OverrateIT

I finally caved and watched the new It movie. I was hesitant not only because I'm so fond of the television miniseries from 1990, but I thought the movie had a suspicious amount of overhype and push. (After The Dark Tower bombed so badly it could be seen from space, I feel that the studio tried that much harder to make It succeed, and I feel like a lot of the positive criticism It received was artificial.) I tried to keep an open mind. People would always say an R-rated, full-length feature film could and should be able to do more than a made-for-TV movie in 1990. But did it?

To put it plainly, I didn't like it. For its long run time and focus on just one portion of the book, I found it incredibly lacking. It didn't have much heart or a soul. I'd like to say I couldn't call it a "bad" horror movie, because there's just a lot of terrible horror movies out there, especially from the past several years, but I never found the movie scary in the slightest. Not once. So, while not the worst made horror movie, it is, in a sense, a bad horror movie in that it's a horror movie that lacks terror, tension, suspense, eeriness. And you know something else? It's not exactly visually stylish. So it didn't make much use out of the millions it had for a budget; it looks more like something made for television than the 1990 miniseries people like to disparage.

I've always read horror fans who compared Pennywise to Freddy Krueger. (That's the dream team-up for a lot of fans.) This movie plays to me very similarly to the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street in terms of seeming so hollow and trying so hard, but achieving so little. And it plays like A Nightmare on Elm Street movie if Freddy Krueger was very bad at what he does. The scenes where a character encounters Pennywise has the feel of one of the Nightmare franchise's dream sequences, but Pennywise is easy to shake off whereas Freddy would, at best cause damage, at worst KILL YOU! So, Pennywise feels ineffectual here.

Pennywise is a huge problem of the movie. Bill Skarsgård is just far too young for the ancient, evil, sadistic monster Pennywise is supposed to be. He has no presence, so you never feel the threat of Pennywise is conveyed. He's constantly looming, he can show up at any time, but throughout the movie, I kept feeling like he was just a lackey, and I was waiting for the real head honcho to show up. Skarsgård is just too young and doesn't have the acting credentials of someone like Tim Curry, so he doesn't give the character any weight. (Tilda Swinton was considered as Pennywise -- that would have been pretty interesting, I think she's an unpredictable performer who can do a lot with a little.) Instead, Skarsgård must rely too much on the make-up and effects to make Pennywise scary, and that fails, too. Pennywise's look here is just too extreme. They tried too hard to make him look like a "scary" clown to the point where he's NOT scary. The movie approaches each scare scene in the same way -- from the music tipping you off to jittery camera work, it's all calling out to you directly "Ooh, isn't this scary? You're meant to be scared right abouuuuuuuuut HERE!" and it just doesn't work. Some horror movies telegraph their scares -- this one might as well have had text on the screen telling you when and where you were meant to start getting scared.

Pennywise wasn't intimidating or menacing, no matter how giant or monstrous they'd make him via CGI. From even the trailers, I genuinely laughed at Pennywise. Not in a "Oh, he's a good, scary clown" way, but in a "they honestly think this qualifies as scary" way. As in, I can't get past the way he reminds me of Peter Sarsgaard's Hector Hammond character from that terrible Green Lantern movie. (Tell me I'm wrong, from the monstrous head to the high-pitched squealing.) They tried too hard...

Speaking of trying too hard, Richie Tozier. They wanted every line out of his mouth to be a comedic slaughter of vulgarity, but he just played like the worst comedian, sweating on stage trying to get you to laugh before you could rightly heckle him off. SO obnoxious. (Seth Green's Richie wasn't exactly a comedic genius in the original, but you didn't want Pennywise to show up and bite his head off.) The kids surprisingly weren't bad -- I didn't like Jaeden Lieberher as Bill or Finn Wolfhard's Richie -- but I felt like they were very interchangeable and not as distinct or defined as the book or miniseries made them. (Why change it from Mike to Ben as the one who documents the history of Derry and Pennywise? Not only does it make more sense for the character who becomes a librarian to be the one with that knowledge, but it makes Mike completely unnecessary in this movie.)

The biggest problem I had with the movie, though, is losing the magical realism. The kids are written as mini-adults who knew everything and could do everything. Part of the power of the story is that these kids band together and defeat this awful entity through unity and their faith. In the novel, in the miniseries, they have that innocence that allows them to IMAGINE and BELIEVE in things that aid them in their struggles. Their belief that silver will hurt IT because IT's a monster, or Eddie's stepping up to save Stan with his inhaler or Stan's Boy Scout mantras being used as prayers. That the kids are so bullied and beaten down by life, and that faith and imagination got them through, and it's something that greatly helps them overcome IT, something that they even retain as adults, it's just such a crucial, necessary part of what makes Stephen King's IT so powerful.

