There’s another remake on the horizon. So we thought we’d pay tribute to Stephen King’s magnum opus, “It”, by looking back at the TV miniseries that scared a generation of kids and adults, while putting clowns around the world out of work.

Episode 94, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd,

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we are wrapping up the summer season of films, and it looks like there is at least one horror film on the horizon that I think a number of us horror fans are looking forward to. I am. Yeah, me too. And, as soon as I saw trailers for it, I thought, oh my gosh. This is this is almost, long overdue, really. It is Stephen King’s IT.   And, in honor of that, we thought, we would pay tribute to the 1990 television miniseries version of It, which freaked out both of us when we were kids, and, and we’re going to do that with our very first miniseries episodes of the podcast. So because the television show was broadcast in 2 2 hour chunks, which, makes for a 4 hour long movie, but in this case, without commercials, it’s really only about 3. We are going to do the first episode tonight on the first half of the of the the television miniseries, and then we will do next week’s episode on the second half of the television miniseries, which is handy because the story is kinda broken up into 2 halves. It’s about some kids who conquer, an evil or think they are they’ve conquered an an evil when they are kids and then are called back to fight it and finish the job as adults. Now, growing up in the eighties, Stephen King’s novel, It, I believe came out in 1985, or was it 1986? 

Craig:  I don’t know. 

Todd:  Yeah. I’m pretty sure it was 1985. This was the book that it seemed like everybody around me was reading. It’s about a foot thick, I think. Uh-huh. And, over a 1000 pages, and it at the I I think even Todd date, it is Stephen King’s longest novel, and he’s not known for writing short books. Right. But I remember growing up just this book being everywhere, and I should have read it at that time.   I did read the Tommyknockers. I read I read a lot of Stephen King’s books around this time, but I never conquered it for some reason or another. But one thing I did do was watch the television miniseries. And Craig, you can totally back me up on this. Like, again, in the eighties and maybe earlier than that, but definitely not now, when these sorts of things came on TV, they were like a major event. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. Huge. 

Todd:  Like Todd, I mean everybody and their mother watched this and you know it’s kind of unequaled today that you would have like one thing that everybody from young to old is gonna sit down and watch at the same time and talk about the next day. And so when this came on, I watched it, my family watched it, my friends were all watching it, and then everybody was talking about it in school the next day. I remember very distinctly in band practice, our our band teacher interrupting. I was I would have been in 8th grade, I think, and our band teacher interrupting going, did you guys see it last night? And we’re all like, yeah. And she just looks at us like, that is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And I do I remember being really freaky. The evil clown thing probably got its start pretty much from this movie. I mean, from this movie on, we all decided that clowns are scary.   So how about your history with Todd? Do you have any special, nostalgic stories to tell? 

Craig:  Well, yes. I yeah. I mean, I feel like any horror fan from our generation has Todd, you know, this has to be a memory from their youth. And it is of mine. Yes. Absolutely. Not only did I watch it, but like it was such a huge build of anticipation leading up to it. Like I was so excited about it.   And, I remember back in those days, when the only method for recording and saving things was VHS, I would, I had a, a TV in my room, a little tiny, probably like 9 or 12 inches, TV in my room and a VCR. If you wanted to record things, but you didn’t wanna have to watch the commercials over again later, you had to you had to record and then you had to pause when the commercials came on, and then you had to remember to unpause, when when it came back on. And I was so excited about this, and when I I was so excited when I was watching it that there were a couple of times that I would pause it to to edit out the commercials, and then I would forget to unpause it when it came back on. Oh, no. So so so the the VHS recording that I had of it that I watched over and over and over and over again had a few scenes missing because I had forgotten to unpause it after the commercials. And it really wasn’t until it, you know, much later that it, started re airing on TV sometimes. And, when the DVD came out, which I I I bought, that some of the scenes were brand new to me because I I had watched it so many times. And it was also like my go to sick day movie.   Like, if I stayed home, from school sick, I would always put this in because it was, like, nice and long, and I could just lay in my bed and watch this movie. And it was I just remember I have such fond memories of this movie, and I’m so nostalgic about it that even when I was watching it last night, and and I’ve talked about how my partner doesn’t really like horror movies, and he particularly doesn’t like scary clowns. Like they really freak him out. But but he was like, I’ll watch this one with you. I mean, even he, you know, also being our age, you know, it was, an event in his life that he remembered, and we sat down and watched it. And we were watching it, and I just remember saying to him last night, Alright, fine. All these people now who are saying that the movie is out of date, that it hasn’t, you know, really stood the test of time, I get what they’re saying, but I don’t care. I, you know, it’s a made for TV movie, and it feels like a made for TV movie from the 80s or early 90s rather.   But despite, despite some of its flaws and and despite its budget and the fact that it was made for TV, I really feel like there’s something special going on here, especially in this first part. There’s something about these kids, these actors, and they’re young actors and they’re not brilliant actors by any stretch of the imagination, but you really get the feel. And I’ve read the book too. I also didn’t read the book until I was an adult. Only in the past couple years did I read the book. But the, I feel like these kids really capture something special, and I think that’s what’s special about the book Todd, is that it really captures that feeling of childhood and the friendship that you have as a kid and and the special bonds that you have that’s that’s something really special and powerful and something that never you never forget, you know, despite the fact that you may go your own separate ways as you grow up, you know, you leave childhood behind. You know, there are those special bonds that you have with your childhood friends that are are so powerful. And and I thought that the book captured that well, and I thought the first half of the movie captured that well.   We only watched the first half last night. I haven’t watched the second half yet, so, I don’t know how I’ll feel about that one in retrospect, but this one, despite perhaps many flaws, I just I’m so nostalgic for it, and I just I freaking love it. 

