by Dr Kain » Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:34 pm
It 1990 - Oh boy, where do I start? First, I guess I should give you a spoiler warning since I'm going to be mentioning things from Chapter 2 of the new movie.
Anyway, okay...
1. Where the friggin hell is Bill's guilt over Georgie's disapp... uh... death? None of that was present at all.
2. Henry served absolutely no purpose in this thing at all. It doesn't help that he was a bumbling idiot. Hell, Bulk and Skull were far more threatening than this turd wad and his goons.
3. No horocrux search.
4. No Lepers, no derelict house, no headless creatures, no deformed face picture monster, no giant statute of Paul Bunyan coming to life, no trio of Scary doors, no disembodied kids that were taken, no George taunting Bill, no backstory to Pennywise or even the arrival of the Dead Lights, no Losers Club breaking up for a month, no first encounter with Pennywise as a group, etc.
5. They never actually did anything to go into detail on Beverly's dad. All it seemed like was he was a jerk, not a molestering abusive monster.
6. They hardly did "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" with the history of Derry itself. Most of the stuff about it was just some quick passing comments and nothing more.
7. No pacing. The scene where George meets Pennywise had no build up whatsoever. In fact, it felt like the scene was sped up.
8. They beat Pennywise with a rock and their fists. ARE YOU "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" KIDDING ME?!
9. Ben's poem makes no sense since Beverly was not a red head.
10. No funhouse scene. Or amusement park at all.
11. Mike's parents are alive, destroying his entire character arc as a child.
I could go on and on but holy "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" did this suck. Even without comparing it to the newest movies it lacked any sense of suspense or tension. The clips I saw over the years told the truth, Pennywise was just some dumbass who thought he was scary, but there wasn't a single shred of atmosphere to make him scary. It was just Tim Curry in a clown suit, that's it. He got beat by a rock. A ROCK! Twice no less.
The acting was pretty awful too as Young Bill and Adult Beverly were bad, really bad. Furthermore, neither actor for Bill was able to pull off the stuttering as it felt forced. Like in the new movies, Stan is by far the most worthless character of the club, which explains why he is the one to die as an adult. His whole purpose was just to be there to die.
I guess this is definitely one of these movies you had to watch when it first came out in 1990, though with such amazing suspenseful films like The Thing, Alien, Halloween, and The Fog, I have no idea how anyone would find this the least bit scary. Maybe I would think differently if I had any sort of nostalgia for this film, but I just can't take anyone seriously that says this one is better than the new ones. The only scene I can really praise is when all of the fog surrounded the kids when they were in the sewer towards their "climatic" battle with Pennywise.
Overall, my entire response to this movie is summed up by Pennywise's laughing scene in the library that is used as a joke in YouTube reviews. This adaptation was a joke. 5/10.