But, typical of the state of the world and especially Hollywood today, I assumed it was deemed too "cheesy" and jettisoned in favor of what we got -- vulgarity and fisticuffs and Bill arming himself to take on Pennywise with a bolt gun. (I'm surprised they just didn't give him a Smith & Wesson.) The final showdown with Pennywise is RIDICULOUS. I never thought these characters would confront a personification of fear by charging It and just trying to beat it up, like some schoolyard bully. And Pennywise is just kicking them back like he's goddamn Jet Li, and they're bouncing off the sewer walls like all of the CGI Agent Smiths from that terrible Matrix movie. And Bill gets in a couple of headshots with a gun! (How could the moviemakers not keep Pennywise's GREAT response to the Losers when they keep shouting "Kill It! Kill It!"? Pennywise is such a non-presence in this movie. What the hell have people been going on about?) Maybe this all sounded good on paper and looked cool on the big screen, but it's a failure dramatically. Try hard. (I also think it was a mistake to have Beverly have a vision of them returning as adults to fight It; that really robs Part 2 of the drama, where the kids were 75% sure they actually defeated It, knowing deep down they didn't, and having to overcome their fear to return to Derry. Now they already know. Where's the drama?)

If It can be summed up, it's "try hard." The scariest part of the movie was thinking about all of the ways they'll try harder in the sequel. They've already said they plan to make Mike a junkie, but what possible "edgy" direction can they come up with for the others to show just how screwed up they became? Will Bill go from a horror writer to a porno director? Will Bev be a prostitute? Will Eddie be a sexual predator? Will Ben be a serial killer, basing his crimes off of NKOTB lyrics? Will Richie become a politician? Another thing to consider: they probably think Skarsgård's youth will be an advantage over the older actors, but considering he couldn't be menacing enough to convincingly terrorize kid actors, he's going to be hilarious going up against actors twice his age.

On the bright side, this flick made me appreciate all that Tommy Lee Wallace was able to accomplish with the 1990 miniseries. I now like that movie even more than I already did.

Victor is grinning, flesh is rotting away

I remember being a kid and somehow seeing the music video for The Ramones' Pet Sematary theme song before ever knowing what Pet Sematary was. I thought the song was awesome, and it led me down the path of being a huge Ramones fan. (If The Ramones aren't my top favorite band, they're at least in a close top three. It's also cool that they got the Ramones to do the theme since the novel had a few references to the band.) But the clips from the movie which were used in the video interested me, and I wanted to check it out. If the song for the movie was awesome, how awesome must the movie be?

Well, I didn't get to find out for a while. I remember being excited renting Pet Sematary. I'm just watching along, no big deal -- "Where's this movie headed?" -- and, for some reason, I got creeped out by the scene of a bloodied and wounded Victor Pascow being carried into the hospital. There's no real preparation for it, the movie's mainly been a dull sitcom of the Reeds' moving day, and then BAM, a bloody head filling the frame, with the commotion of panicked crowds and rushing helpers. I think there's something about the scene beginning in slow motion that I found off-putting, too.

OK, Kid Radu, suck it up, it's a horror movie. And then the second shock -- Louis pronounces Victor dead, and everybody leaves the room. Louis sits there, saddened, his first day on the job and already he couldn't save someone...and then, with a jolt, Victor grabs Louis, spouting guttural nonsense. I was ready to walk out of the movie then but wanted to stick with it. It was a simple little jolt scare, and looked like Louis' hallucination, I'm sure that's it for that character. And then the clincher...

The disgusting, grey, vein-y, rotting corpse version of Victor shows up in the doorway of Louis' bedroom, chipper, casual, but with that supernatural echo effect to his voice. "Hi, doc!" I don't know what it was that bugged me about Victor so much, but this part freaked the shit out of me, and I turned the movie off, with no intention of finishing it. I didn't know how that guy pertained to things, how it fit in with a pet cemetery, but I wasn't going to stick around and find out. That's not all...

Later that night I had a nightmare about Victor and was 100% convinced I woke up from that nightmare and saw Victor standing in MY bedroom doorway, same as in the movie. I don't know if this was actually the nightmare, or if I was half-awake when I "saw" him, but it still scared the shit out of me. I'm pretty sure I woke up in one of those over-the-top manners, like in that episode of M*A*S*H when a resurfaced memory of nearly drowning causes Hawkeye to wake up from nightmares screaming his head off and piss the bed. I never wanted to watch that movie again...

But I soon afterward did. And the funny thing about Victor, and what I've come to like about the character over the years, is that he's a complete good guy! He looks and sounds monstrous, but he's there to help Louis and, eventually, the Creed family. I just find that brilliant about the character, that someone so horrifying looking is actually just totally decent and kind. Victor was just a college student who was tragically hit by a truck; because Louis tried to save him and stayed with him in his final moments of life, when his soul departed, Victor's spirit returns to help Louis, whose own life, and the lives of his family members, are in danger. I'd say he's like a horror version of Jacob Marley, but Marley was a cruel character who tries to compensate by helping Scrooge as a ghost.

