Editorials
The Stanley Effect: Why the Ending of ‘It: Chapter Two’ Doesn’t Work [Spoilers]
It: Chapter Two has been out for over two weeks and made over $385 million so far, so I feel like now, finally, I can address the biggest problem I have with the film.
“The ending,” as many characters in the movie like to point out to horror author Bill Denbrough (James McAvoy), “sucks.”
That line is a recurring in-joke for Stephen King fans. King has received his fair share of criticism over the years, and one of the more pervasive accusations is that his set-ups are arguably better than his pay-offs. It is probably one of the better examples, with a terrifying and seemingly universal nightmare about childhood fears coming to life culminating in a weirdly specific mythological ritual involving space turtles and a somewhat underwhelming confrontation with a giant spider.
I knew all of that was coming in It: Chapter Two, so I was ready for the sequel to venture into weirder territory than the first half. What I didn’t know was that, on top of all that strangeness, the filmmakers had decided to throw in one brand new wrinkle that retroactively sullied the whole film that came before it.
Which brings me to Stanley Uris, played in It: Chapter One by Wyatt Oleff and in the follow-up by Andy Bean. In the second half of the story, when Pennywise the Clown reemerges and The Losers Club is recalled to their hometown to finish what they started, everyone returns except Stanley. That’s because Stanley opts to kill himself rather than confront the horrors all over again. He gets the phone call, he immediately goes upstairs, he draws himself a bath, and he ends his own life.
It’s a horrifying tragedy, and it also serves a dramatic function. It reminds us that although the Losers defeated Pennywise at the end of Chapter 1, that confrontation took its toll, and even the thought of going through it again may be too frightening to bear. The stakes are raised right at the beginning of the film, the Losers are already down one member, and although we know he’s not omnipotent, it may be harder to defeat Pennywise now than it ever was before.
But, as we learn at the very end of It: Chapter Two, we didn’t see Stanley’s whole story. In the new movies, Stanley didn’t kill himself because his recovered memories were too much to bear, or because he was so frightened that he made a terrible, instinctive choice. No, it turns out – as Stanely himself reveals in handwritten letters he sent to all the other Losers – he killed himself in an act of pure logic.
Stanley explains that he knew he would be a liability to The Losers, and that his inability to overcome his fears would put them all in danger. So instead of returning to Derry with the rest of his old friends, he made the calculated decision to kill himself, just so it would be easier for his childhood chums to murder a demon clown.
In the movie Bill reads Stanley’s letter and smiles, because apparently it gives Stanley’s tragic demise a heroic purpose. But it doesn’t. It takes the straightforward plot point from the original story and makes it nonsensical. And, frankly, it makes Stanley, The Losers, and the film, look worse.
Remember, Stanley killed himself because he thought he was too afraid of Pennywise to do what had to be done. But he isn’t afraid to end his own life. The very fact that he’s making a calculated decision to sacrifice himself – with enough premeditation to handwrite letters to all his old friends, “rationally” explaining his seemingly irrational decision – proves that he was totally capable of doing scary things to stop Pennywise.
It also suggests, depending on your perspective, that this character everyone loves didn’t care very much for his wife and family. Stanley originally ended his own life suddenly, while completely overwhelmed with fear. In the new version he does so out of bravery, and with enough forethought to explain himself to all of his friends.
That’s all well and good for The Losers, but what about Stanley’s wife? She’s the one who he knows will find him in the bathtub, in a pool of blood. If, as the movie suggests, Stanley’s decision was completely rational and not a knee-jerk act of terror, that means he either didn’t think about the trauma his discovery would inflict on his wife, or he didn’t care. He could have prepared her somehow. He could have done the deed where anyone else could have found his body. Heck, he could have faked a car accident for insurance purposes, in order to leave her well cared for. Instead she’s apparently an afterthought. We have no evidence that he left his wife a note like the ones he left for The Losers, and even if he did he probably left out the demon clown stuff, so she may live the rest of her life without ever really knowing what happened.
Stanley’s death would be terrible enough for his wife and family anyway. The revelation that it was premeditated, and conceived only as a means of doing good, is completely torpedoed by the fact that it’s an illogical plan. Again, the reveal is that he was actually very brave and self-sacrificing, and so it stands to reason that he was also more than capable of returning to Derry (although, again, his noble intentions apparently didn’t extend as far as the woman he was sharing his whole life with).
But worst of all is the argument that It: Chapter Two seems to be making, that Stanley’s suicide is somehow a good thing, because it makes life easier for his friends. That is a horrifically irresponsible approach to dramatizing a very serious issue. You can’t end a movie with your protagonists smiling and thinking that their friend killing himself may have been for the best. It makes The Losers look insensitive as hell, and it potentially conveys a message to the audience that killing yourself could be a rational response to dealing with childhood trauma.
That. Is. Not. True.
It’s not true in real life, and it doesn’t ring true dramatically in this context. It is often celebrated for its sincere depiction of people suffering from trauma as children and as adults, but treating suicide like a smart play instead of as a terrible tragedy isn’t worth celebrating. It’s a sour note on which to end this otherwise impressive story, and it turns what should have been a simple, running gag about disappointing endings into a dire warning about just how badly It: Chapter Two falls apart in its very last minutes.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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