Todd:  Well, you know, it’s, it’s a nostalgic book, and really, I just finished reading the book 5 hours ago. It’s funny that we’re doing this because as the movie was, as the brand new movie was coming out I thought, oh my gosh, that is a book that’s been on my list forever. I really need to check that out. And my wife and I were flying back to the States, and so on our 12 hour flight, you know, you’re always looking for something to do and some reading material. And so I made I was determined. When we go back to the States, I’m gonna find a used bookstore, I’m gonna get the mass market paperback version of of it, and I’m gonna read it on the way back. And it is, I did. I read it almost 12 hours straight on the plane, and I don’t even know if I hit the halfway point.   That’s how long it was. By the time, I have to say, by the time I was done with the book I was kinda sick of it, but it really taps those same chords. I mean, the whole theme, really, of the story is about, nostalgia, is about your childhood, about how you’re going to forget about your childhood too. That is a common thread, and and all these things are really just sort of touched on in the movie because they they have to be. You can’t apparently, ABC originally wanted to it was originally proposed to the network to do an an 8 parter instead of just the 2. Right? And they were nervous about 

Craig:  doing something that long, which is Yeah. And it it 

Todd:  was supposed to be directed by 

Craig:  would have would have been cool. Yeah. 

Todd:  I imagine that. Exactly. Well, there’s so much that they gloss over, but it’s interesting to see how they slip in little hints of things that they ended up glossing over into the movie. But but by the time you’re done, really, one of the threads that that go and I’m interested too because it’s been a while since I’ve seen this, and like you, I didn’t go on to see the second part yet. I’ve stuck to our bargain. And, and I’ll be interested to see if that aspect of the book, which is so strong, is carries through in the whole mini series. And that is the fact that when these guys are called back as adults, one of the main things in the book is that they have pretty much forgotten about this whole major traumatic episode, that happened to them as kids. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  And it’s really becomes a metaphor for the fact that, as a child, you know, you have all of these life changing experiences and you have friends and everything is such a big deal to you. Right? Mhmm. 

Craig:  Yep. Yep. 

Todd:  And by the time you’re an adult, even by the time you’re in your twenties or your thirties, you look back and you could hardly remember any of it. You know it had an impact on you. You know it shaped who you are. But by golly, if you could pinpoint, you know, 3 or 4 episodes of of of what actually, you know, you did. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  And let alone, you know, keep touch with your friends or or remember your friendships, at all. It it’s it’s it’s really cool. So then when you see a movie like this, it does tend to stir up those kind of it’s like Stand by Me, you know? It’s Yes. It Todd just stirs up those memories that were long dormant in your own self of childhood. And, like, oh, yeah. I remember we had adventures like this, you know? And to us, like, the idea of building a dam in the creek was like a a cool thing to do. You know, I could spend all day doing it and talking about it and then feel proud about it when we were done. 