The other tragedy is that Victor completely fails in saving the Creeds. He warns Louis to avoid the Indian burial ground, but Louis doesn't listen. He tries to get through to the Creeds through Ellie and her Shining ability, but she's discredited as a kid just having bad dreams; and then he guides Rachel as she tries to return home to Louis as quickly as possible, to prevent him from harm or doing harm. There's a limit to how much Victor is able to intervene, his most direct contact being through Louis, who ignores him.

And when everything goes to pieces -- the supernatural Gage killing Jud and Rachel, Louis losing his mind -- Victor appears one more time to apologize to the now mad Louis, who's on his way to the burial ground to bury Rachel. Victor warns him one last time, and is again ignored. He was a good man, Victor Paxcow. The funny thing is, he's not entirely essential to the story. You can take him out and more or less have the same movie. But he's such an interesting addition, giving the movie just an extra shot of creepiness and at being so unsettling. As grotesque as he is kind, he's such a memorable character and part of the movie.

Actor Brad Greenquist does a great job with the role, providing the right amount of creepiness, but also eventually bringing the movie some of its only levity in the second half, without losing what makes this character so unnerving and distinct. And the make-up design and effects are both just disgustingly brilliant. I've long wanted an action figure for this character that haunted me, but ended up becoming one of my favorite horror heroes. I once again had to take it upon myself to have a custom made...

Stephen King's IT, based on the novel "IT" by Stephen King

There was a time when miniseries ruled television, and they were an event, goddammit! Some miniseries changed the landscape of pop-culture, some miniseries sought to rival big-screen epics, some miniseries...weren't so great. But the miniseries was THE ideal place to go when you wanted to adapt an overly long novel, or maybe even a known writer's less popular works that Hollywood wouldn't give a shot on the silver screen. You might not get the most money to work with, you might not have the best talent available to you, and you're going to be heavily censored, but the miniseries gave you the time to take on lengthy novels. As is the case of any movie or TV show, the TV-movieshow hybrid that was the Television Miniseries Event was a crapshoot; people can be dismissive of them, but there were good ones.

1990's IT was far from the first adaptation of a Stephen King novel, and it wasn't even the first TV miniseries adaptation of one of his works. I recommend Salem's Lot, but it was before my time, so I don't know how much press it got. But I remember IT being heavily promoted, just plastered on magazines and constantly having commercials aired. I don't know if there was that much faith in IT or if it was all simply a result of the many popular and successful TV miniseries that the 1980s saw. And while IT kicked open the door for ABC's lengthy run of turning just about every Stephen King novel into a miniseries, I feel like IT was pretty much the last truly successful, popular miniseries, and that they soon fell out of fashion afterward.

I was young, but I was a horror freak, and I was massively into IT when it aired and obsessed with it. I remember being so excited when it was released to VHS and renting it -- those two-tape sets that are rubber-banded in video stores -- and then eventually buying it. I had the novel that was a tie-in, with Tim Curry's Pennywise on the cover. (I didn't read it, obviously. I was a kid, and the thing was bigger than an Arby's Big Montana. And that's just the paperback! When I ended up reading IT, I read the damned hardcover, which is like a vintage Olympia typewriter; you could kill someone with that sumbitch.)

There were things that appealed to me as a kid horror fan, but it also has layers that I appreciate more as an adult, and it's a movie that I think works well and holds up, so I've always been surprised that, despite its success at the time, it's a movie that divides the horror fans. A lot aren't happy by its TV Movie-ness, a lot aren't happy that it isn't faithful to King's novel down to the letter, a lot of people think the cast is cheesy. I've mentioned before what a King fan I am, what he means to me as a horror fan growing up in the '80s, and while I've always liked this movie, I put off reading the book. And when I finally did? No offense, I prefer this movie.

What was the appeal for me? Probably that it was a serious horror movie centered on kids; one that didn't pull punches and wasn't filled with cloyingly cute characters or ones who only exist in Hollywood scripts, where they're mini-adults who know and can do everything. These felt like regular kids, really relatable -- I knew kids like this, I identified with most of these kids. They're kids who are leading kind of depressing lives in dreary old Derry, and they're smart, but they retain some of that innocent and young belief in the otherworldly. They're outsiders, but they come together in their shared sense of loneliness and bond over their shared experience with unhappy lives, bullies and the terror of IT. They're kind of like a team of superheroes. And how tragic and unfair is it that IT targets these particular kids, who already have such sad lives?

