Ninth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #2 IT: Chapter One

I am a huge Stephen King fan.  I cannot tell you how many times I've read the massive tome that is IT.  And I've seen the 1990 miniseries several times: I'm very fond of Tim Curry's Pennywise, Seth Green as Richie Tozier and most of the adult casting (Harry Anderson/Richie, John Ritter/Ben, Annette O'Toole/Bev, Tim Reid/Mike - I just didn't much care for Richard Thomas as grown Bill).  I know the story fairly well and thus was well-prepared to watch the new (2017) IT: Chapter One.

The new IT movies break the story in two:  the first one covers the kids' story, now set in 1988; the second one, not out yet, will wrap things up with the adult versions of the Losers Club.  For much of the first movie, things stay fairly faithful to the source material.  We start with a bang with Bill and Georgie:  Bill making his little brother a paper boat; Georgie chasing the boat in the rain; Georgie getting his right arm chomped off by Pennywise the Clown and then dragged down into the sewers, never to be found again.  Bill and his friends, Eddie, Richie and Stan, are soon joined by tomboy Bev, new kid Ben and home-schooled Mike as they investigate the town's history and the many, many missing kids.  Each of them sees Pennywise, who manifests as each's particular fear, and then when Bev is taken by Pennywise, the rest of the Losers head into the sewers to rescue her.  All the while fending off some hard-core bullying from Henry Bowers and his thugs.

Obviously, with a source book that massive, things needed to be edited down.  Some bits were very faithful:  Eddie's leper, the blood erupting out of Bev's sink, the rock fight.  Some things were changed: Richie being afraid of clowns instead of the Wolfman; Stan's being haunted by a painting instead of drowned children; Mike's parents dying in a fire (and a name-check of the Black Spot massacre); having the entrance to the sewers be an old well-house instead of the "morlock holes;"  using a bolt gun instead of a slingshot and silver shot against Pennywise.  Perhaps the most egregious change - aside from Mike's character being a total non-entity - was turning Beverly into a damsel in distress, needing to be rescued by her friends.  In the book, young Bev is the toughest of them all - brave enough to go into the sewers and the best shot with the slingshot of all of them.  I hated that change.

Bill Skargard as Pennywise was pretty good - nothing goofy about him but being able to turn on a dime from clown-charming to sinister.  Despite his best efforts, however, this chapter of IT isn't terribly scary, despite its rating.  We'll see if they ratchet things up for Chapter Two.