Craig:  I know. And, like, at the risk of sounding like an old guy, which I, you know, I realize that I’m getting Todd. It I I’ve accepted it’s cool, but whatever. But like it’s nostalgic also because you know, I see kids Todd, and I’m sure kids today are doing things that I don’t know about, but you know, when we were kids, we didn’t have, iPads and, and we didn’t have all these things that Todd distract us, you know, bazillions of channels on TV, Netflix, where, you know, anything that you want on demand. We didn’t have that stuff so much. So we went outside and, you know, we wrote Todd, we, we wrote our bikes and and we went and played in the dirt and played at the in the creek or at the pond or whatever. And, like, I think that’s part of the reason that I’m nostalgic, for this too because it just highlights a different kind of childhood that I I wonder if if kids are experiencing Todd know, I again, I’m sure times change, times have always changed. I’m sure kids have their own special memories these days, that I just can’t particularly relate to.   But going out with your friends, riding your bike, going down and doing something like building a dam, you know, down in the Barrens or whatever like these kids do. I have these memories, from from childhood. And it it’s just, I don’t know. It’s so nostalgic. I could go on about it for days, but that would be super boring. So, you know, we should talk about the movie. 

Todd:  Do we have to? I I just wanna say, Craig, I know what you’re talking about. But and and again, we’re always on guard of sounding like the old guy down the street, but I think you’re kind of on to something there. Because as teachers and and in the education field, you and I are pretty exposed to kids nowadays. Something has changed. You just gotta you gotta point it out. And it’s not the kids’ fault. You know, we’ve talked about just the world and how people seem to be a little more protective of children now than they used to be, and they’re a little more coddling of children than they used to be. And so the idea that that a parent would let their kids roam free to run around and and do these things that these kids do, kind of like we did before, is sort of a lost concept.   I can’t really see if you were to compare Derry, which is the town that this happens in, to modern day Todd. And Derry is 19 fifties. But it wasn’t a huge jump from 1958, I think, to 1988, really. No. In the the freedom that these kids were given, to run around the town. But Mhmm. This town is a cursed town. There’s 

Craig:  a lot 

Todd:  and again, it’s way more obvious in the book than it is in the in the show, and maybe that is one of my biggest criticisms of of the movie. Again, you can only fit so much in, but the one thing that the book has that the movie clearly doesn’t have is just this sense that it’s not just this fantastic evil creature that lurks in the sewers that these kids have stumbled upon, but it’s the creature that lives in the sewers of this town that has lived there for for forever, and and it it has his tentacles and things into the entire town so that even the adults in the town kind of Todd to turn a blind eye. They don’t want to. It’s just in their nature to turn a blind eye to the to the evil and the bad things that are that that exist kinda below the surface of this town. That really doesn’t come through, in this mini series at all. You don’t get a sense of that. It’s trying, but it Todd doesn’t really happen. 

Craig:  Well, and I I think, you know, adapting this to the screen, I I think would pose a challenge to anybody, and I’ll be really interested to see I’m excited about the remake. The the truth of the matter is when they announced the remake, I was both excited and skeptical because I I think that it’s difficult material to translate because there’s so much mythology in the book Yes. That that would just be so again, those of you who haven’t read the book, this will mean nothing to you. That’s fine. Skip to the next part of the podcast. But, like, there’s stuff there’s stuff with a a a giant mystical turtle, and there’s stuff with, like, the ritual of Chud, and like all this weird metaphorical stuff that really would be very difficult to translate to the screen. And, and I’ll be interested to see how the, the new one handles all that stuff. There’s also stuff, there’s content in the book, that you that is just so off.   I know what you’re talking about. You chuckle. You know what I’m talking about.   Oh, yeah.   There’s content in the book that, like, is questionable even in the book and that you certainly couldn’t translate into film. I don’t think successfully ever, not even in 2017 when our our sensibilities are are very different. So, you know, I I I what I thought that the miniseries did well was that whether you had read the book or not, first of all, it was an entertaining movie. But if you had read the book, it did try to like, what what my partner noted last night when we were watching it was that it was really fast paced. Like boom boom boom boom. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Like, getting a lot of content into a very relatively small span of time. But if but having read the book, I appreciated that. I appreciated nods to the book, and I appreciated them trying to get as much content from the book as they could. Again, who did, did Stephen King adapt this? Did he write the script? 

Todd:  Nope. Nope, he didn’t. He had very little to do with the, the creative process of the of the miniseries. 