One portion of the movie that disturbed me when I was a kid was all of the parts relating to Georgie. My kid brother would sneakily follow me around, attach himself to me, and I'd worry about the sumbitch. So all of the gruesome scenes with Georgie, and Bill's pain at losing him, I found all of that so unsettling. And it leads to these moments that help convey what an absolutely evil bastard Pennywise is, like when he creepily leaves an old photo of Georgie at a new crime scene or the way he's always tormenting Bill with the paper boat he made for Georgie. And then there's the creepy scene of Georgie's picture coming to life and bleeding -- I hated that.

And what really interests me, as I got older, was the way they come back together as adults to face their old childhood enemy again. Again, I see it as almost superhero-like, but there's a real tragedy in the way their lives went; they mostly all fled Derry and its horrible memories, and while they mostly found success in their careers, they are still as broken and haunted as they are scattered from one another. It took a tremendous amount of courage for them to face IT as children, but they had a certain amount of faith then. I feel it takes even more courage for them to all rush back to Derry to keep their promise to face IT again, as traumatized adults, broken by their unhappy childhoods and fears, which have led to some of them to falling into patterns of pain -- they may have escaped Derry, its dreariness and IT, but it's still all with them, deep down. (Ben distracts himself with booze and women; Beverly is stuck with an abusive and controlling boyfriend, echoing the relationship with her dad; Eddie is unhappily still living with his controlling mother; Richie is jaded and busies himself with work -- and in the novel, is a drug user; Mike has damned himself to a depressing life in Derry, keeping an eye open for IT's return; Stan is unable to contemplate facing it again, and in despair, takes his own life, in what is a strong and sorrowful end to Part 1.) There's just a sadness and pitiful quality to these characters now that they're older, with the odds against them, and trying to find the courage to face their fears one last time.

Most people think Part 1 of the miniseries is its best part, and it IS really good and well done. It's a breezy 90 minutes, that doesn't quite feel rushed, yet manages to pack SO much story and characters into it that I don't even know how they pulled it off. It balances from the past to the present smoothly, hitting all the right beats of who our characters are and filling in each of their individual experiences with IT which leads to them ultimately coming together to face IT in hopes of killing it. Fans of the novel complain that the miniseries dilutes too much of the novel, that the novel is deeper and richer, but I think the movie did a fine job of keeping the essential portions of the story. There's a lot of extraneous detail in the novel, a lot of surprisingly wrongheaded and gratuitous turns. (You know what I'm talking about, if you've read the book. It's a segment that screenwriter-director Tommy Lee Wallace rightfully criticizes and dismisses in the commentary track.) The miniseries is pared down, not just by the limits of budget and television, but by wisely jettisoning some of the novel's excessiveness, and I think it ends up making the movie more grounded, less outlandish, more emotional, more mysterious and therefore creepier.

Some people say the novel does a better job of getting you to know and feel like one of the Loser's Club. While many criticize the miniseries' casting of sitcom vets as the adults, I think a great advantage to having so many faces from familiar, popular shows is that shorthand -- you're so familiar with some of these performers from having seen them in so many episodes of whatever, and you have likable people like John Ritter or Harry Anderson or Richard Thomas or Tim Reid that you take a quick liking to them, you feel like you know them, and you therefore feel like they're old friends. And I feel like the production is aware of that, and does put that to use. And they manage to get good, likable kid performers, and block-by-block establish their relationship, while cutting back and forth to the present day so you know who's who and you're able to quickly care for them.

People like to poke fun at the "sitcomy" cast, but Thomas, Annette O'Toole, Dennis Christopher and Richard Masur are dramatic actors, and even John Ritter started out as a dramatic actor. I always thought this cast goes pretty unappreciated. They do a great job here, and convincingly convey their friendship and history of shared pain. Would you rather prefer Rick Springfield or some 90210 cast members? The cast we got took their work seriously, with director Tommy Lee Wallace giving them ample rehearsal time to bond. Several cast members had already known each other and worked together, which was an advantage for the project, and the adult actors were adamant about meeting up with their kid counterparts to work on creating similarities.

And horror fans should at least appreciate O'Toole and Christopher's involvements, after they were in Cat People and Fade to Black, respectively. There's also Olivia Hussey -- Black Christmas, come on! I used to question Michael Cole's casting as the older Henry Bowers, because he seemed so much older than the rest of the cast members, but I think it works to the story's advantage in conveying what a harsh life Bowers has had. Bowers was a sadistic piece of shit, but how crazy is it that he loses his mind in the sewers when he was a kid and ends up taking the fall for Pennywise's crimes?

I think Part 2 of the miniseries is thought lesser of because it's more of a straightforward narrative; it takes its time, it's about the team reuniting, the dread building within them as they prepare to take IT on. There's less of the flashbacks, it's a really focused, singular storyline, so it's not as impressively packed as Part 1, therefore maybe seeming "boring" to viewers. I think the slower pace works in building the dread in these characters; I don't think it's a negative, I don't feel like Part 2 is padded or dull, I disagree with the criticism against it. If anything, Part 2 is more somber, and perhaps that's what turns people off, whereas Part 1 had more humorous moments and levity with the younger versions of the characters and the nostalgic setting of 1960. (I don't want to be insulting and say "it was a simpler time." I disagree with that shit, there's never been a "simpler" time. But pop-culture has certainly made certain time periods, like the '50s and a brief period of the early'60s, come across as a warm and fuzzy period of innocence and happiness.)

