It's Cinemassacre's Monster Madness.
Stephen King's 'IT' was a three hour TV movie that aired in two parts.
I remember distinctly in 1990, when this thing was on TV, it was a big deal.
Everybody was talking about it.
I was 10 years old at the time
and I remember during most of it, covering my eyes, or leaving the room. And I also remember the
uncomfortable nature of the cliffhanger at the end of part 1 and waiting with nervous anxiety for the conclusion.
After it was all over. I realized there was nothing scary about it at all
Appropriately enough, the movie is about kids who are afraid of 'IT'. What is 'IT'?
It's a mysterious being that takes different forms to prey upon
children's fears. The film jumps back and forth between two time periods,
with the main characters as children, and as adults. As children,
they all get together to fight 'IT' while running from bullies at the same time. As adults,
they realized that 'IT' comes back every 30 years,
so they have to fight it again and kill it for good.
The main form of 'IT' is a clown, played by Tim
Curry. In the movie Legend he was the devil, and in Rocky Horror Picture Show he was the
self-proclaimed sweet transvestite from Transsexual
Transylvania, so he's had his share of horror related roles. The whole clown thing
confused me since I was a kid. I thought maybe one of the kids had some strange fear of clowns.
Maybe he had a bad experience with a clown one time, but they're all afraid of him.
And he's not really that scary. Sure he has razor-sharp teeth and a creepy voice, but most of the time he's just goofing around.
He's actually pretty funny.
Oh-ha! Oh-ha! Oh-ha!
I think this was a missed opportunity to play on other phobias. Sure, other things happen, like a mummy and a werewolf,
but they're all pretty cliche for things that are meant to be phobias.
The movie sort of tries to do what Nightmare on Elm Street did, but not very well.
I think the reason this movie is so popular is because so many people are afraid of clowns.
I never heard of that until this movie. Even though there were movies before it, like Killer Clowns from Outer Space,
Stephen King's 'IT' was the one that put the image of the scary clown into the mainstream.
By the way, it also wasn't the first movie title to emphasize the word 'IT'. There was 'It The Terror from Beyond Space',
'It Came from Beneath The Sea', 'It Came from Outer Space' 'From Hell,
It Came' and a bunch of others. The kid actors are pretty good. Wouldn't it be an interesting idea to
reshoot the scenes with the adults to have the actual same kids, now that they're grown up? That would be awesome..
Overall, I find the movie to be pretty average, but it's almost good. It almost has something working for it.
It didn't see its full potential.
Maybe that's just because many Stephen King movies work better as books. Lots of the film adaptations aren't very good,
but there are many great ones, like 'The Shining',
'Misery', 'Stand By Me', 'Carrie', and 'The Shawshank Redemption'.
But for many of us kids at the time, 'IT' was the one that puts Stephen King's name on our radar.
I like to look at this movie with a child's perspective. For me,
'IT' is a nostalgia trip, like, remember when this used to be scary? Just like the characters in the movie,
we confront it again after all these years. It's about children, and it's about imagination.
I never thought that 'IT' was actually real.
I always felt that it was all about
overcoming an imaginary fear that may have helped these kids run away from their real life problems, like the bullies.
The methods they used to fight 'IT' are so naive.
Slingshots, silver, and even an inhaler.
Eddie: This is battery acid, you slime!
AVGN: In this way I find it to be very similar to Dracula. Using
crucifixes or holy water. Things that people have faith in that give them comfort.
A talisman, a repellant,
whatever it may be, it's something more special and less tangible than a traditional weapon. Also like the Dracula novel,
it's all about close friends getting together to join forces and fight an evil being. Like 'IT',
Dracula takes many forms. A bat, a wolf, even fog.
Also in 'IT',
there's a bully character who goes insane, and grows up in an asylum.
'IT' influences his mind and has control over him, using him as a servant almost, to attack the other characters.
It's very much like Dracula who uses Renfield.
It's the same theme of an immortal being who has limits and needs the help of a live person.
So, to wrap things up, I think the movie's okay. It just could have been better,
that's all. Now for a SPOILER ALERT. If you don't want to know what happens at the end, stop here.
But I must comment. The ending, when the adults face the true form of 'IT', 'IT' turns out to be a giant
stop-motion spider which looks like it came right out of a Ray Harryhausen movie. For the special effects,
this is my favorite part of the whole film. But after three hours, it comes out of nowhere.
It's so off-key from the rest of the movie. I'm very conflicted as to whether this ruins it, or makes it more awesome.
One last note, the DVD I have is very confusing.
It's double-sided, which I already hate because they're easier to scratch, but anyway,
it doesn't tell you which side is part one and which side is part two.
And if you're not familiar with the movie,
you wouldn't even know there are two parts. Both menus
look exactly the same, and unlike the original TV showing, there's nothing at the end of the movie to say to be
continued or flip the disc over for part two! How hard would that have been?
And likewise, part two doesn't tell you to watch the first side first. This is a load of shit.
Wikipedia says the DVD came out in 1999,
Amazon says 2002, the actual DVD I have says 2010.
Maybe those are wrong, or maybe it's been released many times, but hard to believe they'd fuck it up more than once.
I guess they were just 'clowning' around.
Oh-ha! Oh-ha! Oh-ha!