STACK September 2017 Issue 155

f Tim Curry immortalised Pennywise, a

clown whose scary mask hides a heart of

pure evil, then today Bill Skarsgård accepts

the mantle – scaring himself in the process

during the three-month shoot in Toronto.

“I’d rented a house and had two friends

staying with me, although for the final week

I was by myself. One morning I got up to go

to work and on the concrete wall opposite,

someone had sprayed in red an upside-down

Satanist cross but with a dot over it. I was

thinking it was weird, but then I’m like: Holy

sh-t, it spells ‘it’ – literally across from my

house. Does some crazy fan know where I’m

living?”

At 6’ 3”, Skarsgård, 26, doesn’t scare easily.

“But because I was by myself, naturally you

start thinking, ‘Is this how it ends? I get killed?’

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CINEMA

FEATURE

Twenty-seven years after the Emmy-winningTV mini-

series

realised our irrational fear of clowns, director

Andy Muschietti ushers in a new vision of Stephen King's

best-seller to haunt our nightmares.

Words:

Gill Pringle

With the first of the two-part

feature film adaptation floating into cinemas this month, what

better time to look back at the 1990 mini-series version of Stephen King’s small town tale of terror.

irected by sometime John

Carpenter associate Tommy

Lee Wallace (production designer

and editor on

Halloween

and

The

Fog

follows the exploits of a bunch

of young outcasts; the self-proclaimed

“Loser’s Club” (including

SeaQuest

’s

Jonathan Brandis and

Buffy

’s Seth

Green), who united in the '60s to

defeat an unspeakable evil lurking

beneath the town of Derry, Maine. But

did they end IT’s reign of terror? Nope.

27 years later IT returns, and the seven

friends must now honour their pledge

to return to Derry for the ultimate

showdown.

predominantly draws on King’s

signature

Stand By Me

obsessions

with the bonds of friendship, innocence

lost and small town ambience (since

appropriated by

Stranger Things

), but

this time throws the ultimate evil into

the mix in the form of Pennywise the

clown (Tim Curry).

For its first half, the mini-series

sticks closely to King's novel, but sadly

its climactic trump card turns out to be

a joker instead of an ace. Dispensing

with the mind-bending metaphysics

and cosmic relevance of the book’s

climax for a more literal manifestation

of the titular evil,

’s monster payoff

resembles a cheesy looking refugee

from a cheap Roger Corman flick.

The second

film isn't likely to

make the same mistake.