Stephen King is easily one of the most famous authors of the past few decades. Since 1967, he has written 54 novels and around 200 short stories that have covered various genres from supernatural horror to science fiction. Collectively, King’s works have sold over 350 million copies worldwide, and many of them have been adapted for film and television. These onscreen adaptations have varied, though, in terms of critical reception. Some have become classics of their genre, like 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption and 1980’s The Shining, even though King himself was not exactly a fan of the latter due to director Stanley Kubrick’s radically different take on the source material. Others have not fared as well with critics, including 1986’s Maximum Overdrive (which King, himself, directed) and this year’s The Dark Tower. But today, we’ll be looking at one of the many TV miniseries that have been based on King’s work; said miniseries is getting a brand-new feature film adaptation which comes out this weekend. I’m of course talking about the story of the sinister clown, It. The new film, directed by Andres Muschietti, is the first of a planned duology adapting King’s 1986 novel of the same name. But, of course, this story first saw an onscreen adaptation in 1990 via a two-part miniseries starring Tim Curry in the lead role of the terrifying creature It’s primary form, Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The miniseries aired on ABC in 1990, with the first part airing on November 18th and Part 2 on November 20th. And, overall, the reception towards this miniseries is fascinating to me. Now, obviously, I wasn’t around when this first aired so I didn’t watch it when I was younger. I first heard about it through Doug Walker AKA the Nostalgia Critic’s review of it back in 2010. And that review gave me an idea of the overall reception towards this adaptation of the story; some still find it incredibly scary while others find it to be unintentionally goofy, thanks in part to Tim Curry’s performance. Me? Well, I’m in the latter camp.
When a string of child murders begins to occur in the quiet town of Derry, Maine, local librarian Mike Hanlon (Tim Reid as an adult, Marlon Taylor as a kid) immediately realizes the cause of all this. In response, he calls his old friends to ‘fulfill a promise’ that they made when they were younger; writer Bill Denbrough (Richard Thomas as an adult, Jonathan Brandis as a kid), architect Ben Hanscom (John Ritter as an adult, Brandon Crane as a kid), fashion designer Beverly Marsh (Annette O’Toole as an adult, Emily Perkins as a kid), TV comedian Richie Tozier (Harry Anderson as an adult, Seth Green as a kid), limo driver Eddie Kaspbrak (Dennis Christopher as an adult, Adam Faraizi as a kid), and real estate broker Stanley Uris (Richard Masur as an adult, Ben Heller as a kid). Back in 1960, the seven kids became close friends during that summer, where they embraced their collective ‘nickname’, ‘The Losers Club’. However, part of their bonding was due to them all being tormented by an ancient and mysterious creature known as ‘It’, which frequently takes the form of a vicious clown named Pennywise (Tim Curry). Despite their efforts to vanquish the creature, the kids, unsure if they truly defeated ‘It’, promise each other that they’ll come back to Derry to finish the job if ‘It’ ever returns. Sure enough, ‘It’ does return to Derry 30 years later, which forces the gang to come back to their hometown to confront their fears and finish it off for good before it’s able to kill them and the other children living there.
To this miniseries’ credit, there are a few genuinely suspenseful and creepy moments here and there that come from Pennywise’s efforts to scare the main protagonists. However, when I say ‘here and there’, I really mean ‘here and there’ as I didn’t really find this miniseries to be ‘that’ scary. Maybe it’s just because I’m not really a big fan of the horror genre, but as is admittedly the case with some other older horror films and shows, there are quite a few moments in this miniseries that, while perhaps scary back in 1990, are just unintentionally hilarious nowadays. I mean, I am aware that, being a miniseries that aired on one of the ‘Big 3’ networks, it had to cut out some of the darker elements of the original novel (e.g. the infamous ‘kid orgy’ scene that’s so messed up, not even the new film is going to tackle it). Still, it does feel like this adaptation is severely lacking in terms of its horror elements. It also suffers from some mediocre pacing. Again, it’s a miniseries so, obviously, it was going to be long regardless. And really, this truly is one of the best ways to adapt a book like this given that said book is over 1,000 pages long. It even maintains the same narrative structure of the novel by having the story cut back and forth between 1960 and 1990 whereas, by comparison, the new adaptation will start out by focusing on the kids first before Part 2 shifts focus onto them as adults. However, it does take a while for the story to get going in this version, as it takes its sweet time to introduce all the main characters and then flashback to their youth before showing them all reuniting as adults. And as we’ll soon see, one half of this story is better than the other. Still, for what it’s worth, this adaptation is at least well-made, for the most part, from a technical perspective, especially for something that was made for TV.
As for the miniseries’ ensemble cast, the young actors portraying the main protagonists’ younger selves, which include the late Jonathan Brandis and a young Seth Green, all do a solid job. As to be expected from a story like this, they all have excellent camaraderie with each other, which helps to make ‘the Losers’ Club’ a sympathetic group to follow through this horrific tale. The adult actors, though, are a different story. Whether it was due to the overall direction or not, most of them come off as being a lot more wooden when compared to their younger counterparts. I mean, the camaraderie between some of them is still good, somewhat, but there’s a lot of stilted overacting during their scenes. Thus, the best parts of this miniseries are ultimately the scenes that are set in 1960 when the characters are still kids, most of which make up the first hour and a half of the runtime. And as you might have guessed, this means that this adaptation of It has a solid beginning but a rather weak climax. But at the end of the day, the true star of the show is Tim Curry in the role of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, as he steals the show completely whenever he’s on-screen. And sure, like the miniseries itself, most of his scenes now come off as being funny rather than scary. Still, he’s clearly having a lot of fun in the role, and he does provide the miniseries with some great humorous moments. Simply put, the scene where Richie is in the library and he starts taunting him. Need I say more? (“Do you have Prince Albert in a can? You Do?! Well, you better let the poor guy out! Wa-ha! Wa-ha! Wa-ha!”)
In conclusion, despite what I’ve said in this review, I do understand as to why some may still find this adaptation of It to be scary. While I’m personally not afraid of clowns, I know that quite a few people are, and that’s completely understandable. We did just come off that incident where a bunch of ‘evil clowns’ were seen all over the U.S. which, despite what it may seem, was not at all tied to the new film’s release. And again, there are some genuinely creepy moments in this miniseries. However, they ultimately feel few and far between in what feels like a very diluted adaptation of its source material. Granted, it is a miniseries that aired on ABC, so it clearly couldn’t be a 100% faithful adaptation of the novel (which I haven’t read, by the way). Still, this miniseries suffers from some lackluster pacing and it isn’t always well-acted aside from the younger incarnations of the ‘Losers’ Club’. Ultimately, though, the main reason to watch this miniseries is for Tim Curry as Pennywise; he’s singlehandedly the best part about it. As such, I find that I have mixed feelings about this miniseries, overall. I don’t think that it’s downright terrible but I’m not exactly too big on it either. Thus, I am looking forward to the new adaptation of It even though, as I noted earlier, I’m not a big fan of horror films. From the looks of it, it is shaping up to be the vastly superior take on the story of the Losers’ Club and the dreaded creature that they must vanquish.
Rating: 2.5/5
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