Craig:  Yeah. Well, what I what I what I read today was that the director, Tommy Lee Wallace hadn’t hadn’t even read the book when he made the movie. He’s at the time, he said that he wanted the script to speak for itself. He wanted, you know, just to to focus on the content of the script and not worry about the book. He he read the book later and and then later on said that he wished that he had read it before he made the movie because he felt he felt ultimately that the movie didn’t do just service to the book, which I can understand from a certain perspective. But knowing that he hadn’t read the book, I I’m really kind of impressed at how much of the content of the book they were able to get into this. You know, even if, you know, with commercials and everything and a miniseries, even if it’s 3 hours and 15 minutes or whatever, they did a pretty darn good job. I think it’s a pretty good adaptation, literary adaptation. 

Todd:  And and I think King was pretty happy with it, and he’s notoriously not happy with a lot of the adaptations of of his work and sometimes for very good reason. And he was, he said he thought they did a pretty good job with it. For him, that’s pretty good. 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk about the movie. And and you talked about how you had started the book, or no no no. Maybe I don’t know if you had started it or not, but my experience was as a child, I had start a child, I don’t know, 13, 14. I had started it, several times, and I couldn’t get past the first, 30, 40 pages because all I remember, the first 30, 40 pages were about these very stereo typically drawn, homosexual guys, getting getting killed. And, like, it was graphic and and it it I don’t know.   It it Yeah. Even at that point in my life when I didn’t even know who I was, it was just unsettling to me for some reason and I I never got through it. I got over it eventually. 

Todd:  It is unsettled. Actually, you know, the book is very fresh in my mind, obviously, and 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  I was blown the first several pages were were very bothersome to me. And, and I was also surprised, at the theme the thematic material of it, consider. I mean, it just kind of seemed very modern to even have that as as subject matter, with this sort of hate crime. Right. It seems like something an author nowadays would consciously put in a book because they’re trying to make a statement. And here’s Stephen King back in the eighties before this was really bubbled up to our high level of consciousness. 

Craig:  We are gonna have a hard time keeping this an hour if we okay. So it the the movie after those opening credits, and and we see in the opening credits a scrapbook, with old pictures, black and white pictures of what we will find out is the losers club. You know, this group of 7 kids. Yeah. 7 kids, who we’re gonna be following, throughout the entire movie. And then it cuts to the scene where this cute little blonde girl riding her tricycle and, her mom, calls her in because it’s gonna Craig, and her mom’s pulling in laundry, and so the mom takes in the laundry. And this little girl hears this very creepy laugh, and she looks at, the clothesline and and the sheets are blowing in the wind. And then suddenly behind the sheets appears this clown, who we later find out is Pennywise the clown, and her face turning from a smile Todd, a look of terror.   And then it cuts away and the mom comes out and and the girl is gone. And and that sets up basically the premise of of the movie, which is that children are disappearing. And in this first scene, once the police are there, there’s another man there, a black man, who we find out, is Mike.   What you got, Sam? There’s not much left, just like the last time. Anybody see anything? The mother said you saw them. I told you to stay out of this, Hammond. I’m just a concerned citizen chief, and I call 6 kids missing or dead a major cause for alarm here. Maybe just a rash or runaways. Kids get itchy feet. Right. A 5 year old in a toy car gets itchy feet.   What? A 7 year old trots down to Acapulco for a wild weekend? The boy’s father took it. The other one? Chief, there’s something terribly wrong here in Derry, and you know it. Hey. I’m the cop. You’re the librarian. Okay.   He is one of the 7 kids who have dealt with this evil force 30 years earlier. The the and I really think that the way that they structured this was just genius for, for TV.   Yes.   The fact that he’s the one that remembers it, and then the whole movie is him calling everybody else from the losers club, from this this group, and and we get to be just very briefly introduced to each of the characters, and we just get to very briefly see where they are in their adult life. But we kinda get a a pretty strong sense of where they are in their adult lives. And then we get to see each of their flashbacks, a, and their experiences with Pennywise. And it all comes together very neatly of how they came to be this group together. And I just think that the way that it is structured in that way as far as narrative technique just works really, really well. 

