It

While movie remakes are generally met with skepticism, the upcoming remake of Stephen King's It is being embraced like few films before it. Perhaps its nostalgic connection to the original, a seemingly refocused narrative, or R-rating, but even those who saw the original as adults, like myself, are still ready to see what a different take on the material looks like. Why? Well let's discuss that by visiting the original miniseries/movie.

The movie takes place in the small town of Derry, Maine where a large number of children have been killed under mysterious circumstances. Believing it to be the work of a single man, a small group of children called the Losers Club bands together to take the malevolent entity behind the violence, a clown named Pennywise, out. But what they discover is a being far more powerful and insightful than they could have imagined.

So unlike many people around my age, I saw this movie when I was an adult and as such I've noticed a distinctive divide between my reaction to the film compared to my peers. For many of my peers this is one of the first horror movies they saw, often quite young, and the image of Pennywise haunted their dreams. By the time I had seen this movie I was so familiar with Pennywise's image that his mere appearence didn't scare me and the faults in the film became much more obvious.

Don't get me wrong, the first half of this film is fairly solid with a camp villainous portrayal from Tim Curry and the core concept of a being that can adapt to your greatest fears is a nearly ingenious concept for a horror film. The miniseries also does away with a lot of the book's more troubling elements, like the infamous orgy after Pennywise's first defeat. That said there are big opportunities for improvement. So without further ado here are the biggest flaws in the original.

The Production Values

The original It was made in 1990 and yet the look and feel of the film is akin to 1976's Carrie. And it's not the period costumes or poor direction so much as you can see how limited the budget for this was. It wasn't a theatrical release, it was a miniseries, and TV shows and films did not have the level of production you'd expect from modern TV or a Hollywood film of the era. This really shows in the effects work which is frequently bad enough to distract from the story or remove tension. 

The Monster's Origin

So much about It's setup works by playing into horror movie tropes. A mystical being that arrives once every how many years. It picks on a vulnerable group of people (in this case children) in a small town. And it can adapt itself into your greatest fear, though almost anything is scarier when delivered by a clown. But making that entity a telepathic shape-shifting alien spider....yeah that's not too interesting.

I think this could be a great story about the power of myth (i.e. maybe IT only has power as long as people believe IT exists) or how friends can push you past your greatest fears and insecurities (it still is to some extent). But when the monster is literally just an alien with an arbitrary goal, timeline, and power set that kills its power. And that's not the biggest problem.

The Second Part

So the second part's existence is likely due to the film being a miniseries, something designed to be shown over multiple days and thus ok to have completely different focal points and themes. But as a film this does not work.

Having adults, who are presumably stronger and more mentally evolved, tackle It is inherently less interesting than the vulnerable children in the first part. The reveal of the giant spider is laughable. It's a laundry list of less effective tropes than the first movie uses.

You could do this right, with the adults either teaming up with their own children or a new group of kids or It expanding its grasp to different towns, but this "come back home" approach feels like King the writer getting over his childhood trauma by literally revisiting the source and killing it. These people already killed It before. What else do they have to prove?

My Hope: Trim the Fat and Focus on the Kids

As I've said before, the core concept of It works. Thus my hope for the new film is less about going grosser and bolder than it is about simplifying. Shine the light on the kids, let us get to know them and let's see them work together against a horrifying murder clown. Then we all go home happy...unless we were killed by a murder clown.