Compared to movies, video and television projects have a bad reputation. There is a misconception that if a full meter was not considered worthy of a large screen, then it does not deserve close attention. Indeed, most of the series are mediocre, but there are outstanding exceptions like the horrors of βItβ with an IMDb rating of 6.90. Reviews brainchild of director Tommy Lee Wallace is mostly positive, and the image of the main antagonist has repeatedly been called the worst in the history of the film industry.
TV story "18+"
The horror βItβ is an adaptation of the work of Stephen King. Formally, this is a mini-series consisting of two episodes with a duration of 192 minutes. Because of this feature, many filmmakers tend to consider it not a series, but a television movie. Co-production of the United States and Canada issued by ABC. The story is based on a story in a small town in Maine. The inhabitants of Derry are terrorized by an ominous werewolf alien playing on the innermost fears of his victims. Tim Carry brilliantly played the bloodthirsty monster in the movie . King himself calls in the reviews the film "It" (1990) one of the few adaptations that he likes.
The authors, despite the average age of the main cast, which barely exceeded 15 years, did not restrain their creative fantasies. The series is replete with blood, horrific moments and tons of episodes with monstrously cruel Pennywise dreaming of delicious kids. Tommy Lee Wallace brought the wild original literary story to Ono to an R rating of 18+.
Pennywise
There is a version that the prototype of the personality of the clown in King is the once really rampaging maniac John Wayne Gacy, who used the image of Pennywise to attract the kids. But, as the reviews of the film βItβ (1990) say, in the television screen the antagonist is not a crazy circus performer or even a psychopathic killer, but a supernatural creature that has been declared at Derry with a frequency of 30 years in order to torture and kill children. But the fact that he used childhood fears allowed the young heroes to ultimately fight the monster as soon as they learned his secret. The writer himself admitted that when he invented this character, he asked himself what the kids were most afraid of, and remembered that in childhood he was just horrified of one kind of clown. The public in reviews of the film "It" (1990) has repeatedly expressed concern that the series may discredit all clowns and form a biased attitude towards them in the fragile minds of children.
In the 1990 draft, which later became a cult image of a monster in a circus outfit, blinded from the most striking details of the clownβs appearance, deliberately exaggerating them. But the most memorable and frightening feature of Pennywise in the incarnation of Tim Curry was his voice. Later, critics in reviews of the film "It" (1990) called it the hallmark of the project.
Interesting Facts
A native of Canada, Jarred Blancar, perfectly embodied on the screen the image of the bully Henry Bowers as a child, in real life was an unusually good-natured and sweet boy who hated racism. Because of this, the young singer was very upset in the frame when he had hurt Marlon Taylor, who played the teenage Mike Hanlon, calling nigger nigger. Blancar every time apologized tirelessly to his screen partner.
And "gray" Tim Reed - an adult Mike Hanlon - make-up artists did with the usual baby powder, generously applied to the hair with a toothbrush.
The twists and turns of fate
According to the narrative of the mini-series "It", actors playing heroes in their youth should depict the struggle of their characters with children's fears. Richie Toziere was most afraid of werewolves. The performer Set Green, who embodied this character on the screen, later played a guy nicknamed the Wolfman in one of the episodes of The Underwater Odyssey, and during the 40 episodes of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer project, he also appeared as a werewolf. Also in the filmography of the actor there is the series βAngelβ, in which the werewolf Daniel Oz Osborne became his hero.
Once again, it was destined to meet on the set Seth Green (young Ritchie Toziere) and Jonathan Brandis (young Zaika Bill). Together, the actors starred in the project "Underwater Odyssey."
Unfortunately, not all participants in the 1990 project were able to appreciate the recent remake of the Ono horror (2017). D. Ritter (adult Ben Hansky) and D. Brandys tragically died in 2003. Brandis committed suicide by failing to get out of a severe depression, and Ritter could not be saved after an unexpected aortic rupture.