Todd:  Yeah. It does. And you’d have a couple different choices because the book follows a similar kind of narrative technique, except that the stories of the past and the present are very intertwined. So you’re constantly flashing back from the from the present to the past. Whereas in this, even though the the child parts are told in in flashback, it’s mostly child parts. We get the entire child of side of the story in the first, movie, half of the movie or whatever. And that’s that, you’re right, is genius, but yet we still, are getting the adults rounded up, and it’s getting through the, messy business of showing us the adults and where they are now. And it also adds a bit to the terror, right, because there there are these adults who are being called back after 20 some years or whatever, and they’re still they’re freaked out about the idea.   And so it does it does build some suspense then when we’re watching the child side of it. Like, it just makes it seem that much worse, what the kids are going through or what we imagine the kids are going to have to go through, what we’re going to see. 

Craig:  Well, and each time any one of them gets called, they answer the phone and and Mike, you know, says, hey, it’s me, Mike. Do you remember me? And again, I’m not gonna, you know, say that this is Oscar worthy acting on anybody’s part, but you always see, you always see this moment of remembrance that it just, it it’s, it hits them, you know, like a wrecking ball. Like, it it just comes back to them so quickly, and you see this look on their face. Yeah. You know, that that they’ve remembered this horror that they went through and for whatever reason, they have forgotten. Now, of course, it’s touched on much more in the book that it’s really the influence of this entity, it, that has made them forget. And the movie, you know, touches on that a little bit but not so much. But you get the sense that for whatever reason they really have forgotten and the remembrance of them just hits them of it, hits them so hard, and and as it would because everything that they went through was pretty horrific.   The first person that Mike calls is Bill, and Bill arguably, is the leader, of the group. He is a very famous author, based almost certainly on Stephen King himself. Stephen King does this all the time. He writes about writers all the time. He’s written a book called The Glowing, which sounds awfully a lot like The Shining. But anyway, he and his wife okay. So Bill is, the adult Bill is played by Richard Thomas who, people who are a little older than us would probably remember as John or John Boy Walton from the Waltons, and he is married to, Audra who is played by Olivia Hussey who was, yeah, famous for Romeo and Juliet, but then she was also in Black Christmas. We’ve talked about her.   She’s gorgeous. We love her. Yeah. They’re married, and she’s an actress, and they are adapting. He’s he’s working as, like, script supervisor or something on,   a film adaptation of one of his movies, and they’re in England.   It it appears that he’s very of one of his movies, and they’re in England. It it appears that he’s very successful, a very successful writer. He’s married to this famous, gorgeous actress, but he gets this phone call, and it flashes back to these 7 young people, you know, standing in this swampy area, which is we find out later is the barons, is what they call it in Derry. Yeah.   Bill, is that you? Sorry, Philip. Why know you? This is Mike Hallen, Bill, from Derry. Swear to me. Swear to me that if it isn’t dead, then I’ll come back. Sorry, Mike. For a minute there. You didn’t know who I was. For a minute there, I didn’t.   Bill, it’s back.   And he tells her because she says something like, well, I’ll go with you. And he says, no. No matter what, don’t come back. You have to swear to me that, you’ll stay here. But then, we get Bill’s back story, and it cuts back to what is probably the most iconic scene from this movie. It’s it’s the flashback, where Bill is sick. He’s probably 13, something like that, and he’s sick in bed, and his little brother, Georgie, who is played by just this, the cutest little guy you’ve ever seen. I I don’t know I don’t know what his name is, but he’s just got these round cheeks and dimples.   He’s just cutest little guy you’ve ever seen.   Please, Bill, tell me a story. Maybe later. The magic stone story. Please, Bill. Please. Go bug somebody else, you little cootie. I don’t feel so hot. Georgie.   For me? You made it for me? Can I go sail it?   Georgie takes the boat out and sails it down the gutters, and it’s really cute. And he’s,   ego excited. Yeah. Skip it alongside it. US Georgie,   or whatever he he calls it. SS Georgie, But it ends up, going into a, a sewer drain or or a gutter drain. 

Todd:  Mhmm. 

Craig:  Storm Craig. Exactly. And he’s like, oh, no. But, you know, he turns to walk away and then popping up in the storm drain is this clown.   Come on, Paco. Don’t you want a balloon? I’m not supposed to take stuff from strangers. My dad said so. Very wise of your dad, Georgie. Very wise indeed. I, Georgie, am Pennywise, the dancing clown. You are Georgie. So now we know each other.   He wrecked. I guess so.   And it’s Tim Curry. And again, I I could go on probably for a good half hour about Tim Curry. Tim Curry is a genius. Like, he he he’s just an amazing actor, and and more so than his acting, he just has a presence about him that is really indescribable unless you are familiar with him. I mean he is famous, of course for the Rocky Horror Picture Show which he was amazing in. Him as Pennywise in this movie is one of the most iconic horror villains of all time, in my opinion. He he played darkness in legend, which for whatever reason is, a somewhat, I guess, kind of reasonably unknown movie from the eighties, but he played, basically he played Satan, and and just oh my gosh. 

