Film Review: IT

About the film

It is a horror film that was released in 1990 and was based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. It is rated 15 due to moderate horror and violence and the film is 180 minutes long as it was originally aired in two, hour and half parts. 

Plot

In Derry, Maine, children are disappearing left, right and centre and no one has any clue why or where and the police have no leads. At the beginning of the film, we see a little girl on a bike riding around and when her mother calls her to come in, she doesn't listen and carries on instead. The little girl hears other children laughing in the distance and then hears a clown. The clown seems friendly enough but the next thing we see is her bike and the floor and the little girl is dead.

'The Losers' are a group of kids in Derry who have all had some kind of interaction with Pennywise the Dancing Clown and the first half of the film is all about what they have had to go through and how they all meet as children. At the end of the first half, they all make a promise to come back to Derry if something like this ever happens again. The second half of the film follows The Losers in their adult life and how they all end up back in Derry to take on It once again. 

What I thought

To begin with, I just want to mention that this film is in two parts and the disc is double sided although nowhere on the case, or the disc mentions this. I was highly disappointed with this because after I watched the first half, I was left wondering where the rest of the film was and it took me a little while to figure out what was happening and that was only after I had a quick look on Amazon.

I first watched this film when I was 10 and it had just been released. We had a babysitter at the time who probably shouldn't have let us watch the first half because it absolutely terrified me and my sister but we were still determined to watch the rest of the film the next night. I remember having nightmares for days after watching IT and for a long time it was the scariest film I had ever seen.

Tim Curry is absolutely fantastic as Pennywise/ It and I didn't even find out that it was him until recently. I loved him in Rocky Horror so I was quite surprised to learn that he could be someone so scary. Pennywise is by far the scariest clown I have ever seen and Tim Curry really brings the character to life. Now that I know there is going to be a remake, I am slightly curious as to who will play Pennywise and if they will be any good.

The rest of the acting isn't amazing but I can’t think of many films from the early 90's where the performances really stood out. The child actors are so much better and more convincing than the adults which made me not like the second half of the film quite as much. Performances all round are quite pathetic and cheesy but this is something which helps me to love IT so much. I don’t think I would have loved it quite as much had this been a masterpiece from the aspect of the casting.

Like a lot of films, the ending is very predictable, apart from when we get to see what IT really is. Considering the rest of the film and story is so good, this part really let it down and turned it into something silly and extremely unbelievable. 

The Remake

A remake of IT was due to be released in 2011 although still no news on a release date a year on. After liking the remake of Halloween in 2007, I'm really looking forward to seeing what they can do with this film, especially with the amount of effects and CGI that can be used now. It has been announced thought that the film will have an R rating in the US so obviously there will be a high amount of gore in comparison to the original. It has also been announced that it will stay a two part film, just like the original. Here's to hoping that the remake will scare me as much as the original did the first time around.