BEFORE: Oh, I've been agonizing over this one, ever since realizing, months ago, that movie #666, the most evil number of all, the number of the Beast, would fall in the month of October in Year 2. I wanted to find a movie that best represented pure evil - the most obvious choice was "The Omen", since Damien, the Antichrist, had the 666 birthmark - but when I blocked out the schedule, that film series fit better in mid-October, not late October. That left the Stephen King chain for the end of the month - but which film based on a Stephen King story would be most appropriate? The best choice there was "Needful Things", since I believe that Satan is an actual character in that film - great, except I don't have a copy of that film. So I'm bending the rules to allow in another TV movie - but one that scared the crap out of me when I was a kid - at least the parts that I saw through my hands, as I covered my eyes...
THE PLOT: In 1960, seven outcast kids known as "The Loser Club" fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. 30 years later, they are called back to fight the same clown again.
AFTER: When you're a kid with an active imagination, as I was, anything can be scary - a dark basement, a shower drain, a janitor's closet - and yes, overly friendly clowns. While I've never really had a fear of clowns - but Pennywise from this film could change that. This film features many other things beside clowns that represent basic fears - fear of the dark, fear of bullies, fear of spiders, even fear of commitment... I regretted seeing "Poltergeist" as a teenager, because it sort of used the same scattershot approach, and I ended up with fears of trees, fears of sitting too close to the TV, fears of Indian burial grounds, and fears of tearing my face off while looking into the mirror. (Thanks a lot, "Poltergeist"...)
Pennywise is a demon that seems to alternate between scaring people with their greatest fears, and appearing as things that seem very inviting - like, a clown with a balloon. What kid doesn't like balloons, and the promise of circus fun - rides, attractions, candy, etc. I've always felt that if the devil exists, he won't appear to you in a red leotard, with horns and a forked tail - no, he'll look like your best friend, or maybe a really hot chick. Seduction leads to corruption, which leads to ruin...the suggestion is that Pennywise has managed to seduce and corrupt almost the entire town of Derry, Maine.
This film is long (3 hours, which I assume was stretched into 4 hours with commercials, airing on TV over 2 nights) and split into two parts - one told in flashback, as 7 kids meet, band together (it's almost similar in tone to "Stand By Me" in places) and then battle Pennywise, who they assume is behind the numerous murders of the town's children. The famous adult actors don't do much in Part 1 except for answering the phone, and looking terrified as they each recall their childhood experiences - which are neatly arranged in sequence to give us the whole back-story (thankfully the old friends were contacted in the proper order so we wouldn't get confused).
In Part 2, the adults return to Derry to decide if they need to battle the evil clown again. Bear in mind that at the time, these were mainly "TV Actors" who were trying to stretch beyond sitcoms like "Three's Company" and "WKRP in Cincinnati" and light dramas like "The Waltons". However, they weren't always up to the task - the kid actors seemed capable of doing more heavy lifting - unless the goal was to show how deadpan and unexciting these kids grew up to be, perhaps haunted by their scary pasts?
No, the implications seem to be that the kids who left town became quite successful in their chosen professions - one's a stand-up comic, one's a fashion designer, one's an architect, and one's even a horror writer, something of an analog for Stephen King himself (he's the author of a book called "The Glowing", an obvious nod to "The Shining"). Which is great for me, because last night's film was a King story about a writer, and so is tomorrow's movie...
Unfortunately, nostalgia and abject terror do NOT go together like peanut butter and chocolate. The reminiscing seemed a bit forced - hey, let's forget about the demon for a minute and catch up on old times! Umm, like that time we fought the demon? Oh, yeah - and we're back to that. Also, it takes the grown-ups WAY to long to all straggle into town, get themselves organized, and decide what to do - which we all know is coming anyway. But I guess they had to fill two hours of prime time on the second night.
The casting of the young actors to match the old ones is mostly spot-on - I loved when they all recognized each other for the first time in 30 years, and they had to pretend like they didn't know right away who was who - oh, right, you were the black kid! Silly me...
Starring Tim Curry (I don't care about the billing, he's the real star of this film), Richard Thomas (last seen in "Wonder Boys"), John Ritter (last seen in "Noises Off"), Tim Reid, Annette O'Toole, Harry Anderson, Richard Masur (criminally underused here), Dennis Christopher, Olivia Hussey (last seen in "Death on the Nile") and the kids: Seth Green (last seen in "Be Cool"), Emily Perkins (last seen in "Ginger Snaps"), and Jonathan Brandis.
RATING: 7 out of 10 (points off for bad acting, bad pacing, and piss-poor special effects in the finale)
SPOOK-O-METER: 10 out of 10. Whatever you're afraid of, you'll probably find it in this movie. The scenes with Pennywise are all devious mind-f*cks that really hit home. This is as scary as I want it to get - OK, I'm sleeping with the lights on now, can Halloween season be over now?
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ReplyDeleteOkay, well, of all of the horror movies adapted from impersonal pronouns, this is definitely tops...slightly edging out "Them."
ReplyDeleteBut not scary compared to other horror movies. Why? IT'S SO DAMNED DULL. You're guaranteed to change the channel before anything scary happens.