Most know the story, a killer clown that terrorizes kids in a little town on the east coast. But many don't know this TV mini series follows the book much closer than the new release in 2017. This series is split into two parts. The first part is excellent. The second part is fair. What makes the first part of the film so good is the characters who play their roles. All seven of the children in this film are great actors/actresses. We are able to identify with them and follow them through the 1960s town of Derry Maine. Tim Curry who plays Pennywise is exceptional to say the least. He plays the clown that will forever terrify kids and grown ups for years to come. Overall the kids who play the part are great actors, with a good script, and beautiful cinematography throughout the entire first series. One of my favorite films!

Ommy Lee Wallace has made many lasting contributions to genre filmmaking, first on John Carpenter's Dark Star and Assault on Precinct 13 before appearing as The Shape/Michael Myers in the original Halloween, writing Amityville 2: The Possession, co-writing and directing the original Fright Night Part II and acting and being part of the effects team for The Fog. But this film cements his legacy, with a great build and plenty of scares within the limitations of television. Originally airing from November 18 to 20, 1990, screenwriter Lawrence Cohen turned 1,138 pages of King into a two-part, three-hour TV movie. Wallace - and others - have commented that the first night is near perfect story-wise, but it falls apart on night two.The story concerns The Lucky Seven, or The Losers Club, a group of outcasts who learn that the shapeshifting creature named Pennywise has taking and killing children in their hometown of Derry, Maine. They first battle him in 1960 as teenagers before coming back to battle him again in 1990.This might sound like a broken record when it comes to King movies, George Romero had originally been signed on to direct the project when ABC had planned for an eight-to-ten-hour series that would play over four nights. He left the project due to scheduling conflicts, but he would finally direct a King adaptation, The Dark Half. This is considered one of the most faithful treatments of the author's work.That said, we're here to talk about It, which begins with Georgie Denbrough playing with the paper sailboat that his brother Bill (Becca fave Jonathan Brandis) has made for him. As it sails down the sewer, he encounters Pennywise (Tim Curry, whose work in this movie led to thousands of nightmares of 90's kids), who gnaws his arm off and leaves him to die.The Losers Club comes together when Bill and Eddie Kaspbrak welcome the new kid, overweight Ben Hanscom. They're soon joined by Beverly Marsh (Emily Perkins from the Ginger Snaps series of films), Richie Tozier (Seth Green), Stan Uris and Mike Hanlon. They all have two things in common: they're bullied by Henry Bowers' gang and they're all encountered the evil of Pennywise. They soon learn that every thirty years, the shapeshifter comes back to town to claim the lives of children.When Stan is ambushed by the gang, Pennywise (or It) emerges and kills two of the gang members. Henry is left traumatized and left with white hair. He eventually confesses to all of the murders, although he didn't commit them. Stanley and the rest of the Losers learn how to use their imagination to stop the creature and drive it into the sewers before making a vow to come back to Derry if it ever comes back.Thirty years later, Mike (Tim Reid from TV's WKRP in Cincinnati) is the only member of the Losers Club to stay in Derry. When It returns and begins killing again, he brings everyone back together. Bill (Richard Thomas, Battle Beyond the Stars) is now a famous horror writer married to Audra, a gorgeous British actress (Olivia Hussey, Black Christmas). Ben (John Ritter) is an architect. Beverly (Annette O'Toole) has grown up to be a fashion designer but has transitioned from being abused by her father to being beaten by her husband. Richie (the late, great Harry Anderson) is a comedian. Eddie (Dennis Christopher, Fade to Black) runs a limo service. And Stan is a real estate broker who decides to kill himself rather than come back home to face It.Meanwhile, Henry has escaped from the mental institution with the help of It. His goal? Kill the rest of the Losers. The shapeshifting monster also draws Bill's wife to town.Mike is hospitalized after being stabbed by Henry and the five remaining Losers head to the sewer for a final battle. That's when the movie falls apart, as the monster can never live up to King's words. If you ask nearly anyone, they always bring this up. That's because it's true.All of the Losers but Eddie make it out, with Beverly and Ben reconnecting and Bill saving his wife. But at this point, most people have been scorned by the spider that Pennywise becomes.That's because it's hard to beat just how scary Tim Curry is in this movie. Supposedly, he unnerved the cast so much that many avoided him during the production.The movie eliminates some of the problematic parts of the book for me, such as Beverly taking the virginity of all the male characters in the sewer, but retains Audra becoming a victim who needs to be rescued. Tommy Lee Wallace has noted that he doesn't think that it works dramatically in the movie or novel.

