We've all had that one thing that we are (or were) all terrified of. For me, they were clowns. I have no idea when I began to develop this fear, but I think from the age of twelve or so, I was terrified of clowns. You could never be sure who was under all that makeup, and the idea that a complete (and possibly dangerous) stranger could potentially be anywhere and not attract any attention just because they were a clown. And coulrophobia (The fear of clown - coulro comes from the Greek word for "one who goes on stilts") was probably very prominent for the kids in the early to mid-1990s as Tim Curry hit the screen as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the 1990 Miniseries Stephen King's IT, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name.
I personally found Pennywise the Dancing Clown as an ingenious form for IT to take. Even if you were to see a clown in the middle of the street, you can always assume it's there to advertise a store or something, and it's a pretty friendly figure to kids, so a clown can pretty much be almost anywhere and most people wouldn't give a second glance. Although I was born in the early 2000s, I can still imagine the idea of a shape-shifting demonic creature hiding in plain sight anywhere (especially as a clown) be extremely terrifying to little kids.
So, did IT live up to its source material? Did the series do justice to Stephen's King's novel? But before we begin to dissect the miniseries, we must first learn a bit about what the novel is all about.
Plot Synopsis
The novel takes place majority of the time in the fictional town of Derry in Maine. The story revolves around seven children who form the Loser's Club: Bill Denbrough, Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon, Stanley Uris, and Ben Hanscom. The story is split into two time periods: 1957-58 and 1984-85. The novel jumps back and forth between the 50s and the 80s, but I will keep the timeline chronological for convenience's sake.
In 1957, Bill's younger brother George is killed by It, which then proceeds to feast on multiple children, and begins appearing to each of the Losers in different forms, including werewolf, mummy, a monstrous bird, a leper, etc. Eventually, the Losers realize that some sort of a demonic creature had been haunting Derry for centuries, and was most likely the cause of numerous violent events in the town. They use the Ritual of Chud (essentially a combination of imagination and willpower) taught to them by Maturin (a giant turtle-deity who is the mortal enemy of It) to prepare themselves to kill It. Meanwhile, they are also tormented by a local group of bullies, the Bowers Gang, led by Henry Bowers and comprised of Belch Huggins, Victor Criss, and a few others (who aren't particularity important), and Henry, under the influence of It, decides to kill the Losers. The Losers realize that It lives inside the sewers and enters the sewers to kill It. Henry, Belch, and Victor follows the Losers into the sewers, but Belch and Victor are killed by It and Henry is later arrested and sent to an asylum for the murders that It had committed. The Losers utilize the Ritual of Chud and weaken It, but fails to kill it, who then retreats into his lair and goes back to its hibernation. Afterwards, the Losers swear to meet again in 27 years when It wakes up from its sleep.
In 1957, Bill's younger brother George is killed by It, which then proceeds to feast on multiple children, and begins appearing to each of the Losers in different forms, including werewolf, mummy, a monstrous bird, a leper, etc. Eventually, the Losers realize that some sort of a demonic creature had been haunting Derry for centuries, and was most likely the cause of numerous violent events in the town. They use the Ritual of Chud (essentially a combination of imagination and willpower) taught to them by Maturin (a giant turtle-deity who is the mortal enemy of It) to prepare themselves to kill It. Meanwhile, they are also tormented by a local group of bullies, the Bowers Gang, led by Henry Bowers and comprised of Belch Huggins, Victor Criss, and a few others (who aren't particularity important), and Henry, under the influence of It, decides to kill the Losers. The Losers realize that It lives inside the sewers and enters the sewers to kill It. Henry, Belch, and Victor follows the Losers into the sewers, but Belch and Victor are killed by It and Henry is later arrested and sent to an asylum for the murders that It had committed. The Losers utilize the Ritual of Chud and weaken It, but fails to kill it, who then retreats into his lair and goes back to its hibernation. Afterwards, the Losers swear to meet again in 27 years when It wakes up from its sleep.
The novel picks up again in 1984, where It awoke again and has begun its spree with a murder of a gay man, Adrian Mellon. Mike is the only member of the Loser's Club who has remained in town as a librarian and he calls each of the Losers to call them back to Derry to kill It. Although the Losers have almost completely forgotten their encounter with It, they begin to remember bits and pieces of the past. Stan is so terrified with the idea of facing It again, he kills himself. Meanwhile, when It realizes the Losers are returning, break Henry out and tells him to kill them all. After they reunite, Mike is attacked and severely wounded by Henry who then tries to kill Eddie, but is killed instead in the attempt. Bill, Ben, Beverley, Richie and Eddie enter the sewers to kill It once and for all. Using the Ritual of Chud once again, the five fight It in its true form, something that can only be perceived as a spider to the human mind. Eddie sacrifices himself to save Richie, getting his arm ripped off and dying. Bill and Richie smashes its heart and Ben smashes the eggs the spider-like creature has laid (implying that It is a female). The Losers go their separate ways, the memory of It permanently fading away from their minds.
