READERS' CHOICE #34: STEPHEN KING'S IT (1990)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

6.5

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Never

BEST SEQUENCE

Whenever Pennywise turns feral and shows his yellow eyes and sharp teeth it's pretty creepy, and I liked the Losers' first showdown with Pennywise when they were kids. The fortune cookie scene was also fun. But the actual scariest scene was probably Bev's cup of tea with Mrs. Kersh

BEST LINE

"I'll kill you all! Ha Ha! I'll drive you crazy and I'll kill you all! I'm every nightmare you've ever had! I am your worst dream come true! I'M EVERYTHING YOU EVER WERE AFRAID OF!"

- Pennywise, almost jumping out of a picture in a photo album to threaten the kids

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

68%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Though hampered by an uneven second half, IT supplies a wealth of funhouse thrills and an indelible turn from Tim Curry as Pennywise."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"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."

DIRECTOR

Tommy Lee Wallace

MAIN CAST

Tim Curry, Richard Thomas and Jonathan Brandis, Annette O'Toole and Emily Perkins, John Ritter and Brandon Crane, Harry Anderson and Seth Green, Dennis Christopher and Adam Faraizl, Tim Reid and Marlon Taylor, Richard Masur and Ben Heller 

THOUGHTS

• To avoid confusion, when I'm referring to the movie, the book or the character, I'll use capital letters for IT
• Stephen King is my favourite author, and IT is my favourite book - not just by King, at this point I think it's safe to say it's my favourite book, period. I first read it in high school, and since then I've probably read it at least 6 or 7 more times, which is not nothing for a book that weighs in at over 1,100 pages. It's definitely one of his scariest books, but it's also so much more than that. I love it for the characters and the world, the little details and the broad strokes. Give or take a couple of multidimensional entities, IT has a relatively simple plot - seven kids get scared and hunted by a shapeshifting monster, they fight it, and then they do the same thing 27 years later as adults. However the book contains so many memorable tangents and vignettes that might not be essential to the plot but they all combine to equal one of the most fulfilling reading experiences I've ever had
• Which is all to say that we're here to discuss the adaptations of the book, not the book itself. I don't think a movie needs to be 100% faithful to a great book in order to be a great work in its own right (and Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining is actually a pretty great example of this in how it deviates from its source material), but I do think anyone adapting IT has an uphill battle in deciding what to show and what to cut, and I think it's fair to remember that I know exactly how great this story can be and it's pretty impossible to force myself to ignore something like that
• So yes, somehow this was my first time seeing the 1990 TV miniseries IT, and I'll be honest, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. I expected Tim Curry to be fun as Pennywise, but I didn't really expect much else to hold up very well. I'm happy to say, though, that I was quite entertained throughout the whole 3+ hours! 6.5/10 might seem like a pretty underwhelmed Thrill Score, but I liked a lot of the choices that were made and it's fun to see a new depiction of a work you're familiar with
• But is it scary? There's the rub. They were definitely a little hamstrung by making this for network TV and needing to tone down the violence and the disturbing imagery (although it did still get darker at times than I expected). I'm positive that most people think of Tim Curry's Pennywise when they think of this movie, and I have no doubt that he caused a lot of nightmares for kids who saw this at an early age, but he just wasn't that scary. Fun to watch, and delightfully malevolent, but aside from a few intense scenes and some effective makeup work he was more comical than anything. It is a great performance, though, to the point where it might be very surprising to learn that Pennywise had less than 20 minutes of screentime for the whole movie
• So outside of Pennywise we mostly have scares coming from IT terrorizing the Losers Club in other guises. Some are scarier than others, but when adult Bev goes back to her childhood home and meets the woman living there, Mrs. Kersh, it was the most chilling scene for me, especially when Mrs. Kersh morphs into a twisted version of Bev's father
• As much as I've rhapsodized about the book IT, however, there is one aspect of the story that I've always found disappointing, even going back to my very first time reading it - the fact that the creature IT, this all-powerful shapeshifting being who can read minds and turn into its victim's darkest fear, eventually had one final physical form and it was essentially just a big spider. For a book that was bursting with limitless creativity this was just such a letdown for a big climactic battle, and this movie definitely did not change my mind on that front. The creature effect was kind of fun in a very cheesy way, but it deflated a lot of tension. And I laughed out loud when the main characters defeated IT once and for all by basically just beating the hell out of it
• And speaking of the Losers Club (the self-appointed nickname for the seven main characters), I thought the actors were pretty good for the most part. Seth Green was my favourite kid as Richie (and he would go on to have the biggest career of all the child actors by far), but ironically Harry Anderson was my least favourite adult actor, also as Richie. I have a fondness for Harry Anderson, and I've liked him in other things, but as Richie he was just annoying and without any of the more endearing qualities found in Seth Green's performance or in the character from the book (probably my favourite book character, incidentally)
• So, in conclusion, I'm glad I finally got to watch this movie/miniseries. I don't think there's anything that it did better than the book, but that's an extremely high bar to clear for me and it was great to see some of this story brought to life. Also, if they hadn't decided to make a few changes to the source material we never would have gotten to see Bill's sweet, sweet ponytail

Up next: We'll find out if the 2017 movie IT Chapter One is a more effective adaptation than this one (spoiler alert, it is). But it's been quite some time since the last time I saw it, so how much more effective honestly remains to be seen

READERS' CHOICE #35: DONNIE DARKO (2001)

THRILL SCALE 1-10

7

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes, but not for a very long time. Maybe not since university, but maybe not since high school (which would have been when it was released or shortly after)

BEST SEQUENCE

When Frank appears in the movie theatre

BEST LINE

"Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?" "Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?"

