IT

When I see the reviews for this miniseries/TV movie, I think, "How can it have such a low rating?" It's true, it has many flaws from its conception: low budget, script cuts, deleted scenes, etc. But it's also true that it has a great heart from beginning to end and performances that became iconic, especially that of Tim Curry as Pennywise.

Stephen King wasn't directly involved in the production after his disagreements with Kubrick on "The Shining," but over the years he became one of the miniseries' biggest supporters.

For those of us who are fans of "It," our first on-screen encounter with Pennywise and his fight against the Losers' Club, or the Lucky 7 as it was adapted, was this one.

Far from being perfect, it presents a coherent, captivating story with many horror overtones without the need to resort to CGI as has been the case with films in recent years. It has such a murky atmosphere that it always generated a bad feeling. However, it's Tim Curry's performance that elevates this product.

At no point does it drag, and it's clear that there are scenes and concepts that couldn't be handled on TV at that time. Scenes like the one we saw with Georgie in "It Part 1" were impossible to imagine.

Its ending is perhaps the most disappointing, for obvious reasons. The main one was not having a budget to pull it all off. The other was having a production company more interested in creating a family-friendly product than a telepathic battle with an ancient entity and a mystical turtle... you get the picture, right?

For my part, I will always have a special affection for this miniseries that caused so much trauma to children and adults alike... Stephen King is surely happy.

**Light Spoilers On A Couple Scenes, Nothing Too Big to Mark As Spoiler - I Won't Elaborate On the Scenes As Is** Stephen King's It. It (2017) is a film I'm not too keen on, but if we're talking about the two-part miniseries film from 1990, boy it's great. The enjoyment I get out of this is what I had hoped in the newer one. Tim Curry gives an exceptionally good performance as Pennywise. The other actors give pretty good performances, too. There are far more creepy scenes in this than there are in the newer films I feel. Everything from the beginning, They All Float Down Here, and just the sheer presence of Pennywise to the disturbing "Don't Cha Want It?" scene, the Dog-head scene and the old zombie grandmother scene. This terrified me when I was 10 years old. Nearly fifteen years later, it still gets me. The pacing is great, it has laughs, it has chilling moments, it's just brilliant all-round. Wonderfully executed, good camaraderie and dialogue, and consistently strong acts, especially the first and second for me, I could go on. Make sure you see this if you're a fan of the 2017 one. And if you're not, I recommend this even more.

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.

That's what most of the other commentators say, and I can't disagree. Part 1 (or the first half, depending on which format you're seeing it in) is great: pitting some excellent child actors (including future star Seth Green of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) portraying some in-depth characters fighting against a demonic clown. The second half seems more like a "gee-wow - look who we got" self-indulgence at casting Anderson, Thomas, Reid and Ritter, with very little to make us care about these folks. The ending is also an incredible dumbed-down letdown, although in all fairness I don't think they could pull off King's ending, and most of the audience wouldn't understand it if they had tried. There are a few touching moments in the last half, and Tim Curry couldn't screw up no matter how bad the writing is, but generally the two mismatched halves make for a mediocre film when it could have been so much more.

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.