And thus ends a very long summary of it. And it makes sense it's long because the novel itself is a 1,138 page monstrosity, and I didn't even include all of the plot points. Some of the specific details I will address in the next section, where we'll be looking at where the Miniseries stayed true to King's work.
The Loyal Factors
The Miniseries is very loyal in keeping with the general plot, i.e. a group of kids called the Losers fight a demonic shape-shifting clown once as kids and again as adults. The novel and the miniseries both jump back and forth in time
Bill is the leader of the group with a stutter and is motivated by the loss of his brother Georgie and he becomes a horror fiction author who is married to actress Audra Philips who looks strikingly similar to his childhood crush Beverley.
Beverly is the only girl of the group and she lives with her abusive, controlling, misogynistic (and extremely protective) father Alvin; as an adult, she becomes a fashion designer and is married to a man who is just as abusive, controlling, misogynistic as her father, who she leaves for Ben.
Eddie is a small, asthmatic boy with an overbearing mother (who is forcing him to take placebos) and as an adult runs a limousine service and is killed by It in the final confrontation.
Richie is still the bespectacled, wisecracking kid of the group with famously bad impressions and jokes; the trademark phrase used by his friends to shut him up "Beep beep Richie" is kept in the miniseries.
Mike is the group historian who discovers more about the true nature of It through his father; he is the only one to stay in Derry and becomes a librarian, and in both versions he does not participate in the final fight as he is put out of commission by Henry Bowers.
Stan is a boy with a high interest in bird-watching and he is the only Loser to not make it back to Derry as he cuts his wrists and writes "IT" on the wall; this was caused by a trauma he experienced when he saw the Deadlights.
Ben is an overweight child with a crush on Beverley, and in both stories he loses weight, becomes a successful architect, and ends up with Beverley after the final fight with It.
Henry Bowers is present in both versions, and he does go around with the Bowers Gang, always flanked by Belch and Vic. In both stories he attempts to kill the Losers and becomes framed by It, sent to a mental institution and is broken out by Pennywise. He then injures Henry, but is killed by Eddie.
The main antagonist It itself is very accurate. It is always described as being (for majority of the time) a clown known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown and kills kids by appearing to them as what they fear the most. These fears are kept rather accurate as well for the most part. Georgie for Bill, a werewolf for Richie, the blood that covered Beverley's bathroom, Mrs. Kirsch, a giant dog for the prison guard. It's final form as a giant spider is somewhat kept, as the final form is a spider-crab like monster, but with a more prominent features of a spider more then anything. The fact that It has been Derry for all eternity is kept true to in the book and the miniseries, and the way It is defeated, i.e. by the children using their imagination, is true to the novel.
The side characters were also very accurate, from Bill's tragically naive younger brother Georgie who has the misfortune to encounter and trust Pennywise, to Eddie's overbearing mother Sonia, Mr. Keene, the pharmacist, Bev's abusive father Alvin Marsh and her equally abusive husband Tom Rogan, Bill's parents who neglect him due to their depression at losing Georgie, and Bill's actress wife Audra Philips who strikingly resembles Beverley, goes catatonic after looking at It's true form, but then is brought back through the power of Bill's joy.
They also kept a lot of the scenes from the book, minus the swearing. The whole exchange between Georgie and Pennywise is actually VERY accurate to the book exchange, especially the whole "they float" section, which did seem to have some sort of a stimulating effect on It (and this was never fully explained in both the book and the miniseries). The scene where It helps Henry break out is pretty much spot-on to the book, and the Losers' fight with It in the past and the present is pretty accurate to the book. I liked that they kept in the silver slugs and Eddie using his asthma inhaler to spray "battery acid" onto It. The “Your hair is winter fire, January embers. My heart burns there, too.” poem is kept from the book, and this is what essentially sparks Beverley's and Ben's relationship, which I liked that they kept. They also retained the fact that the Losers' memories of It faded as they grew, but returned when they got the call from Mike Hanlon. A representation of this fact that they kept from the novel was the return of Bill's stutter.
