Live Magazine September 2017

In 1986 the brilliant author, Stephen
King, released a book that had us
avoiding drains during a rain storm
at all costs. The thought of a creepy
clown being down there just waiting
for us to go searching for our toy boat
washed down the drain played on
our imaginations. Like all good horror
and particularly Mr King’s horror
stories, it seemed plausible. Maybe
not where we lived but somewhere
like Derry Maine (the fictional setting
for many of his stories) it just
might have possibly happened. IT
featured the story of a group of kids
who named themselves, “The Losers
Club.” There was slightly overweight
Ben Hanscom who is 11
at the time of one of the two time
frames the novel is set (1957), Eddie
Kaspbrak, Bill Dengrough, Richie
Tozier, Stanly Uris and Beverly
Marsh. A group of friends who all
realise they’ve encountered the demonic
creature they named, IT. The
novel is over 1100 pages and in
true Stephen King style, grabs the
reader with characters you love and
characters you despise. You root
for The Losers Gang, wanting them
to win against the bullies, against
the demonic IT. But like any novel to
film adaption, can you capture the
feel of the location, the characters
in a couple of hours? Let’s take a
deeper look.
In the novel, the IT creature can
shape-shift. But it is the shape of
the clown, Pennywise that creeps
the kids out the most. And that’s
where the original miniseries was so
popular, that damn creepy artwork
featuring Tim Curry as the Dancing
Clown Pennywise. The miniseries
adaption had to leave some of the
sub-plots from the novel, there simply
isn’t enough time to capture the
whole novel, so writer of the series,
Lawrence D. Cohen wrote for an
8-10 hour miniseries. However the
ABC was nervous and agreed to a
2 night and four hour commitment.
The series was a major success
airing in 1990. IT was shown over
two nights and rated incredibly well.
Part One was watched by over 17
million viewers and Part Two gained
more viewers, just over 19 million.
Rotten Tomatoes has it sitting on a
62% fresh rating but some critics
didn’t like the effects nor the sometimes
slow pace of the series.
Now we have a fresh version of IT
about to hit the big screen. The trailer
features a much more creepy,
darker tone. The trailer shows the
same friendship of The Losers
Club, but with an updated feel to the
visuals as expected. Being horror
fans here at Live Magazine, we’re
excited for IT but...
Red balloons will never be the same...