It (AKA Stephen King's It)

Dir: Tommy Lee Wallace

1990

****

Stephen King’s terrifying horror novel wasn’t an easy film to picture as a movie but even though the team behind the 1990 min-series changed much of the story, they still managed to feature many of the moments from the original that I was sure they would have removed. There are many elements that make It a great adaptation but there are two that made it great from the very beginning: Lawrence D. Cohen’s script and Tommy Lee Wallace’s vision. Lawrence D. Cohen clearly understood King’s work, King trusted him and he had adapted Carrie for Brian De. Palma back in 1976 to critical acclaim (he went on to adapt The Tommyknockers in 1993). Tommy Lee Wallace trained under the guidance of John Carpenter and knew what worked, what didn’t and what he could get away with. It pay homage to Carpenter films like The Fog and Halloween and I wonder whether it was because of Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness that Alice Cooper was initially considered for the role of Pennywise. Tommy Lee Wallace remains overlooked to this day but with It, Halloween III: Season of the Witch and Fright Night: Part 2 under his belt, I consider him one of the best horror directors of the 1980s (a classic year for horror). The 1979 miniseries adaptation of Salem’s Lot, directed by horror legend Tobe Hooper, had been a success that ABC wanted to repeat. It was originally planned as a ten-episode series with each episode lasting an hour but this was reduced to a three part project when first choice director George A. Romero was hired. When Romero left the project due to scheduling conflicts, Tommy Lee Wallace was hired and suggested that a two-part TV movie would suit the story better, given that the book itself is in two chapters. The studio also became nervous of the length of the series, given that horror was still a tricky genre to adapt into television. Character development was the first victim of the condensed script but there are also elements of the original that just wouldn’t have worked that were thankfully cut. One thing that everyone agreed on though was that they had to get Pennywise right or the whole thing would fail from the very beginning. After quickly deciding against Alice Cooper, the studio considered both Malcolm McDowell and Roddy McDowall. I can only imagine how awesome both actors would have been but it is almost impossible not to see the great Tim Curry as the killer clown, one of the greatest horror villains ever performed. The entire cast was great, a whose who of all those great actors who had appeared in supporting roles in this, that and the other over the last decade or so. Richard Thomas, John Ritter, Annette O'Toole, Harry Anderson, Dennis Christopher, Tim Reid and Richard Masur were established actors, each one attached to some cool franchise or another and younger members of the cast such as Jonathan Brandis, Seth Green and Emily Perkins would go on to further success. The cast is brilliant, the child actors bring King’s story to life and are all perfectly cast, while the adults – who I think have a much tougher job – manage to follow faithfully in their footsteps. However, this is Tim Curry’s film and he probably wouldn’t have been cast unless Tommy Lee Wallace was directing, as Wallace wanted Curry after the pair had worked together on Fright Night: Part 2 together. I love the way they handled Pennywise, remembering that essentially that he was a predatory shapeshifter but was always at his most frightening when he was in the guise of a clown. Original storyboards for Pennywise featured exaggerated cheekbones, a sharp chin, and a bulbous forehead but Curry objected strongly to all the rubber as he had recently been in several movies which covered him in prosthetics and he was clearly sick of it. It meant that it was all on him to become this terrifying monster and that is exactly what he did. The final look of Pennywise was created in part from exaggerated designs based on Lon Chaney’s character in The Phantom of the Opera but given a hobo edge. The idea was to make him look a bit like a living cartoon and that’s exactly what they achieved. Made for TV films weren’t meant to be this good and as crappy as the giant spider looked at the end of the movie I still loved it. I remember as young teen watching the film for the first time and seeing one of the characters commit suicide rather than face Pennywise again and thinking that it was probably the most terrifying idea I had ever heard. The horror moments are classic 80s horror and a couple are now legendary – and still some of the most frightening of all time. Most modern feature-length horrors that have millions spent on them and a cinematic release (as well as many pointless sequels) aren’t as good as this little miniseries. Literally no one has taken a picture of a clown since.