The 1990 IT was pleasantly accurate to the book, but just like all adaptations, it can't possibly keep everything in. And you can't blame them either, considering what a monstrosity the actual book was. Let's take a look they what they were forced to take out from a 1,138 page novel so it could fit into a 3-hour story.
Bill is the leader of the group with a stutter and is motivated by the loss of his brother Georgie and he becomes a horror fiction author who is married to actress Audra Philips who looks strikingly similar to his childhood crush Beverley.
Beverly is the only girl of the group and she lives with her abusive, controlling, misogynistic (and extremely protective) father Alvin; as an adult, she becomes a fashion designer and is married to a man who is just as abusive, controlling, misogynistic as her father, who she leaves for Ben.
Eddie is a small, asthmatic boy with an overbearing mother (who is forcing him to take placebos) and as an adult runs a limousine service and is killed by It in the final confrontation.
Richie is still the bespectacled, wisecracking kid of the group with famously bad impressions and jokes; the trademark phrase used by his friends to shut him up "Beep beep Richie" is kept in the miniseries.
Mike is the group historian who discovers more about the true nature of It through his father; he is the only one to stay in Derry and becomes a librarian, and in both versions he does not participate in the final fight as he is put out of commission by Henry Bowers.
Stan is a boy with a high interest in bird-watching and he is the only Loser to not make it back to Derry as he cuts his wrists and writes "IT" on the wall; this was caused by a trauma he experienced when he saw the Deadlights.
Ben is an overweight child with a crush on Beverley, and in both stories he loses weight, becomes a successful architect, and ends up with Beverley after the final fight with It.
Henry Bowers is present in both versions, and he does go around with the Bowers Gang, always flanked by Belch and Vic. In both stories he attempts to kill the Losers and becomes framed by It, sent to a mental institution and is broken out by Pennywise. He then injures Henry, but is killed by Eddie.
The main antagonist It itself is very accurate. It is always described as being (for majority of the time) a clown known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown and kills kids by appearing to them as what they fear the most. These fears are kept rather accurate as well for the most part. Georgie for Bill, a werewolf for Richie, the blood that covered Beverley's bathroom, Mrs. Kirsch, a giant dog for the prison guard. It's final form as a giant spider is somewhat kept, as the final form is a spider-crab like monster, but with a more prominent features of a spider more then anything. The fact that It has been Derry for all eternity is kept true to in the book and the miniseries, and the way It is defeated, i.e. by the children using their imagination, is true to the novel.
The side characters were also very accurate, from Bill's tragically naive younger brother Georgie who has the misfortune to encounter and trust Pennywise, to Eddie's overbearing mother Sonia, Mr. Keene, the pharmacist, Bev's abusive father Alvin Marsh and her equally abusive husband Tom Rogan, Bill's parents who neglect him due to their depression at losing Georgie, and Bill's actress wife Audra Philips who strikingly resembles Beverley, goes catatonic after looking at It's true form, but then is brought back through the power of Bill's joy.
They also kept a lot of the scenes from the book, minus the swearing. The whole exchange between Georgie and Pennywise is actually VERY accurate to the book exchange, especially the whole "they float" section, which did seem to have some sort of a stimulating effect on It (and this was never fully explained in both the book and the miniseries). The scene where It helps Henry break out is pretty much spot-on to the book, and the Losers' fight with It in the past and the present is pretty accurate to the book. I liked that they kept in the silver slugs and Eddie using his asthma inhaler to spray "battery acid" onto It. The “Your hair is winter fire, January embers. My heart burns there, too.” poem is kept from the book, and this is what essentially sparks Beverley's and Ben's relationship, which I liked that they kept. They also retained the fact that the Losers' memories of It faded as they grew, but returned when they got the call from Mike Hanlon. A representation of this fact that they kept from the novel was the return of Bill's stutter.
The 1990 IT was pleasantly accurate to the book, but just like all adaptations, it can't possibly keep everything in. And you can't blame them either, considering what a monstrosity the actual book was. Let's take a look they what they were forced to take out from a 1,138 page novel so it could fit into a 3-hour story.
The Disloyal Factors
The biggest change from the book is probably the true nature of It. The miniseries sort of touches on It's paranormal, demonic nature, but neglects to mention almost all of the Lovecraftian-like mythology that King built. It is a extra-dimensional being composed of the Deadlights, which would kill humans if they ever saw it directly. The Deadlights were mentioned I think only once or twice, and are never brought up again. The miniseries also neglected to mention Maturin, AKA The Turtle, who is a deity which is the mortal enemy of It. Maturin actually is a mentor figure to the Losers and teaches Bill about the Ritual of Chud, which essentially uses their psychological strength to defeat It (example being silver actually damaging It and the medicine from the inhaler being battery acid). Although the Miniseries does not mention the Ritual by name, the Losers still use the same power of imagination to defeat It. Funnily enough, It mentions in 1985 that Maturin died from chocking on a galaxy, but Bill uses the Ritual to defeat It for the final time.
