread the source material offers. Others push back that the film earns its big moments and delivers genuinely frightening set pieces alongside the jump-cut ones.
The other recurring complaint is structural: as the first half of a deliberately split adaptation, the film ends on an unresolved note, and a few critics felt the plotting was scattered or compressed relative to King's richer mythology. Most disputes, though, are about how the fear is delivered — not about whether the film works as a whole. It was a historic box-office phenomenon, at the time the highest-grossing horror film ever made, and it regularly appears on retrospective rankings of the best horror of its decade.
Related films
It Chapter Two (2019)Who it's for
Horror fans and general audiences alike — this is that rare mainstream horror with crossover appeal. Strong fit for viewers who like coming-of-age stories with teeth, Stephen King adaptations, 80s nostalgia, and character-driven scares. Also rewards people who appreciated the ensemble charm of Stranger Things-adjacent storytelling.
Who it's not for
Viewers who avoid horror entirely — the R rating is earned, with genuinely frightening imagery. Also likely to disappoint those who want an ending: the film is explicitly only half a story, and viewers hoping for a self-contained resolution should know a sequel is required. Fans of slow-burn, atmospheric dread who dislike jump scares may find parts of it more generic than its reputation suggests. — R-rated horror violence and bloody images · Intense/perilous situations involving children · Disturbing imagery and supernatural terror · Strong language · Brief sexual content and themes of child abuse/bullying (depicted, non-graphic)
Birds of a feather...
- BookIt (1986)
The source novel itself: the same Losers' Club, the same Derry rendered as a character with its own buried history, and the same fusion of coming-of-age friendship with supernatural terror — only with vastly deeper dives into the town's past and each kid's inner life. Readers who connected with the film's themes will find them fully realized here, though the book is far denser, darker, and slower-burning.
98% - FilmIt Chapter Two (2019)
The essential companion piece — the same town, the same mythology, and the same Losers' Club, told from the childhood side of the story. Everything the second film meditates on (the bonds, the wounds, the fears that take root early) is forged here, with the same signature blend of nostalgia, humor, and genuine dread. Watching both halves is the intended experience, and the tonal and thematic continuity is total.
98% - TVStranger Things (2016)
A loving modern update of the exact formula: a party of outcast kids in the 1980s facing a monster that literalizes adolescent fear and trauma, in a small town harboring something beneath it. Its openly acknowledged King and Carpenter DNA makes the thematic overlap with It nearly total — friendship, nostalgia, horror, and growing up all braided together.
92% - FilmStand by Me (1986)
From the same Stephen King wellspring as Stand by Me, which adapted his novella 'The Body': a band of small-town boys in a nostalgic period setting, bound by loyalty and tested by the darkness of the adult world around them. It leans into the supernatural where Stand by Me stays grounded, but the beating heart — friendship as armor against a hostile world and the end of childhood — is nearly identical.
92% - BookCarrie (1974)
The novel that established King's template of horror rooted in adolescent cruelty and psychological realism, with the supernatural amplifying rather than replacing the human threat. Strong kinship with It's underside-of-childhood themes — humiliation, rage, repression — though narrower in scope and colder in tone.
77% - Film'Salem's Lot (2024)
Shares the small-town-gothic framework: a Maine town whose decay and buried cruelties matter as much as its monster, a period setting used as argument rather than backdrop, and a balance of character development with escalating atmospheric horror. The nostalgic texture and town-as-character approach rhyme directly with the film's governing aesthetic.
74% - FilmCarrie (1976)
King's other landmark study of adolescence as horror, where bullying, abuse, and social cruelty are more monstrous than the supernatural element. Shares It's concern with how cruelty shapes young people, though its tone is a darker, more tragic character study rather than a group-adventure.
74% - BookThe Outsider (2018)
King's later take on a shape-shifting evil that feeds on human suffering, set against a community torn apart by grief and rage. Blends procedural grounding with metaphysical horror in a way that echoes It's premise of an entity exploiting fear, minus the children's-adventure framework.
72% - FilmChristine (1983)
Another King adaptation fusing coming-of-age warmth with supernatural horror. The period nostalgia, small-town atmosphere, and bullying-versus-the-unknowable dynamic echo Christine's dual nature as both teen story and horror, though this one spreads its focus across a group of friends rather than a single corrupted protagonist.
71% - FilmNeedful Things (1993)
The town itself is a character here too, its ordinary cruelties and buried grievances acting as an open door for a supernatural predator that exploits weakness. The blend of nostalgia, dark humor, and accumulating dread also matches the source's tonal mix.
70% - FilmDoctor Sleep (2019)
Shares the DNA of supernatural horror anchored in trauma, with a special child protagonist and a predator that feeds on the vulnerable. Its balance of friendship, coming-of-age, and terror suits viewers drawn to King stories where emotional connection matters as much as the scares.
68% - BookDoctor Sleep (2013)
An extended meditation on how childhood trauma echoes across a lifetime, with supernatural horror standing in for addiction and inherited damage. Readers drawn to It's idea that the past never really lets go will find a darker, more adult continuation of that theme, though without the childhood adventure core.
68%