Stephen King Month: It

2.5 Stars - Dull

The next part of Stephen King Month sees us moving onto one of Kings most iconic novels, which is large, complex and wonderful. It.

It tells the story of a group of children in 1958, the loser's club, made up of Bill Denbrough, Eddie Kapsbrack, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon and Stan Uris. Over the course of a year or so a number of children are killed by a mysterious shape shifting entity, which most often takes on the form of a clown. They are also often pursued by a seriously mentally unstable bully, Henry Bowers. Through Ben's love of the library and reading they discover an ancient right called the ritual of Chud that they believe will allow them to defeat It. Bill takes on the creature in the ritual of Chud and defeats it. The seven friends go their separate ways, vowing to return if It ever does. Years later, in 1985, they receive calls from Mike, who has stayed in Derry telling them It has returned and they all start to remember the events. Stan kills himself instantly upon the memories; the rest return to Derry to try and take on It one more time; also coming were Beverly's abusive husband Tom, Bill's wife Audra and a recently escaped from the mental asylum Henry Bowers. Tom, under It's influence captures Audra and takes her to It, where she instantly goes catatonic and Tom drops dead from shock. Henry is killed in a struggle with Mike, but it leaves Mike wounded and unable to journey to the tunnels where It dwells. They voyage down and take on It at the ritual of Chud once more, this time making sure It dies. In the process Eddie is killed, they all go their separate ways once more, forgetting forever. Bill takes a last ditch attempt to save his wife by truly recapturing his childhood with his bike, Silver.

To book is a very long and complex novel with many plot threads that are difficult to explain, so naturally as a result of this the mini-series really fails to capture the essence of the book. But does that mean it is bad? No, it's bad because of the bad acting, poorly paced story and terrible effects. Sure it gets some Tim Curry points, but Tim Curry points can only take you so far.

As an adaptation it fails, losing many important details and never really explaining what It is, also since much less time is spent with the characters they lack the emotional development of the book. 

But what really gets me is the number of people I've heard are actually scared of this, there is nothing scary here, it is actually quite awful, except for any point Tim Curry is on screen which are always entertaining.

You Want A Balloon?

In short, this is actually awful, I don't get why people are scared of it