Todd:  Think about Clue. Oh, he’s great in Clue. 

Craig:  He’s amazing. He’s just he’s so Todd. And, you know, there’s not really much to him. You know, he looks like a creepy clown and most like, he looks like the clown that you would see with a bottle of whiskey and a cigarette on the corner. Yeah. It’s Krusty Cloud for soft butt. His eyes are all bloodshot. You know? He’s he’s a little bit older.   And and I read that he was really reluctant to take this role. And he wasn’t the only one that they had considered for this role. They they had considered Alice Cooper, 

Todd:  Oh, wow. 

Craig:  They had considered Malcolm McDowell, for this role. But when they when they came around to Tim Curry, they really wanted him and he was really reluctant to take it because he had just recently finished, well in the last several years at least, finished Legend, and the makeup process for that had been so intense and he was so, like it was miserable for him. He was reluctant to take this on because he was worried about the makeup. And so they compromised and said, Well, you know, we’ll we’ll keep it pretty simple. And they really did. I mean, you know, they they it really looks like they just used, you know, kind of clown pancake makeup on him. I don’t know if they did something to make his eyes super bloodshot, but his eyes are super bloodshot throughout. 

Todd:  He he really sells it. I mean, he really sells it. And I think that, that is what made this movie so scary for us. There’s something about his mouth, you know? Like Yes. He has a way of of, I I mean, and I think it’s just him. It’s the way he was born, but, like, the way that his mouth can go from small to big and the way that it it works, it it it just there’s it it always seems something sly and a little bit sinister behind it in so many of his characters, and so that comes through very clearly in this one. But, yeah, they were smart. They were gonna put prosthetics, like high cheekbones and a chin and all this stuff to try to make this this clown look like a a scary clown.   But I think it’s way more effective, and it really serves the story a lot better if he looks like Bozo the clown, you know, from down the street, and only at these certain moments through the movie, which is another thing that maybe is a little bit overplayed. You know, he gets these, like, green eyes and and fangs and kinda Yeah. Zoom in on that. It’s a kind of a a small transformation, but a but a big one. Because the kid, especially in this case, Georgi, he talks to him. He doesn’t seem that ex concerned that there’s a clown in the gutter. You know? He’s kind of taken by the clownness of him, and don’t want an evil looking clown. He’s not gonna be very seductive to a child. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. And and you’re right. It’s something about his mouth. Like, he’s got just kind of this natural, like, his lips, like, I I get it. 

Todd:  Describe it. There’s no way to describe it. 

Craig:  You He’s got this kind of curve to like, he talks kind of out of one side of his mouth sometimes, and his lips just have this kind of really natural, but also really unsettling, almost like a snarl. Yeah. And then the kid starts to go away, but Pennywise says, but wait, don’t you want your boat? And he’s like, yeah, I want it. And Pennywise is like, well, take it. And he reaches down and Pennywise is saying, down here there’s like a whole circus and balloons. And Georgie says, do they float? And Pennywise says,   oh, yes. They float, Georgie. They float. And when you’re down here with me, you float star.   And he grabs his arm, and and we hear Georgi scream, and we see him scream. And that’s really all we see in the movie. I mean, it’s a made for TV movie. There’s only so much they could show us.   Yeah.   But the horror of it is there, and we find out later, we hear later, somebody else says that his arm was just ripped completely off. And, I feel like in the in the book, it was even more gruesome, but I I mean, that’s that’s what, 5 minutes into the movie. That’s right. And and I’m already horrified. Like, it’s it’s it’s so good. 

