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Directed By
Tommy Lee Wallace
Written By:
Stephen King, Lawrence D. Cohen
Cast:
Dennis Christopher, Richard Masur, Annette O'Toole, Tim Reid, John Ritter, Richard Thomas, Tim Curry, Jonathan Brandis, Seth Green, Emily Perkins, Harry Anderson, Brandon Crane, Adam Faraizl, Ben Heller, Marlon Taylor
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It (1990)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
April 22nd, 2008
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'It' is one of my favorite Stephen King novels, and I think it deserves real cinematic treatment, something more substantive than this rather hollow TV miniseries adaptation, which, to its credit, absolutely made the right choice casting Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown, one of many forms taken by the creature known only as IT, which lives in the sewers under Derry, Maine, and awakens every 30 years to feed on local children. It is a shape shifting monster that can exploit fear; transform into the things you are most afraid of, whether clowns or giant spiders or Dobermans or werewolves. In the book, we learn that it is prehistoric, and crashed on Earth millions of years ago, and has sustained itself through elongated hibernation, like a bear.
IT appears unstoppable, its true form is that of a glowing orb, rather harmless and perhaps not that frightening, but Pennywise is frightening, and Curry makes him so. I don't like clowns, and neither does King. So, Curry's characterization is spot-on. But that may be about it. Many of King's stories are butchered in translation to the screen, Pet Sematary most egregiously, but 'It' would serve as good example, too. The source material is over 1000 pages long, so obviously much had to be cut to make this workable as a screenplay, but I think they cut the wrong things. Henry Bowers is made into a typical school bully, the real depths of his depravity are never explored, that he is mean is established fairly enough, but he is more than mean, he is cruel and sadistic, a product of an abusive and drunken father. He does end up in a mental asylum, and becomes a servant of IT, and makes his way back to Derry. Six Derry kids refuse to be victims; they decide to make a pact, that they will return to Derry in 30 years, to stop the creature once and for all.
One of them, Mike Hanlon (Tim Reid) stays behind as the librarian, to contact the others when IT resurfaces. Bill Denbrough (Richard Thomas) is a best-selling novelist (modeled after King himself); Richie Tozier (Harry Anderson) is a comedy star in Hollywood. Ben Hanscom (John Ritter) is a well-respected architect. Beverly (Annette O'Toole) has married an abusive and controlling husband, not dissimilar from her father. Eddie Kaspbrak (Dennis Christopher) still has asthma and is a bit of a weakling. Stan Uris (Richard Masur) slashes his wrists in the bathtub when he gets the call from Mike. The adults reunite and vow to kill IT; Bill especially has a vendetta since IT killed his little brother. First of all, though, we meet these characters at age 12, the origins of their friendship, how they bond together to protect each other from IT and the Bowers gang. In typical King fashion, we learn a lot about them and their families, the challenges and rites of adolescence, in keenly observed fashion, much like what King offers in The Body (or Stand by Me) and many other stories. They are terrorized and taunted by Pennywise. The special effects are not that impressive, indicative of a fairly low-budget production, which is why perhaps we are deprived the sight of the leper, the giant bird, the huge bloodsucking insects, and Patrick Hockstetter, the weird kid who is willing to perform oral sex on Henry and stores things in abandoned refrigerators.
But such gruesome stuff would not appear on network TV; on HBO perhaps, but not ABC or NBC, which is the kind of channel this film debuted on back in the early 90s. It has a few effectively creepy and scary moments, thanks to Curry. The segments with the kids are the best, and the younger actors actually give better, more convincing performances than their older counterparts. So, the violence and sexuality were severely truncated or dropped altogether, along with themes of racism (towards Mike and Stan, one is black and the other Jewish) and homophobia (a gay man named Adrian Mellon is savagely beaten in the first chapters of the novel). But these things, again, are/were too controversial for mainstream TV. To include more from the novel would involve expanding the running time by three or four hours, if not more, so one has to be concise, but not to the point of rendering 'It' nearly unrecognizable in some respects. But adapting this work is an unenviable task by any standard.
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 | Tim
Apr 22, 2008 1:36 AM
also wrote a review of It 
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I love IT, one of my favorite horror films of all time but I agree with many of your points. I never read the novel but have been told many times that the violence depicted in the book is not scratched on screen.
I am all for remaking this film with an R rating and decent budget but would really hope to see Tim Curry back as he nailed Pennywise. |
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