‘He thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts…’
Now that TV is at least as prestigious as cinema, it can be jarring to return to a world before The Sopranos and The Wire revolutionised the medium. Originally aired in 1990, Tommy Lee Wallace’s take on Stephen King’s IT is beloved by hardcore fans and it received rave reviews at the time for the scope of the story, the character development and the acting. Let’s dive in…
Originally aired in two parts and stretching over three hours in total, this iteration of IT succeeds in collecting all the key moments from King’s grisly masterpiece. As with Andy Muschetti’s cinematic update, the sections in which the Loser’s Club are still children work best, but there are still some great moments in the second half of Lee Wallace’s miniseries – not least the bombastic conclusion (the spider aside). Some of the acting is a little shoddy by today’s standards but the adult cast does a great job of making the core cast feel like a real lived-in friendship group even though I absolutely cannot get on with adult Bill Denbrough sporting a ponytail.
The miniseries will never be able to match the technical achievements and basic competency boasted by the later adaptations but it has a lot of heart and it’s clear that everyone involved has a passion for the source material. Tim Curry’s performance as Pennywise remains utterly nightmarish and when taken as a whole I would argue that IT may well be the best of all the King TV adaptations.