Todd:  It is. So so that’s that’s the one part, and so we get that. And then another thing that’s really smart about the structure of this film is that, these flashbacks are shown in sequence, and they had to do some finagling to to to make that happen. You know? So you call a person, and their flashback happens to be, a little further down, you know, the story of the kids. And I think that was another really wise move. If you try to go out of sequence too much like the book does, it’s very satisfying in a novel, but it’s not as easy to follow in a film. So Right. It’s good.   The next one that that he calls is the architect. John Ritter plays, Ben, and I love John Ritter. John Ritter seems to be a bit of a drunk, but he’s he’s a famous architect. Now all of these people have gone on to be famous, which is I think something that they just sort of gloss over in the movie, but in the book it’s significant. I have to say too with all these flashback sequences, I really think it’s just because they’re trying to cram so much into a short period of time, they all come across as pretty melodramatic. Yeah. You know, the Bill and Audra and their reactions to each other and all that just are a little too much. Ben is just a little too drunk, but anyway.   And he’s there with some girl. He gets the call and then he flashes back to this this bully named Henry Bowers, and Bowers is teasing him because he’s fat. So when he was a kid as he explains to his girlfriend, oh I used to be really fat. And that was that’s Ben’s thing, is that he’s fat. It although up by today’s standards he’s not fat at all. Ben is at school and he’s introducing himself. He’s new to town, he’s new to dairy, and he’s introducing himself to the class. And in the meantime, Henry Bowers is in the back making all these jokes and and she’s the teacher sends him to the to the principal’s office and his response is you’re dead, Batkid.   Yeah. And so we have a sequence where then he meets up with them After Ben runs into really briefly a girl, Beverly, who is a really cute girl that he likes, and she’s going to be the female in this group later on. He’s almost immediately smitten with her, and tries to go home, but he gets chased. He also writes her a note on a postcard. 

Craig:  He writes her a poem. Mhmm. 

Todd:  And he gets teased for that. Okay, so he gets pursued by Henry’s gang. He hides in a pipe, but then Bill and Eddie, happen to be down there in this Craig stream area, which they call the Barrens. It’s kind of the, down below the road. It’s it’s the wooded area, I guess, of town with this, canal running through it. And they’re talking about building a dam, and so Eddie terrorizes them a little bit. That’s when Ben meets up with those 2. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. And that’s what all these flashbacks are about, really. It’s it’s about their own personal Mhmm. It it’s about their own personal interactions with it, but also about how they all come together. And and that’s just what it is. And you talked you you mentioned that he kinda he gets bullied by Henry Bowers. It’s actually really menacing. And even in the the movie, it’s very menacing.   It was even scarier, in the book. I mean, these aren’t just bullies like I’m gonna call you names and and maybe punch you or something. These are bullies like, I’m going to stab you. 

Todd:  Yeah. They’re like, totally psychopathic. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and and, the book gets even darker, with all of that stuff. But the in the movie, you see, like, Henry is gonna try to carve his name into Ben’s gut, as a reminder, or a warning or a punishment or whatever it is. So these bullies really are very menacing. It’s it’s not just like, oh, you know, somebody called me fat Todd. You know, it’s notes. Somebody tried to carve their name into my gut Todd. 

Todd:  It’s a distinct difference. 

Craig:  Well, and I think that that’s important and maybe more so in the book than the movie. But even in the movie, it plays a part that, you know, these kids are facing adversity from some supernatural evil force that manifests itself as a clown. But that’s just one of their worries. You know, like, Henry Henry Bowers really and his gang are almost as as much of a concern and a threat to them as as Pennywise is. And and I feel like that’s conveyed better, in the book than the movie, but and and I think that that’s why again, haven’t watched the second part yet. So, I’ll I’ll make more judgment later. But I think that that’s why the first part is more effective is because kids are vulnerable. Adults can be vulnerable too, but you know, it just seems like adults have more weaponry at their disposal, Todd, to fight adversity and threats.   Kids are so vulnerable, and especially like you said, in the fifties or even the eighties, when we really had a lot of freedom. You know, we were running all around town unsupervised all time. They were, they’re very vulnerable, and, and they, and of course, in this circumstance, these kids don’t feel like, they feel like if they told adults that what was happening, that they wouldn’t be believed, and they’re right. And, and there are several times throughout the movie that they try to tell adults, try to tell maybe stretching it a little bit, but, you know, they they go to adults for help, and the adults are just oblivious to what is going on. At one point, Bill looks at a scrapbook, and he finds a picture of Georgie like a school picture. It winks at him, and then blood starts pouring out of the scrapbook. And he throws it down, and he screams. And his parents come in, and his mom picks it up, and she’s totally oblivious to the blood, and and he, of course, realizes that she’s oblivious.   At another point, Beverly, who we haven’t gotten to yet, is, the the girl in the group. She hears voices, children’s voices, coming out of the drainpipe of her bathroom sink, and then, a red balloon comes out of the drain and and, expands and then pops, and it’s full of blood, and it splashes all over her, and it splashes all over the room. And she screams for her dad who is abusive, and again, that’s highlighted more in the book, you see it a little bit in the movie, but he comes in and he’s looking in the sink and he’s got his hands on the sink, his hands are all in the blood but he’s obviously oblivious to it. And eventually, like, when he walks out, he, like, tweaks her chin and smears the blood on her chin. And so, the premise is that adults for whatever reason don’t see this. They like, they can’t see it. So these kids are alone. They’re on their own, and that vulnerability, I think, is really what makes that part of the book and the movie so scary.   Because I think when when we’re kids, we all feel like that. You know, adults can protect us in some ways, but in our imaginations or in our perceptions, there are some ways when, you know, adults can’t help. And it’s just a good story.   It is. 