Whether you like this movie or hate it, one thing everybody can and does agree on is Tim Curry's awesome, classic, excellent performance as Pennywise. Think of what it usually takes for an actor to break through with a character and create an iconic, definitive take. With the snobbery of movies versus television, movies are usually only taken into consideration in terms of this. Bela Lugosi IS Dracula, Christopher Lee IS Dracula, Gary Oldman IS Dracula. Jack Palance, Louis Jourdan? Nobody talks about them. They're not contenders, they were in "lowly" TV movies. (By the way, despite all of the critics who say we're currently in a "golden age" of television, the stigma and snobbery of movies/cinema over television still remains.) But Tim Curry takes this role and performs magic with it, creating one of the top fan favorite horror villains, one who's always included in the big line-up of Great Horror villains alongside heavyhitters like the Universal Monsters and Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers -- all from just a criticized, "lowly" TV movie that's over 20 years old.

What's shocking is just how little Pennywise is in the movie -- or at least Curry. Billed as a "special guest appearance," Curry was probably the biggest name in the movie at the time, and it's apparent that they only had a limited amount of days to work with him. He appears sparingly, and rarely even interacts with the main cast, which says to me he was such a get, that they had to film all of his stuff on separate days, reading to crew members. But it's such a strong, incredible performance, that you don't even notice any of that -- he's such a dominating presence, it feels like he's in much, much more of the movie than he actually is. And what's great about his performance is just how much he's able to do with this mysterious, vague character, how terrifying and intimidating he can make the character, but also how silly and entertaining he can turn around and make Pennywise be. Pennywise is given some intentionally moldy jokes to say at times, but Curry sells the hell out of it and manages to make you laugh at World's Worst Jokes like "Prince Albert in a Can." Royal Shakespeare Company, baby. Like the trained actor he is, you can tell Curry read the novel, especially with the way he mispronounces "correct" the way Pennywise does in the book.

(I think it was a missed opportunity not to have Tim Curry, sans make-up, playing the gas station attendant Audra encounters. The character is just yet another one of Pennywise's disguises, but it would have been a neat touch -- especially if they had given him a name-tag that said "Bob," alluding to IT's Bob Gray disguise in the novel.)

When I was a kid, I was always interested in the sort of behind-the-scenes details of things, I paid attention to movie credtis, I had a fascination with actors who were diverse and I couldn't quite picture it when I realized that this performer is the same one who played that such-and-such character. I remember eventually renting the movie Clue when I was a kid, well after seeing IT and being obsessed with IT, and my mom pointing out Tim Curry, telling me he played Pennywise. I was just like "Huh, what, really?!?" I could see the resemblance to Pennywise, but was pretty astonished at the transformation.

And he's working through a design that's...creepy, yes, but a fairly understated design. I don't say that as an insult, I like how low-key and simple Pennywise's look is -- he's not far off from any ordinary clown design and outfit. It's all really in Curry's performance, the anger and sinister side and evilness of the character. But he's funny and quick to turn on the charm. Some people question why IT decides to take the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown the most, and I question what those people don't understand about the concept. You don't need to suffer from coulrophobia to find clowns creepy; there's something just inherently spooky about them. And yet at the same time, clowns are meant to represent fun and joy and entertainment. Who loves clowns? Kids. What is IT's target? Children. So, it should be obvious why IT chooses the form of a clown as a way to lure IT's prey in.

There's also people who knock the movie for having IT take the form of movie monsters like the Teenage Werewolf and Mummy, using it as a way to insult the movie and call it "cheesy." These moments might not necessarily scare the audience, but are necessary in context of the story; if IT was using these two forms to scare the adults, I'd agree it's lame. But he's using it to scare the kids. When are those movie monsters scariest? When you're a kid. I have some embarrassing stories of being scared of movie monsters when I was a kid. You do, too, don't deny it! There was a time when I was a kid, when I was rummaging through a box of junk in our basement, and at the bottom was a folder with Freddy Krueger on it, and I ran out of the room. Literally, like a cartoon character, I think I was walking on air as I got the hell out of there. I loved Nightmare on Elm Street, and it was MY folder, and I knew Freddy was just Robert Englund, but being alone in the basement and the shock of finding that image when it wasn't expected -- sent me running out of the room like a nut.

