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This was a brave and well above average adaptation of a truly difficult novel. It is uneven at times. The first half is better than the second half, which isn't helped by a pedestrian script and a woefully miscast Richrd Thomas. IT is NOT the worst book to TV movie in existence, there have been a lot worse since then. As for the book, which is very good, it is still flawed. There is too much swearing(the children's harsh language and sexual desires are inappropriate), the character development takes far too long, the book has a very confusing structure especially in the latter half of the book, and Frankenstein is name of the inventor not the monster. Still the characters are well described, and the murders are gut wrenching. Also the way King describes fear is brilliant, and his attention to detail is unparallelled. I am not criticising the book, I am evaluating the pros and cons of both the book and the movie, or mini-series, to be exact.The movie is the closest to the language of the author. The children did miles better than the adults, especially Jonathan Brandis and Seth Green, and there was a Stand By Me-ish nostalgia, that generated a definite spark between the players. As for the second half, it started off well, and rapidly became pedestrian 45 minutes before the end, which was ruined by a poorly designed spider. Other than that, the effects and script were generally good for a TV movie. Tim Curry, one of my favourite actors, steals the show, with his almost exact portrayal of Pennywise. His career-best performance was a perfect mixture of creepiness and hamminess, like Jack Nicolson from the Shining( which was turned into a pointless TV series). He also DID NOT overact. He's a British character actor, and was the only mature actor who didn't play himself, and stayed consistent throughout the entire movie. Pennywise also isn't his poorly written role, that's Gomez in Addams Family Reunion. It was criminal he didn't win an award for his performance.Also the music by Richard Bellis is outstanding, and that alone captures the creepy mood. In the slower bits, especially with the children, it's hauntingly beautiful and makes the scene poignant. However, Harry Anderson badly underplayed the library scene, while Annette O'Toole showed the most genuine fright, which grew tiresome as the movie progressed. Most of the scenes in the book were unfilmnable for a low budget movie, so they did well in that aspect. Adaptation means to adapt, so accept that. No film I've seen is word from word to the book, it just isn't done that way. I know they missed things out, and all that, but there are some truly sensitive issues in the book that people wouldn't want addressed on screen, and there were some of the metaphysics like the turtle that I didn't understand. The fantastic Inspector Morse series had the protagonist changed completely from a sleaze to a sensitive human.See what i'm getting at. Don't bother about the remake, apparently it's 90 minutes, which isn't enough to condense a 1000+ novel in. Plus, it probably won't have Tim Curry in it, who at the moment seems to be the only person who can do the job right, even if he is a little reminiscent of the Green Goblin. In conclusion look out for It. It is not as good as the Shining, but far better than the dreadful Tommy Knockers. Only read the book if you're a true Stephen King fan( I'm not) or if you're 18 or over(I'm 16), unless you want to be sick for a week (you don't want that). I still recommend both the book and the movie.7/10 for my personal favourite of the Stephen King movies. Bethany Cox

First part is excellent, second part still good. Tim Curry is the Star.

I first saw this on a rented vhs in 1991. I still remember the shopkeeper telling me to rent the two cassette tapes as it was a two part series. Renting two vhs was a bit expensive those days but the film never made me regret shelling me the extra rupees. Revisited it recently on a dvd. Saw the remake with my son in a theater. The remake is really good. Coming back to the original, it has some nostalgic moments attached to it, the ones showing the kids play down by the river and the bike riding ones r memorable. Country life can b really fun for growing kids. The child actors in this film are marvelous. We easily are attached to them. The plot is about a group of misfit children who end up becoming lifelong friends and how they unite to deal with the horror affecting them. In my opinion it is a darker version of Stand By Me. Considering it was a made for TV as a mini series, it wasn't that gory n the special effects weren't that good. Also the pacing was a bit odd. The most striking thing about the film was Tim Curry's iconic, creepy performance as Pennywise, the murderous clown. The only movie which had dealt with creepy clowns before this was Salva's Clownhouse. Maybe Stephen King borrowed the clown thing from Victor Salva n Salva borrowed the concept of the thing coming back after 23/27 years in Jeepers Creepers from Stephen King.

The remake nailed it again with the child actors. The remake has superb cinematography, awesome acting n terrific direction. The fat boy's acting n facial expressions in the remake is spot on.

It started really good but in the second part it started to go down.

All the characters where suddenly really boring and the scenes where Bill and mike where riding that bike where really boring and they when they was at that restaurant and we just watched them eat for a couple of minutes that was also boring.

But part 1 was really cool and Tim Curry did a great job as pennywise in Both parts Even better than Bill Skarsgård.

The child actors were actually good.

Overall a pretty good miniseries and really recomend part 1🌞🌝🌛🌜🌚

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.