In 1960, seven pre-teen outcasts fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. Thirty years later, they reunite to stop the demon once and for all when it returns to their hometown... Read allIn 1960, seven pre-teen outcasts fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. Thirty years later, they reunite to stop the demon once and for all when it returns to their hometown.In 1960, seven pre-teen outcasts fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. Thirty years later, they reunite to stop the demon once and for all when it returns to their hometown.
- Won 1 Primetime Emmy
- 4 wins & 2 nominations total
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- GoofsIt seems as if Mike was the last to join the seven back in the 1960s. The day Mike joins them was apparently several days after the other kids had encountered It. Out of the discussion about It, which takes place the day of the Rock Battle, we learn that every single kid in the gang has already seen It somewhere. However, later in the movie, Bev tells a story about the blood in her bathroom, and in the flashback, we see all of the 7 kids entering Bev's bathroom to clean the mess up, the day right after the blood had come out of the washbasin.
- Crazy creditsDuring the opening credits, we see pictures of the "Lucky Seven" from their childhood like in a photo album. The final photo of the Paramount cinema segues into the actual one in Derry. The camera pulls back from the title IT, and it turns from white to red. In Pt 2, the final photo of a hotel segues into the one the "Lucky Seven" are staying at. At the end of both parts, Pennywise's laugh is heard.
- Alternate versionsAlthough released on VHS and Laserdisc in the original two-part miniseries format, the DVD and Blu-ray releases from Warner Bros. are an edited Home Video Version which removes the end of Part 1 and the beginning of Part 2 in order to turn it into one long film. Here is what has been removed at timestamp 1:34:00 (the chapter 28 mark on the Blu-ray):
- THE END OF PART 1: Stan's wife finds that he has slit his wrist in the bathtub and starts to scream, the scream is cut off abruptly and therefore also the final showing of "IT" written in the blood on the bathroom wall, accompanied by Pennywise laughing and "to be continued" along with the end credits.
- THE BEGINNING OF PART 2: Starts with Bill arriving at the Derry cemetery. This completely cuts out his arrival at the hotel, the conversation with the woman at the desk, a short scene in his hotel room, the full ride in a taxi to the cemetery along with the opening credits.
- ConnectionsEdited into Nostalgia Critic: Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2017)
- SoundtracksItsy Bitsy Spider
(uncredited)
Traditional
Featured review
Who's David Graham if he's not the bloke scared of Pennywise the Clown?
STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs
Adapted from the epic novella by Stephen King,It is set in the town of Derry,Maine,in 1960.A series of gruesome child killings are going on,which seem to replicate similar events that happen every 30 years in the town,rounded off by a big disaster that causes similar confusion and devastation.Seven young kids are drawn together over the course of the summer to face off against a psychotic bully named Henry Bowers and his gang,as well as coming face to face with the perpetrator of the horrific killings,a monster which generally takes the shape of a clown named Pennywise (Tim Curry).One day,they decide to go down in to the sewers and confront and kill It once and for all.They believe they have done this,only to get a call 30 years later informing them that this is not the case and that they must now abide by a promise they made as kids to return once again to do battle with It if it ever returned.Now,as mature adults instead of naive kids (and therefore finding it harder to believe) can they be as successful?
Very rarely do adaptations of King novels translate well to the screen,with only a handful of exceptions,and the producers of this two parter certainly had an even harder job on their hands turning a book of over 1000 pages in to a film adaptation.Under the circumstances,one might say they haven't done too bad a job,but they've had to edit out a lot of key sequences (and even characters) from the book,and as a result,they've ended up with a script that's had to leave out a lot of the original source material,and so you don't get the full effect of the book,which was a real door stopper of a book that took forever to read but engrossed you right to the end all the same.So as you might expect this film adaptation isn't as good as that but it's still an impressive, scary enough effort all things considered that spreads out an epic story engrossingly enough.
On the acting front,the child actors (with the exception of the one who played Bowers) fare better than the adult actors,with the exception,of course,of Tim Curry in terrifying form as Pennywise (one of the scariest characters in the history of cinema,never mind the fact he only ever appeared in a TV movie) and possibly Harry Anderson.Some of them are laughably bad in parts(especially the one playing the adult Bill when he tries to stutter,so sad when young Johnathon Brandis played him so well).Pennywise always gave me the creeps,possibly in a way no other horror movie character could,and nothing else is scarier in the film.But maybe scares aren't the main aim of the game here,this being a Stand By Me style King fable of friendship over-coming great evil against all odds.
Overall,this is a decent enough effort taking on the challenging task of turning an 1000+ page book into a feature adaptation,where it's easy to see where the cracks are showing but easy to appreciate for the things it gets right.***
Adapted from the epic novella by Stephen King,It is set in the town of Derry,Maine,in 1960.A series of gruesome child killings are going on,which seem to replicate similar events that happen every 30 years in the town,rounded off by a big disaster that causes similar confusion and devastation.Seven young kids are drawn together over the course of the summer to face off against a psychotic bully named Henry Bowers and his gang,as well as coming face to face with the perpetrator of the horrific killings,a monster which generally takes the shape of a clown named Pennywise (Tim Curry).One day,they decide to go down in to the sewers and confront and kill It once and for all.They believe they have done this,only to get a call 30 years later informing them that this is not the case and that they must now abide by a promise they made as kids to return once again to do battle with It if it ever returned.Now,as mature adults instead of naive kids (and therefore finding it harder to believe) can they be as successful?
Very rarely do adaptations of King novels translate well to the screen,with only a handful of exceptions,and the producers of this two parter certainly had an even harder job on their hands turning a book of over 1000 pages in to a film adaptation.Under the circumstances,one might say they haven't done too bad a job,but they've had to edit out a lot of key sequences (and even characters) from the book,and as a result,they've ended up with a script that's had to leave out a lot of the original source material,and so you don't get the full effect of the book,which was a real door stopper of a book that took forever to read but engrossed you right to the end all the same.So as you might expect this film adaptation isn't as good as that but it's still an impressive, scary enough effort all things considered that spreads out an epic story engrossingly enough.
On the acting front,the child actors (with the exception of the one who played Bowers) fare better than the adult actors,with the exception,of course,of Tim Curry in terrifying form as Pennywise (one of the scariest characters in the history of cinema,never mind the fact he only ever appeared in a TV movie) and possibly Harry Anderson.Some of them are laughably bad in parts(especially the one playing the adult Bill when he tries to stutter,so sad when young Johnathon Brandis played him so well).Pennywise always gave me the creeps,possibly in a way no other horror movie character could,and nothing else is scarier in the film.But maybe scares aren't the main aim of the game here,this being a Stand By Me style King fable of friendship over-coming great evil against all odds.
Overall,this is a decent enough effort taking on the challenging task of turning an 1000+ page book into a feature adaptation,where it's easy to see where the cracks are showing but easy to appreciate for the things it gets right.***
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- wellthatswhatithinkanyway
- Jan 14, 2004
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- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Stephen King's It
- Filming locations
- Beaver Lake, Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada(abandoned sewer building on lake)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
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