The big criticism, in terms of the shapes IT takes when it comes to the final big form... People are puzzled by and question the choice of the gigantic spider. I always thought the answer to why it was a spider was pretty simple: one of Stephen King's big phobias is spiders. So he has his big monster, which takes the shape of whatever you fear most, reveal its ultimate physical shape as his own big fear. All it is is King putting something personal on the page, no different from the fact that a main character in every one of his stories is often a writer of some variation.

But what is IT, really? That's something the movie tries to keep a little mysterious by its paring down the novel, and something that works to its advantage. Is IT an evil spirit? A monster? A demon? Is it a supernatural collection of everyone's fear? Is it, as some suggest (and I disagree with) merely the shared psychosis of the kids it targets? The movie doesn't dwell far from the book, but makes it blurry -- it just hints that IT's true form is a madness-inducing light, which Stan sees and calls the "deadlights." Pennywise tells them that the human mind cannot comprehend his true form, but the giant spider is apparently IT's biggest weapon, saved for when IT's in its lair and taking on the grown-up Losers Club.

Well, the book reveals that IT...originated as an alien organism that was attached to a meteorite that landed in what became Derry...? Yeah, the book gets all weird and becomes a metaphysical, metacosmic acid-trip. People criticize the movie for its final battle being between the Losers and the giant spider form, but the book is just unfilmable. There's still a giant spider, but King throws in some pseudo-spiritual stuff with Bill lost in IT's "deadlights" and getting help from IT's longtime enemy, a giant tortoise and...whaaaaaaaaaa? Now, I find a lot of King's climaxes to be rushed or disappointing, and this one is no different. I guess he thought -- and it's understandable -- that by the time you've hit page 1,000, the reader is just going to want it to end, no matter how insane or weird, so, hey, might as well just throw whatever at the page, eh?

I've stuck up for the miniseries and its TV budget, but I can not stick up for the spider effect. First of all, it makes its debut appearance in some clunky Claymation. Secondly, the size wildly varies. At first it's humongous, but then it's practically no bigger than Bill and the gang. Finally, it barely looks like a spider, it looks more like an anorexic BrundleFly that's been stepped on. Actually, it's more crustacean looking than arachnid. I'd be willing to overlook it if the scene is strong, but it initially isn't due to their trying to hide this spider effect. Our heroes look a bit dumb when Bill's like "I'll fight you, bastard!" And then gets frozen by staring at the deadlights. And then Ben's like "I gotta help Bill!" and then gets frozen by catching a glimpse of its deadlights. And then Richie is like "Hey, guys, snap out of it!" and gets frozen by the deadlights. Eddie takes the gambit of repeating his inhaler attack, which is kind of ludicrous when the spider's so damn huge, and he gets himself quickly killed, while Bev is trying to find the silver jewels to shoot IT with after missing the target.

That part of it is kind of ho-hum for me, but I like the follow-up; once Bev has successfully injured IT (she shoots silver into its deadlights, which is unfortunately ruined by an effect that basically looks like the firework explosion from the credits of Love, American Style superimposed over the spider's abdomen) and the three guys snap out of their deadlights daze, Eddie dies in their arms and the four just stare at the entrance of IT's lair in pure hate and rage. They then storm the room and beat the ever loving shit out of the giant spider, tearing it to pieces, ooze covering the spider and their hands, as they rip out its heart and hold it in victory. The actors sell the rage as they beat up this plastic CrabSpider, and I think it's a strong scene, and it's sold even more by playing Tim Curry voiceovers, of him just howling in pain, as IT dies, its lights fading. (They literally punch IT's deadlights out.) So, that makes up for the lackluster spider effect for me, the intensity of that scene, the brutality and drama behind it.

One thing the book has over the movie is that once IT dies, there's a horrific flood that sweeps through Derry. It's a bit Biblical, and it represents IT losing its hold over the town. Not an entirely necessary thing for the movie to keep, and certainly not within its budget, but I think it's symbolic and further adds to the Loser Club's hard fought victory.

I like this movie, I think it works, I think it has a lot of heart and emotion, as well as scares and a classic movie monster in Tim Curry's Pennywise. The cast and director taking it seriously and treating it with respect comes across and I think IT is the best miniseries adaption of a King work. And the DVD is one of my favorite DVD releases ever, with the cleaned up picture, fun menus (the balloon cursor bursts into a blood splat when you select something!) and a really entertaining commentary track.

There's been talk for years of an IT remake, first as a new television miniseries and now as a feature film. The feature film has had a revolving door of cast and crew members, but seems to be finally getting off the ground. As of this writing, Swedish actor Bill Skarsgard has been cast as Pennywise, replacing the previously announced Will Poulter. I'm concerned with how young they're casting Pennywise. Whoever plays Pennywise has extra-large clown shoes to fill, and I don't know if a younger performer could come close to what Curry did in the role. (Skarsgard is only as old as the miniseries!) I'm also afraid that the new movie will go too extreme with Pennywise's look, being overstylized and making him constantly look monstrous and weird and forgo the minimalist approach the miniseries took.

