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This is a very entertaining made for TV mini-series. It does a good job at jamming a book with more than 1000 pages into 2x90 minutes movie running time. The most important parts have been adopted, unnecessary fat was thrown out, little amandments have been made, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. The writers really tried to remain faithful to the novel and even mentioned side characters or story lines in short sentences for those who have read the book. The coolest thing, however, is that director Tommy Lee Wallace somehow managed to transfer that unique spirit of nostalgia, friendship and fear into his movie. Of course, the incredible cast deserves a lot of credit for that, too. Amazingly the child actors of part 1 upstage their adult companion pieces of part 2. The greatest performance of all, however, is given by Tim Curry, who really gives "It" a face, and a very scary one. He makes this movie what it is. In my opinion, it's the role of Curry's career, even outshining his part in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".

Now for the bad sides of "It": as a made for TV project this movie obviously couldn't get too graphic and violent and that's a bit of a pity. Stephen King's book is awfully graphic and the movie would have been twice as scary if they had shown a bit more gore. Mostly Pennywise just appears and shows his sharp teeth and that gets lame after a while. The other big minus of this film is its ending. It has to be said that the ending in the book is so bizarre it's unlikely it could ever look good on celluloid. Still, those crappy special effects were just disappointing and made me (and everyone else I know) go: "Is that what I've been waiting for the last 3 hours? That is the big climax?"

Bottom line is that for a TV movie with such strict time limits "It" did a very good job at bringing this scary book to life. Nevertheless, I think the story should be retold properly and turned into a mini-series à la "Twin Peaks". The only problem is that it's going to be hard to find someone who can fill Tim Curry's giant clown shoes.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Adapted from the epic novella by Stephen King,It is set in the town of Derry,Maine,in 1960.A series of gruesome child killings are going on,which seem to replicate similar events that happen every 30 years in the town,rounded off by a big disaster that causes similar confusion and devastation.Seven young kids are drawn together over the course of the summer to face off against a psychotic bully named Henry Bowers and his gang,as well as coming face to face with the perpetrator of the horrific killings,a monster which generally takes the shape of a clown named Pennywise (Tim Curry).One day,they decide to go down in to the sewers and confront and kill It once and for all.They believe they have done this,only to get a call 30 years later informing them that this is not the case and that they must now abide by a promise they made as kids to return once again to do battle with It if it ever returned.Now,as mature adults instead of naive kids (and therefore finding it harder to believe) can they be as successful?

Very rarely do adaptations of King novels translate well to the screen,with only a handful of exceptions,and the producers of this two parter certainly had an even harder job on their hands turning a book of over 1000 pages in to a film adaptation.Under the circumstances,one might say they haven't done too bad a job,but they've had to edit out a lot of key sequences (and even characters) from the book,and as a result,they've ended up with a script that's had to leave out a lot of the original source material,and so you don't get the full effect of the book,which was a real door stopper of a book that took forever to read but engrossed you right to the end all the same.So as you might expect this film adaptation isn't as good as that but it's still an impressive, scary enough effort all things considered that spreads out an epic story engrossingly enough.

On the acting front,the child actors (with the exception of the one who played Bowers) fare better than the adult actors,with the exception,of course,of Tim Curry in terrifying form as Pennywise (one of the scariest characters in the history of cinema,never mind the fact he only ever appeared in a TV movie) and possibly Harry Anderson.Some of them are laughably bad in parts(especially the one playing the adult Bill when he tries to stutter,so sad when young Johnathon Brandis played him so well).Pennywise always gave me the creeps,possibly in a way no other horror movie character could,and nothing else is scarier in the film.But maybe scares aren't the main aim of the game here,this being a Stand By Me style King fable of friendship over-coming great evil against all odds.

Overall,this is a decent enough effort taking on the challenging task of turning an 1000+ page book into a feature adaptation,where it's easy to see where the cracks are showing but easy to appreciate for the things it gets right.***

Many critics have complained that Stephen King's It is an overlong film. However, considering that the book upon which it is based takes over 1,000 pages to tell its story, it is hardly surprising that the film version needs so much running time to cram in all the twists and turns. Besides, the three hour running time goes by quickly because the film is briskly paced and full of engaging incidents. Also, the depth of the story allows to us to really get into the minds of the characters, which is a rare thing indeed in a horror film, since usually the characters are hilariously shallow.

The story unfolds like a two part mini-series (which is, I believe, what the film was originally meangt to be). In the first half, a bunch of seven kids in a small town realise that recent child killings are not the work of a murderer, but are attributable to a monster which awakes every thirty years. They track it down and very nearly kill it, but it just manages to escape. Thirty years later, the seven are all grown up, but they re-unite to seek out the monster when it once more awakens for its regular killing spree.

The acting is very goood, especially John Ritter as a successful architect and Tim Curry as the terrifying Pennywise the Clown. There are some spooky moments, but nothing that I would describe as absolutely horrifying. This is an unusually deep and detailed horror film, well worth seeing.

If you are of the King generation (lotsa books, bookstores, drugstores with books, tobacco stores with books, no computers or personal devices) then you probably have your own views on his place in the creative continuum.

My view is that his "early" works (including IT, THE STAND, SHINING) were his best. Wonderfully warped. And great fun to read.

That was the good news. The bad news is that, with rare exception (eg - SHINING) the B-grade studios that made easy money doing "tv movies" (you had to be there, otherwise you would not understand) generally snapped up his stuff and then did cheap, low-talent adaptations.

Wotta waste.

IT was one of King's more interesting works and this is one of the less awful adaptations. For insiders, most of the fun is in the first few scenes where one of the "characters" himself a writer explains that he has a job adapting his own work: "If anyone is going to mess it up, it may as well be me." The inside joke is that King himself was brought in as co-writer here because so many of the earlier TV adaptations were a disaster.

Again, one of the better ones. Lots of interesting faces here and there, including Ritter (an unappreciated dramatic talent) and Otoole looking radiant.

People were terrified of swimming in the sea after the movie "Jaws". This movie did to me for clowns what "Jaws" did for swimming in the sea. After watching this, clowns will just never be the same to me again. The unrecognizable Tim Curry portrays a very scary and perhaps even somewhat classic horror character. Pennywise/It surely is one scary looking character!

To be honest without the character Pennywise/It this two parts TV-movie wouldn't had been very well watchable or recommendable. The movie has a typically awful looking TV-movie visual style and the actors and storytelling aren't much good either. I have quite some fantasy but I'm just no big fan of Stephen King's horror novels. The story and the moments in it are just always highly unlikely, silly and over-the-top. "It" is no exception on this. Another major disappointing aspect of the movie are the special effects and the awful ending that is just a major let down and just isn't fitting and doesn't seem to have an awful lot to do to the earlier scary moments and the character Pennywise/It.

Still for the fans of the horror-genre, there is plenty to enjoy. The movie has some good, original and well constructed scary moments and the character Pennywise/It should be reason enough for horror-fans to watch this two part made for TV movie.

The cast mainly consists out of TV actors and aren't much good or likable. Funny thing is that the children cast is possible better and more likable and believable than the adult cast members. It was especially fun to see an extremely young Seth Green, who already acted in the same manner as he still does today.

Silly, bad looking but still scary and recommendable.

7/10

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