I watched this film when I was younger and found it terrifying. Then I watched it recently and thought it was more funny than scary.
THE PLOT
The story line is good but the acting is quite poor, I think they could have made this fantastic Stephen King novel into a better film than this.
IT represents something scary and can turn into anything including a clown, ghost, monster etc. The storyline is based on a group of children who are taunted by IT in a town called Derry and evenutally they think they have killed it. However, it comes back 30 years later and the group reunite to try to defeat IT. All but one of the members has moved away from Derry and he is the only one who knows that IT is back. He must therefore contact the others as they all made a prmise that if IT ever returned, they must come back to Derry to defeat it.
Some of the gruesome happenings include blood spurting from a sink, a clown entising young children into the gutter and a childs dead dad speaking to him then trying to grab him with a rotting hand.
The most memorable scary part in the film is the clown which appears on
a few occasions. His catchphrase to entise children is "They all float down here".
THE CHARACTERS
The acting is fairly appalling and laughable. There are no well konwn actors/actresses that I knew in the film, and this makes it look quite cheap. Half of the film is about the childhood of the people involved, and quite frankly, I think the children are far better actors than the adults in this film. They are more believable, but this is spoilt by the adult acting. Their acting is sloppy and unprofessional.
The characters include the 6 young group members from their childhhood and 6 adult group members. There are also a group of bullies which I thought were quite representable of what bullies are like. The role of the main bully was played well and was very believable.
THE DVD
The front cover of the DVD box is an excellent picture of the clown looking over from the right hand top. His sharp nailed hands are holding onto the cover and he has a fierce grin on his face. I think that this stands out and is very appealing as a horror movie. However, don't be fooled by the excellent front cover as the film doesn't match up to this. At the bottom of the front cover are the pictures of the group and in the centre the word "IT" in large red letters. This is representative of blood and goes well with IT's sharp fingers creaping over. As it is on a white background, it stands out more.
As the film is so long, it is spread over both sides of the disc, so be extra careful with both sides.
TECHNICAL
Here is the technical info for the standard DVD:-
Actors:- Harry Anderson ; Dennis Christopher ; Richard Masur ; Annette O'Toole ; John Ritter ; Tim Reid ; Tim Curry ; Richard Thomas ; Seth Green ; Olivia Hussey ; Tony Dakota ; William B. Davis
Director:- Tommy Lee Wallace
Certificate:- 15 +
Year:- 1990
Duration:- 3 hours (approx)
MY OPINION
I found the film quite repetative. For example one of the group members calls up the others one by one and tells them that IT is back, this gets faily tedious and boring as this is done 5 times. It drags the film on even longer and makes it very predictable.
The film is very long, just over 3 hours, so if you are going to watch it, I would recomend that you watched it in two separate parts. I watched it all in one go and was falling asleep towards the end as it does really drag out.
Of course, you have to take into consideration that it is quite an old film and for this reason, it is quite good for its time. However, it would be nice to see an updated version with more well known actors/actresses and more up to date special effects. I think this would make it into a really successful film.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE BOOK AND FILM
Dont read the book before watching the film or you will be more dissapointed with the film as the book is much better and more imaginative. I think the film is spoilt by the fact that you cannot always include such imagination and terror in a film as the book provides. Also readers can use their own imagination to create terrying effects and images which may be a let down when seen on the screen.
There are also some parts which are missing from the book. This is often again due to the difficulty of putting it in picture. However, one part which I think was wise to leave out is a female child who sleeps with the rest of the male group members. This is just silly and would have been terrible to include in the film.
WHERE TO GET IT FROM
The best deal on IT I have found is from either HMV or play.com which is on at £10.00. You could also get a cheaper 2nd hand one from most DVD second hand stores or ebay.com.
CONCLUSION
I wouldn't reccomend the film to anyone unless you have nothing else to do and are really really bored.
Maybe an updated version may appear at the cinemas soon, but as for the original, spend your money on a better film than this.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2005 - Horror - Director: Eli Roth - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Shane Daly, Lenka Vlasakova, Eythor Gudjonsson, Jan Vlasak
I rented this a few months ago and thought it was terrible (yet I remember it being soooo good!) Thanks for letting me know you updated this :)
daylehall 29.12.2006 20:09
Thanks for the guestbook message. Have had another look at your review and its much better this time round, you have included alot more info and have sectioned your review out well - keep up the good work! xx
salem_witch 21.12.2006 03:27
Sorry for the low rating. Perhaps you could tell us more. For example, who is in it and maybe a bit more of the plot to help people determine whether they'd enjoy this. If you edit this let me know via my guestbook and I'll come back and re-read it.
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Dec 20th, 2006
(Dec 29th, 2006)
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