Most of the book fans who trash the miniseries are excited about this new movie, and I don't understand why they think it will be any truer to the novel they're so protective of. To do the novel perfectly, you'd probably have to adapt it as a three-season show on HBO or Showtime. A theatrical movie is going to have to excise just as much, if not more, than the miniseries did. I think a lot of viewers and moviemakers today are incredibly cynical, so I don't think a new movie will have the heart or sentimentality that the story requires AND that the original movie worked so hard to bring to life. And if the kid portion is going to be set in the '80s instead of the '60s... Current pop-culture has sucked the '80s dry. And, besides, the '80s have never had the warm and glow that decades like the '50s and '60s have been given, so it's not going to work the same. The biggest difference will be in the gore and language department. I guess maybe people are just that desperate to hear "This is battery acid, fucknuts!"

One last laugh.

The King of Horror, nightmares sold separately

I knew they released figures for every single one of the 15,000 original characters that ever appeared on screen in The Simpsons, so they had to run out of toys eventually, right? Apparently not...

When I first saw that they were releasing figures based on the show's celebrity guest stars, my reaction was a little bit like "Jesus Christ, they've reached 3,000 miles beneath the bottom of the barrel." And then I saw they did one for Stephen King and was like "Stephen King has an action figure. That's kind of awesome." So, I knew I had to buy one. Unfortunately, it seems that horror fans all thought the same thing, because it's been a bit of a bugger to track down. It goes pretty much instantly out of stock whenever a store gets it and scalpers on eBay are charging about four times its retail price.

If you're a horror fan of a certain age, I think Stephen King and his works hold a bit of meaning to you. The '80s were filled with adaptations of his books, on the big screen and small, so they were kind of hard to ignore. I also remember my horror loving aunt's place being littered with his books and how I'd go to the library with her and get some of his stuff. (I think the first thing I read of his in its entirety was the story that Silver Bullet was based off of, Cycle of the Werewolf. I know that's a short story, but, hey, I was a kid.) Stephen King's a giant of horror, so I wanted this figure as part of my collection of horror figures.

It depressed me a little to hear stories of people getting to meet King at book signings, though. He's such a giant that so many people are waiting to meet him that it sounds like they're just all rushed through on a conveyor belt. One story I read was reminiscent of Ralphie meeting Santa in A Christmas Story -- like the person is placed in front of King, and before they were even able to say "hello," he's done scribbling an autograph while a couple of assistants/guards just kept pulling them along, shoving them down that slide, dashing their hopes of getting that Red Ryder air rifle.

The figure was released just in time for Encore's month-long Stephen King marathon, which has been fun. The thing doesn't really have the right yellow coloring of the Simpsons characters, though -- it looks more like one of those creepy butter sculptures. Still, it's cool to have a Stephen King figure...

A Drink of Redrum

I never really understood why people made such a fuss over The Shining. I remember when the TV miniseries was coming out (and being hyped in your face at every turn) that people were in outrage -- outrage! -- that they tried to remake such a classic movie. And on TV no less! (This was 1997, a year before Gus Van Sant's terrible, terrible karaoke of Psycho -- no, it's not a remake, it's a bad, drunken karaoke cover. Once word of that movie leaked, it sparked such a powerful hyperbolic outrage that it blotted out the already fading memory of The Shining miniseries.) I thought the miniseries was pretty silly, and I remember renting the 1980 movie at this time, and just being bored by it...

But, hey, I was a teen. Maybe I just didn't have the patience for a bloated Kubrick film, right? So I gave the movie another chance around last Halloween and...sorry, I was still bored by it. So bored, in fact, that I had to stop it and finish it later, and I HATE interrupting movies like that. I was a bit disappointed that my perception of the movie didn't change. (Ridley Scott's Alien is a movie that, when I watched it as a youngster, it felt like time froze, but I've come to really like it over the years.) Kubrick's film is stylish, and I like it visually, but he is more concerned with mood and atmosphere and not on characters or emotion, so the movie seems pretty hollow to me.

I don't know why, but recently it just popped in my head to check out the novel, which I hadn't read before. I supposed I always figured...why bother? I didn't like either filmed version, why would I like the novel? And it turns out...I liked the novel! A lot of things click and make more sense -- and are actually scary -- when the reader can get into characters' heads. King really succeeds in driving home just how terrifying that feeling of isolation could be, letting you feel the dread the Torrance family feel on that last day of the hotel's business, as the guests and workers leave one by one until the Torrances are all alone. And it just clicked for me in a way that it really hadn't in the movies. (I've stayed with friends who lived in the boonies, so, you think I WOULD have realized just how dreadful of a feeling it is, to feel like you're so far removed from civilization, away from help if you needed it, away from LIFE.)

