The original Stephen King's longest books and also one of his most popular. Taking place across different timelines, and even in different universes, It is a quintessential example of a horror epic, and it didn't take long for people to consider how King's fantastical, horrifying, and heroic story would do on screen.
Soon after publication in 1986, Stephen King's novel was adapted into a two-part TV miniseries that aired on ABC in November 1990. Until that point, the only Stephen King novel to be adapted to television was Salem's Lot in 1979. Though that series was critically acclaimed, the television format was definitely not ideal for the violence, sexuality, and gruesomeness that are part and parcel with King's storytelling style. Despite these anxieties, It went on to earn two Emmy nominations, winning for Music Composition, and it terrified a generation of kids after, an even greater prize.
The It Miniseries Is A More Complete Adaptation Than The 2010s Movies
The Miniseries Captures The Psychological Horror Found In Stephen King's Novel
There are only three adaptations of It, and with one being a relatively unknown Indian adaptation from 1998, the 1990 two-part miniseries, and the 2017 and 2019 movies from director Andy Muschietti offer the best look at how an It adaptation can go. While the movies were box office smashes with the first, It, earning $703 million (via BoxOfficeMojo); and the second, It Chapter Two, earning $473 million (via BoxOfficeMojo); and despite their irable critical evaluations, 85% and 62% (via RottenTomatoes), respectively, the miniseries better captures the mood of the book.
20 Creepiest Pennywise Quotes From The IT Movies & Miniseries, Ranked
While Pennywise says many horrifying things throughout the IT movies and miniseries, some quotes from the clown are creepier than others.
Stephen King's style of writing puts his stories in a very specific, and very nostalgic type of setting. His tales take place in a time when children are still allowed to stay outside all night, and it feels like the very edge of one's neighborhood is the great unknown. The unknown is a frequent source of fear in King's stories. It's no secret that Lovecraft is an inspiration for the author and the 20th-century horror author's themes of incomprehensible horror are all over his oeuvre, particularly in It.
The It miniseries has very little in the way of blood, or outright violence, with many scenes cutting away at just the moment a clown is about to sink its teeth into a young boy. Instead, the horror comes from the reactions of characters to the madness and violence they are forced to witness, making it more of a psychological horror film, which gets closer to the experience of reading King's It. In the It movies, a gruesome, CGI elderly woman features in one of the scariest scenes of It Chapter Two.
In the 2017 It, Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard) is trapped in a room with clown dolls, one of which looks exactly like Tim Curry's Pennywise the Clown.
However, that scene has little to do with the horror usually found in King's book. The miniseries has a similarly terrifying scene of Bev (Annette O'Toole) visiting her childhood home only to discover the inhabitant is a monster, but it plays the scene slightly differently. While the old woman does transform into a ghoulish creature, it's Bev's reaction to the monster that's the focus, not the creature itself. Both scenes are terrifying, but the scene in the miniseries gets just a little closer to the core of King's brand of horror.
The 2010 Movies Shifted Too Far Into Comedy
It Is Not A Very Funny Book To Begin With
The 1990 It miniseries has a lot of unintentional comedy. It's by no means a perfect adaptation. Campy production, the final form of Pennywise that looks like a puppet, over-the-top performances, and some odd story choices all make for plenty of moments that will have audiences laughing when they should be cowering. Those issues are more a product of the time and the limited television budget. The It miniseries doesn't set out to be comedic. The movies, however, do, in particular, which has several funny scenes.
Comedy and horror go hand-in-hand plenty of times, but not often in Stephen King stories.
Comedy and horror go hand-in-hand plenty of times, but not often in Stephen King stories. King's horror is a suffocating, unfair kind. Bad things happen to good people, and they don't get to fire off a witty remark before they die to salvage some dignity. The It movies have far too many moments of levity which break the immersion and terror to the point that the film stops being scary. There's always a joke around the corner and the tension unwinds for it.
One notorious moment comes when Eddie Kaspbrak (James Ransone) confronts the Leper in a basement. The monster vomits on him and while the bile spreads on his face, the song "Angel of the Morning" by Juice Newton comes on. It's supposed to be a funny juxtaposition against the grotesquerie of what the audience is watching, but it is the completely wrong tone. There are plenty of other comedy moments that just don't work, and that's because, at its core, It is an unsettling and dark tale, it isn't Army of the Dead, and the miniseries understands that better.
Tim Curry's Pennywise Is Too Terrifying To Top
Most Kids Were Too Young When They Watched The It Miniseries
Bill Skarsgård's turn as Pennywise the Clown in the It movies is the best part of those films. His unhinged performance is creepy and the way he violently terrorizes the Losers paints him as a true threat, but it's Tim Curry who holds the title as the more frightening Pennywise. Unlike Skarsgård's Pennywise, Curry only uses makeup to portray his monster. There are no CGI face-melting scenes. For Curry, that "simple" makeup is crucial to making Pennywise scary (via VanityFair),
"We had a much more prosthetic version of this makeup, which was very scary looking and beautifully executed but did too much work by itself. And I personally think that what is most horrifying is the moment of decision behind somebody's eyes when they decide to kill somebody—rather than a pint of blood... One sacrifices the human element at great risk."
It's a good case. Pennywise in the miniseries acts more like a clown than the one in the movies, effectively heightening the horror. In the movies, Pennywise seems like some unknowable monster, which distances it from the Losers. In the miniseries, Pennywise mimics a human well. Not only can the clown kill the Losers at any moment, it can also terrorize them psychologically on a much more human level. It speaks to the Losers like a bully or an evil authority figure. Pennywise is not just a demon from another dimension, he's every wicked person the world has ever conjured.
The combination of Pennywise, the psychological horror, and the lack of comic relief makes the It miniseries a particularly unnerving watch.
The combination of Pennywise, the psychological horror, and the lack of comic relief makes the It miniseries a particularly unnerving watch. Young children definitely shouldn't have seen it and yet there's a whole generation who were traumatized by Curry's grinning visage. The miniseries came on television at a time when the airwaves were dominated by family-friendly sitcoms. It had to be toned down for television, as director Tommy Lee Wallace said,
"I wasn't about to show on-screen decapitations and stuff, because I knew it wouldn't fly."
Even without blood and gore, the It miniseries is still terrifying. Woe to the young child who turned on their television set looking to watch a sitcom that evening on ABC, only to tune into the It miniseries instead, likely scarring them for life and probably making them a life-long horror fan in the process.
- Creator(s)
- Stephen King
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