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

87%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"Richard Kelly's debut feature Donnie Darko is a daring, original vision, packed with jarring ideas and intelligence and featuring a remarkable performance from Jake Gyllenhaal as the troubled title character."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes."

DIRECTOR

Richard Kelly

MAIN CAST

Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, James Duval, Maggie Gyllenhaal

THOUGHTS

• Having not seen Donnie Darko for a long time, I remembered liking it but I didn't consider it a favourite of mine. Upon rewatch, that sentiment pretty much stands. It's worth watching but also kind of a mixed bag, and maybe not as effective as some people remember
• Frank the Rabbit is genuinely creepy and anytime he shows up there's a shiver down the spine, including a couple of pretty good jump scares. His voice is also extremely unnerving. However, he's quite a bit less scary once we learn that he is, indeed, just a guy in a Halloween rabbit suit
• Jake Gyllenhaal is really fantastic in this, one of his first starring roles (October Sky came out 2 years earlier, another movie that I quite like). As Donnie he's very likeable, while still legitimately off-putting at times. It's a tricky balance to pull off, and also somewhat similar to how I described his performance as Lou in Nightcrawler, a connection I didn't even remember until about halfway through Donnie Darko, as the two characters share some qualities but they're still very distinct performances. Unless some surprise movies get added to my list this is the last we'll see of Jake Gyllenhaal and he's had a pretty great showing in these reviews. Looking at his filmography, there are even a few other thrilling movies that may have been considered, including Zodiac, Prisoners and Source Code
• A few times during this watch I thought, "wow, they're really trying to be edgy." And while I think there's some truth to that and while I think the movie is most effective when the effort to be edgy isn't quite so obvious, it may also be fair to acknowledge that it's easy to forget that the movie is set in 1988, a fact which is even easier to forget watching the movie 20+ years after its release date in 2001. So I'll give a little bit of a concession that perhaps what I perceived as forced edginess was also intended to show the general awfulness of people in the Reagan-era 1980s
• The plot is convoluted, but in a good way, a way that intrigues instead of frustrates. When I sat down to watch it on my streaming service of choice the runtime said 2 hours and 13 minutes, and I thought there was no way that could be right. In fact, I had accidentally pulled up the Director's Cut, which is something I've had to consider a few times in this blog. I decided to forgo the Director's Cut in favour of the theatrical version, since the general consensus online is that the longer version mostly just over explains the plot and, therefore, removes some of the ambiguity and mystery. Any Director's Cut defenders out there?
• Very strange to see Seth Rogen in a tiny role with very little to do, and as a really terrible person. It was his first movie but he was also in Freaks and Geeks on TV previously (which wasn't exactly a smash hit at the time, so maybe the small part in Donnie Darko shouldn't be surprising, but still strange to see)
• Also someone who'd go on to bigger things, including the horror genre, Daveigh Chase plays Donnie's younger sister. A year later she'd play Samara in The Ring (not to mention the voice of Lilo in Lilo and Stitch, also released in 2002)
• Great soundtrack, including several songs that I will forever associate with Donnie Darko - "The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen, "Mad World" covered by Gary Jules (originally by Tears for Fears) and "Head Over Heels" also by Tears for Fears. Richard Kelly originally wanted to use "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS for the opening scene, which is funny to think about considering how appropriate it was to start the movie with a song by a band called Echo and the Bunnymen. One might even call it a little on the nose with how much we'd be seeing of a sinister-looking bunnyman
• Finally, a couple of references to other movies we'll be talking about: the movie that Donnie and Gretchen are watching in the theatre when Frank appears is The Evil Dead. Evil Dead II is #25 on the readers' list, and I might even review The Evil Dead as well when that comes along. As well, early in the movie there's a shot of Donnie's mother reading Stephen King's book IT, which I'll be reviewing...

Up next: Yep, that's right! Coincidentally, after a quick cameo in Donnie Darko, it's time to review IT (which I'll continue to spell with all capitals, since it gets incredibly confusing at times to talk about the book/movie and not just read it as a pronoun; hopefully information technology doesn't need to be discussed in the following reviews). And yes, reviews! Because that's not all, folks, we'll be looking at all the variations of IT, starting with the 1990 TV miniseries which, believe it or not, I have never seen. See you next time, when we'll all float down here!