Also, it helps the reader being able to get into the heads of the wife and child -- the helplessness they feel when the man of the family, the one meant to protect them, becomes an incredible danger. (The movies barely touch upon them, but I think the chapters with Jack locked in one of the hotel's pantries is some of the book's most tense.) And Jack himself -- you better understand his struggle. Is he exhausted? In withdrawal? Going crazy? Being possessed? Jack's more his own person, and King walks a line, where the reader and the characters are never sure what to make of Jack until the end.

So, reading the novel, I decided to check out that miniseries again. I mean, why not, right? King wrote the teleplay, he approved of the project -- it was his idea! (I actually LOVE how rock 'n roll King's attitude is about Kubrick's movie. When the rest of the world is worshiping Kubrick, King gives his movie the middle finger and is like "You know what? No, I don't like it. You screwed it up.") Was I misremembering the miniseries? Was I prejudiced against a TV movie?

Nope! I still didn't like the miniseries. I'm not really a fan of director Mick Garris's works -- I think his movies are incredibly plain, and his scare scenes can be a little hokey and predictable -- but I'm willing to cut some slack because it just had to be a pain in the balls to make this movie with the constraints of television. (Not to mention making a genre movie for the family-friendly tight-asses at ABC.) I like the casting in this movie even less than King liked the original's casting -- I get what they were going for with Steven Weber, who's a likable guy, so you're meant to be shocked when he becomes monstrous, but Weber's not a scary or intimidating guy, so I feel he's miscast. They have to bury him in make-up and applications to try to make him seem scary. (Garris wanted Gary Sinise, who was too afraid to step into Nicholson's shoes, but I can't picture him working out, either.) I know King's complaint with Nicholson was that he always seemed sinister and crazy, but I think that's the fault of Kubrick not being concerned with characters or performances. Nicholson CAN be a charming and likable guy, so he could have been directed as such in order to make that side of Jack work. Needless to say, Nicholson can certainly be scary and intimidating -- his Jack's not a dude you'd want to be snowed in at the Overlook with. I'll even defend Shelly Duvall's casting a bit -- no, she's not as take-charge as Wendy is in the novel, but I think the casting works in how it highlights the desperation of an ordinary woman up against a much stronger, unpredictable madman who's backed by supernatural drinking buddies. De Mornay was more well received, but I felt like the movie tried a little too hard to prove that she wasn't Duvall that it ended up calling too much attention to itself.

Most kid actors are awful, so it would always be hard to cast Danny when he's supposed to be so smart and mature for his young age. I think the key to casting a kid like that is to get a kid actor who has a bit of an edge or an old soul quality about them, and Danny Lloyd fits that. The miniseries' Courtland Mead isn't the best choice, cast mainly in terms of cuteness and not performance, since he says every line the same exact, whispery way. (He must hate Haley Joel Osment for stealing his career.) I also think it's a big mistake for the miniseries to have shown his imaginary friend, Tony -- the novel mentions Tony just being a shadowy figure until his last appearance, but the miniseries has this horribly cast, pulled-from-the-1950s dork as Tony, popping up accompanied by terrible special-effects. The vagueness of the shady figure made it spookier, and was reminiscent of Victor Pascow from King's Pet Sematary -- a mysterious character with an unsettling appearance, but ultimately benevolent and trying to help the character(s).

And like any newbie to the book, I was surprised to find that all of the classic moments associated with The Shining...were inventions of the 1980 movie! All of that classic stuff -- the two Grady girls, the bloody elevators, the hedge maze, the all work and no play bit -- nowhere in the novel! That really surprised me. (And I have to admit, I find the hedge maze scarier than the novel's topiary coming to life. I couldn't believe the miniseries kept that when it's pretty silly. In the book, you at least picture the animal-shaped bushes being several feet tall, while in the miniseries, they're small CGI creatures. Although, the icicle fangs in the animal bushes were a neat touch by the miniseries.) "Here's Johnny," another classic bit, was an ad-lib of Nicholson's, which you should have figured out, since it was humorous, and Kubrick's film lacks a sense of humor. (One difference I really can't stand about Kubrick's movie -- the killing of Hallorann! Why even have that character, when he treks cross country to save Danny, only to be immediately murdered by Jack once he reached the Overlook? An awful decision.)

So, as is nearly always the case, the novel wins. And even though I'm not a fan of it, I've got to give credit to Kubrick's movie for all of those classic scenes, for having the better cast, and for having the creepier, more looming Overlook. I feel like it could be ripe for another remake, though -- if you could cross the style of Kubrick's with the attempts at characterization of the miniseries, you might have the ultimate version of this story.

And I read the novel just in time since King's sequel, "Doctor Sleep," comes out in a couple of months. What little is known of the plot sounds like it might be a little more fanciful than the first one, but I really like the idea of the now-adult Danny Torrance in the Hallorann role, putting his shining abilities to use to help a kid with the shining who's in trouble.