It's final form is merely a giant spider, and the bodies of the dead children are all strung up in a big spider web which unravels after It is killed. The novel goes on to specify that the spider was the closest thing the human minds could perceive It's true form, and Bill does state that It is an endless, crawling hairy creature made of orange light, when he sees a vague outline of Its true form, very much like a spider. However, since the Deadlights are not of this world, this means that It is not dead; only Its physical form is. There is also a possibility that one of Its offspring may have survived because A. Its final form is a giant, , PREGNANT spider (which means It is a she I guess?). B. Ben was in charge of breaking the eggs but he believes he may not have gotten all of them, and C. There have been appearances by Pennywise in subsequent novels which take place AFTER 1985.
The Miniseries also left out the infamous and conversial sex scene where Beverley has sex with all the boys in order to strengthen their bond. I know the scene has received much criticism (and I can understand why), but I never saw that scene to be sexual in any way. It was really just a way of showing that A. These kids weren't kids anymore; they were growing up, and B. These kids now had the most intimate bond anyone could ever have, and that they were going to get through this with the power of love and friendship. And obviously I can understand why the Miniseries left this scene out, but I do understand why King wrote that particular scene in. I've noticed that the miniseries makes a few jabs at this by mentioning that some of the characters felt "more then friendly love towards each other" or Eddie, who is the first one to have sex with Beverley stay a virgin because he "always felt love for the group" or something along those lines.
The Miniseries also left out a rather lengthy portion of the novel where Mike's father talks about the violent history of Derry, and the spotting of Pennywise the Clown in some of these occasions, including the Bradley Gang massacre and the fire at the Black Spot, confirming the theory that Pennywise causes the town commit acts of extremely violent crimes. In the instance of the Bradley Gang shootout, Pennywise is actually seen with a rifle shooting into the crowd, while in the Black Spot fire (which was caused by the "Legion of White Decency" AKA the Derry branch of the Ku Klux Klan), Its plans were partially thwarted by Dick Hallorann (yes the chef from The Shining), who managed to evacuate many of the people with his Shining.
The Miniseries also left out or changed couple of the details. Eddie still lives with his mother in the miniseries, but he's actually married to a morbidly obese woman named Myra who resembles his mother both physically and emotionally. The time frame in changed from 1958 & 1985 to 1960 & 1990. The miniseries left out Patrick Hockstetter, a particularly intriguing psychopathic teenager with a strange mental disorder that makes him believe that he is the only thing real and everything around himself is an illusion, so therefore nothing he does particularly matters. The movie left out some of the fears like the mummy, Dracula, the Frankenstein's monster that kills Belch and Vic, but these are rather minor changes. There are many, MANY more minor changes from the novel, but since those minor changes doesn't cause too much of a major change to the plot, I will move on.
There indeed are a quite a bit of stuff the Miniseries left out from the novel, but I really don't blame them. They had a very limited time frame to work with, and it's unrealistic and unfair to expect a perfectly accurate adaptation (After all, there are no perfect adaptations). Before giving my overall assessment of the miniseries as an adaptation and giving it a rating out of five, I'm going to go on a bit more about what I thought of both the novel and the miniseries and rate those out of five as well.
Personal Opinions
The Novel:
I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, and I have to give Mr. King kudos for being able create such an intricate Lovecraftian Mythos of his own. It is a great villain mainly because of how terrifying the idea of there being a creature that can take the form of your greatest fear. All the characters were very well-written and believable because they're all characters you can expect to see in the real world, and you could really feel the closeness and the friendship between the Losers. IT was the first Stephen King novel I read (after watching the 2017 movie actually), and it really got me hooked on to Stephen King, mainly because I was impressed with how well-written and interesting the novel was despite its massive length, and that made me realize that if I could get through this 1,138 page monstrosity without a single issue, then I could get through any of his work. And I was right. My one criticism of the novel is that some scenes do drag on for quite a bit because of how explanatory King is with everything. Personally, I quite liked it, but if you're into shorter novels that just gets to the important plot points right away, Stephen King is not the author for you, as most of his works are very descriptive. The IT novel gets a 4.5/5.
