Send in the clown
Come the year’s end, IT will be remembered as the good Stephen King adaptation of 2017.

Unlike the dreadful The Dark Tower, IT knows its audience and stays true to the source material, minus an inappropriate, outdated gangbang scene at the end.

Director Andy Muschietti (Mama) manages to balance humour and horror perfectly, with a lot of laughs to settle the nerves between frights, but the film’s narrative is frustrating at times and is held together as well as a two-year-old’s shoelace.

Eighties horror buffs are rewarded in spades with nods to A Nightmare on Elm Street, Carrie, Evil Dead, Gremlins and Stand By Me, another King novel. (Matthew Eeles).

IT is in cinemas now.
3.5 stars

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Get Frisky
COMEDIES made by females are rare in Australian cinema. Frisky and Cursed are the only two Aussie films I’ve seen this year that are written and directed by their leading ladies, and Cursed was largely ignored by audiences. Frisky is all about Chloe (Claudia Pickering), who has just moved from Australia to San Francisco after breaking up with her boyfriend. She’s moving in with her American bestie Alice (Monica Ammerman )and the two have grand ideas of starting a marketing company together. The problem is they’re easily distracted by their sexual desires and any bottle of grog within reach. We’ve all been there, right?

Despite being set in San Francisco, Frisky is a very Australian film featuring loads of our signature humour. While the script and the performances are razor sharp, Frisky struggles technically from time to time, which is forgivable considering the entire crew were sourced from Craigslist (America’s Gumtree). Nonetheless, Frisky is a beautiful exploration of friendship and self-discovery.

A fine example of guerrilla filmmaking. (Matthew Eeles).

Frisky is available on various streaming services.
3.5 stars