I never saw this on TV as the two part mini series back in the day, I always saw it as just one big movie on a vhs tape, so that's what I've always just thought of it as. This picture has unfortunately been getting a lot of fresh hate recently because of the uh, 're-imagining,' but that's not really fair to compare two movies that are almost thirty years apart like that. That new film did have some strengths that this doesn't but the door swings both ways and I'll tell you one thing, for all its flash that movie sure didn't have the heart and depth that this patchy old 'uncool' mini-series from way back in 1990 did. Maybe I feel that way because like the majority of its fans, I grew up watching "IT" and have a strong nostalgic connection to and a big soft spot for it, so frigging what, the rose-tinted glasses will only take you so far you know! It is big nostalgia trip for me, just hearing the opening music theme alone makes me recall how I felt seeing it as a kid, nostalgia is built into the fabric of the story, which is mostly about adults remembering their friends and childhood. I do love It but I can admit that this movie would have probably been largely forgotten were it not for the brilliance of Tim Curry as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The new guy was decent in a completely different way but he had to hop around like a mad frog and rush at the camera to make himself halfway scary, whereas Curry could chill you with a mere look and you never forget those eyes. Just the idea of him attacking is scary enough. He cuts such a fantastic iconic figure of horror pop culture as that clown. He looks and acts so silly but there's a definite sinister quality that's always there as well. He could easily make you laugh or scream, and the performance is one that sticks with you for life! The scene of young Georgie's death is one of the all time great moments in all of horrordom to me. It's so fantastically done, the bright whiteness of Pennywise's face against the pitch black of the drain with the water running down it, and the slyness in his eyes as he appears kindly and harmless enough to entice a happy-go-lucky little boy with offerings of balloons to get close enough to join him and die... That excellent scene is why you're afraid of clowns! The rest of it doesn't totally stand up to the bar that Curry sets though, and it's him and the child actors and their chemistry together as well as they're whole first part of the film that is what's best about it. Occasionally the dialogue can be so horribly corny, especially in the second part with the adults, things go into melodrama territory a lot. The ending is a letdown yes, but it's not like Stephen King himself didn't manage to screw up the ending of the book, if memory serves me right.. The ending in this though really doesn't pay off what is an effective buildup, that spider is way too goofy and ill-fitting with its googly crossed eyes and little T-Rex arms.. And it's so weirdly blunt how after wounding it with a silver piece from a slingshot, which makes no sense as it's meant to be a living creature and shouldn't be effected by the childhood mumbo-jumbo, they all just basically go "let's get him!" and run over and tip it like a cow and beat it to death with their bare hands! The real reason things fall a bit flat is because you've spent the better part of the three hours watching the creepy magic of Tim Curry in all his righteous clown glory, and then it ends with this ponderous silly puppet that comes out of nowhere! I do like the closing sequence though where Bill takes his wife Audra on a rather hazardous bike ride to try and wake her from the coma that the dreaded dead lights left her in, I found it poignant. A little light at the end of the tunnel as it were. I had a new appreciation for this the last time I watched if, I think it has way more good points and qualities than it's given credit for, IT was above average for its day, it's kind of all over the place but it's still a very enjoyable, entertaining, and engrossing viewing experience that has its dumb sillier elements but it also has it's legit scary ones too, as well as, hammy and annoying as some of them can frequently be, characters you can actually tell apart and do actually care about, and faults and all it will always be a classic to me. "See you in your dreams!"

My girlfriend and I watched most of "It" the other evening while on vacation in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I'd read and enjoyed the book not long after it came out and had watched the miniseries in 1990. My girlfriend had read the book but didn't recall it clearly. While I have no bones to pick with Tim Curry's interpretation of Pennywise, or with the other actors, I was somewhat puzzled with the sharing of the asthma inhaler prior to the children going underground after Pennywise. I realized that was the substitute for the 12-year-old girl realizing the only way the group of kids was going to get OUT of the sewers was by having sex. In the novel, there's nothing erotic about the sex, but many reviewers of the book complained about it, anyway. Stephen King said in his mind it was about bridging the gap between childhood and adulthood. I told my girlfriend, who has asthma, does that mean sharing your inhaler is the same as having sex? I shouldn't be so hard on a made-for-TV movie, but Hollywood manages to botch books in a variety of ways.