The Miniseries:
Although being a 2000 kid and being much more familiar with the more recent horror films with outlandish CGI and an overuse of blood and gore and much more action-packed sequences, I still found Pennywise to be just ever so slightly terrifying, mainly because of Tim Curry's stunning performance. His famous "Kiss me fat boy" line got a big laugh out of me, and let's face it, Tim Curry is a brilliant actor just overall. The child actors were reasonably good, especially Seth Green, but apart from him and Curry, I found the rest's acting rather mediocre at most, and none of the actors, apart perhaps from Harry Anderson (adult Richie) and Dennis Christopher (adult Eddie), really stood out to me that much. It's still a very good film, and it managed to unsettle me nonetheless, but other then Tim Curry's scenes, the rest of them were pretty dull, at least to me. The Miniseries gets a 3.5/5.
Overall Assessment
Overall, it's evident that the Miniseries did a fantastic job adapting the novel. Obviously, it is not as terrifying or as detailed as the novel was, but then again, I wouldn't expect it to be. It kept pretty much all of the significant plot points from the novel, and overall, the elements they changed or removed all together didn't affect the plot drastically, and I have to give them kudos for adapting a novel with such a strong supernatural element with a VERY limited use of CGI and special effects, and still managing to make it a decent thriller (and perhaps horror) film for it, all in just the confines of 3 hours. It's also EXTREMELY evident that the writers really tried hard to keep their work as faithful to the source material as possible, and I really do like it when I notice that the movie or the TV Series or whatever is always trying its best to be accurate as they can to the source material WHILE adding in creative liberties of their own. In some cases, such as Percy Jackson, the makers are too busy taking their OWN creative liberties and the original author's work becomes obscured. This, evidently, was not the case with IT. The writers added some elements of their own here and there, but they kept extremely faithful to the source material.
As an adaptation, Stephen King's IT gets a 4.5/5.
I hope you all liked my first ever Adaptation Review and post on this blog. I understand it is a bit lengthy, but considering the source material, and since it IS an adaptation review, I felt as if I had no choice but to keep it long. I will make on attempt to make my other posts, (the novel & movie reviews) much more shorter, being only a few paragraphs at most and not an essay like this one, but then again I may not be able to keep that promise. I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!
What is Lovecraftian Mythos? I'm unfamiliar with that term.
ReplyDeleteLovecraftian Mythos is essentially a group of mythological monsters, creatures, stories and such created by American author Howard Phillips Lovecraft. There are different monsterous deities which are introduced and explored through Lovecraft's stories. A well-known example of his work would be Cthulhu, which is the greatest of all of Lovecraft's creations, so much so that the Lovecraftian Mythos is also known as the Cthulhu Mythos. Lovecraftian itself is a genre of horror dealing with cosmic entities, and Lovecraft is generally considered the father of Weird Fiction and Cosmic Horror. Stephen King has stated himself that he draws much inspiration from Lovecraft himself, and King also has his own similar universe of Cosmic Deities.
DeleteI hope this helped! If you are interested, you can always find out more about this online!
Being a big fan of Stephen King and IT being my favorite novel, I'm glad to see that someone else out there also appreciates the book! While I found it disapointing that the miniseries left out a lot of the stuff from the book that really delved into the backstory of Pennywise, I suppose it was forgivable. I haven't seen the movie yet, and I'm not sure if I should because it doesn't seem to be that accurate to the novel. Do you have any advice on that?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to find another King fan! To answer your question about the 2017 movie, I strongly encourage you to watch it! While it is not particularly accurate to the novel, it is still a fairly decent adaptation, and they did pay many homages to either the novel or the miniseries, which was very nice. The acting in the movie is great, with all of the child actors probably being the highlights. Bill Skarsgard was also fantastic and creepy as Pennywise. While he is quite a bit different from Tim Curry's Pennywise, he still managed to be very creepy and terrifying to me. So I really do suggest that you go watch the movie!
DeleteHello, I just watched the new IT movie and I really enjoyed it! Bill Skarsgard is seriously creepy as Pennywise and all the actors were great! Thank you so much for recommending this movie to me!!!
DeleteGlad I could help!
DeleteQuick question is the IT chapter 2 movie going to be based on this book or
ReplyDeleteYes. Like I mentioned in the review, the novel flashbacks from the adult losers to the child losers. The movies are split into the child storyline and the adult storyline. So everything in the IT Chapter 2 movie will be following the losers club as adults with flashbacks to their childhood.
Delete