SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers about the new adaptation of Stephen King's IT.
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The 1990 television adaptation of IT is a horror milestone for many of the millennial generation. Anchored by a brilliant and iconic performance by Tim Curry, it's a three hour telling that fully dives into Stephen King's beloved, lengthy tome, and successfully has delivered nightmares to thousands. That being said, it's also an adaptation that many of us look back on with rose-colored glasses, and the reality is that the new film version from director Andres Muschietti is superior in many ways.
We would never want to try and take away anyone's enjoyment of anything, particularly something with as much merit as the TV version of IT, but as both an adaptation and piece of storytelling, the new big screen take does have it beat in many specific areas -- despite what those in our site's TV section may think. But what areas, you ask? Well, let us break it down for you below and on the next few pages...
It lets the story breathe.
Unlike many adaptations of long stories that get jammed into single, short feature films, the first adaptation of IT made a smart move -- going the television route and guaranteeing some extra real estate where run time was concerned. While a movie at the time would have only promised 90-120 minutes at the time, TV allowed the two-tiered story to be told over three hours. But as this new adaptation helps us really understand, it's still quite not enough to do the narrative justice.
The IT miniseries does a fine job showcasing the members of the Losers Club as kids -- showing us how they bonded and how they defeated Pennywise in the late 1950s -- but it doesn't hold a candle to the treatment provided to the characters in the new film.
Sure, some of the leads don't get arcs as strong as some of the others, but there is still a deeper dive allowed for the more significant roles, and it's genuinely refreshing for the narrative that we just get to watch Bill, Eddie, Beverly, Stan, Mike, Richie and Ben as kids and not already have a full understanding of the adults that they grow up to be.
The depiction of Derry, Maine is more sinister than the TV movie.
Every 27 years, the children of Derry, Maine are preyed upon by the monster presenting itself as Pennywise The Dancing Clown... but those aren't exactly the only years that are affected by the evil's presence in the New England town. Sure, events like the Ironworks explosion and The Black Spot fire happen during those periods, but the reality is that Derry is permanently poisoned by It's presence, including all of the people have spent their lives residing there. We do get a taste of this in the 1990 adaptation, but it's nothing like the buffet featured in the film.
It's an eye roll-worthy cliché to talk about a setting being its own character in a movie, but it's wholly appropriate in the case of Andres Muschietti's film. The Derry in the blockbuster is arguably even more harsh and sinister than the one in Stephen King's book -- present from the beginning when Georgie's death is entirely ignored by a neighbor. You can see the underlying ugliness in the town represented in basically every adult character, and it's a wonderfully toxic atmosphere that the TV adaptation just doesn't possess.
Penny's physical attacks are scarier in the movie.
The unquestionably faultless aspect of the IT miniseries is the performance by Tim Curry as Pennywise, which is an all-timer that we will most certainly not forget -- even in the wake of Bill Skarsgard's fantastic turn. If there is one serious limitation to the character on the small screen, however, it's that there really isn't the proper budget to show his monstrous form properly. As such, what we're left with is shots of Curry sporting some crazy fangs and contacts lunging at the camera. In short, the film version offers us a lot more.
Andres Muschietti's IT was made with a reported $35 million budget, and you can clearly see that an appropriate portion of that went towards making the titular monster's truest forms seriously horrifying. It starts with Pennywise taking a massive bite out of Georgie, but it continues through his projector screen attack in the garage to the Deadlights demonstration in the sewer with Bev. Visual effects technology has come a long way since 1990, and it has allowed the creation of an It just as scary as it reads in the books (though just imagine what's being held back for IT: Chapter 2).
See the rest of the story at Business Insider