Todd:  Well, they’re in their own world here, you know, they really are. And and again, the town is not going to help them. It’s it’s it’s against them almost as much as it as against them because it is really, you know, the town. So, Bev gets called Todd, and, like you said, there’s some flashback with her. As an adult, she’s a fashion designer, and she has an abusive husband named Tom because she had an abusive, you know, father, she ended up marrying an abuser, this is pretty common actually. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Ben tries to give her this poem, he slips it under the door of her house and knocks on the door and runs around the corner, and she gets it. She thinks it’s really sweet. 

Craig:  What you got there? Nothing. Let me see that. You’ve been doing something you shouldn’t. You’ve been fooling around with some boy. Poetry from some boy. I worry about you a lot, baby. Sometimes I worry a lot. Daddy, please.   Not even 12 and already running with some boy. Let me alone. You’re just letting me alone. Come here. 

Todd:  She runs off. Ben catches up with her cowering in a bush, and he takes her down and introduces her to the other 2. And then right away, Richie and Stan just happen to join them. 

Craig:  Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And and I I wanna mention some of these actors because, Beverly, as a child is played by Emily Perkins who went on to star in the Ginger Snaps trilogy, which I love, and and and she’s great. The adult Beverly is played by Annette O’Toole who is also a very recognizable person. The young, Richie is played by Seth Green, who I love from Buffy, but who has done a bazillion things and is still, you know, super successful. But you see that’s another thing about this movie. You know, it’s it’s from 1990, And some of the actors are unknown.   Like, the kid who played Stan played Stan and then never did anything else ever again. And the kid who played Ben, even though he’s he seems familiar, he really wasn’t in, very much. But some of these folks went on to do, some other big stuff. How about 

Todd:  how about the one who played Bill? He looks 

Craig:  Bill. Oh, yeah. He isn’t. That’s sad. Bill was played by Jonathan Brandes. He, took over the lead for Never Ending Story 2. One of his bigger movies was Ladybugs. He was also in the TV show, Seaquest, something or other.   He died. He hung himself in 2003, which was coincidentally also the same year that John Ritter died, of a heart attack. So now we have everybody together, and, you know, I I feel like I’m probably gonna be skipping over some stuff. Like, there’s there’s bonding stuff. Well, and and actually, no, we don’t have everybody because we don’t have Mike yet. But there’s bonding stuff, like, they they build the dam together, and there’s a, a cute little musical montage. And then they all go to the movies together. They go to see I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Eddie, accidentally knocks his popcorn off the balcony ledge, and it lands, of course, on, Bowers and his gang.   And so they they all run out and they run away. And I don’t even remember exactly how this happens, but I feel like it it coincides with, the Bowers group also bullying Mike. And and again, bullying, not just like call him names or whatever, but threatening to put a cherry bomb in his pocket. And and eventually, Mike runs away. They, they all end up at this rock quarry, and they have this big standoff against the bullies, and they win. And that’s, that’s really kind of how they all cement themselves together as a group, and, and it’s, it’s actually Bowers that gives them the name, the losers club, and they kind of own that, and take it, as their own, and refer to themselves as that. But it’s around that time that Bill confesses what has happened to him with Pennywise, and and they all share their stories of what has happened. And what Mike in the movie at this point, Mike has not had any, experiences with Pennywise.   In the book, there’s this really awesome scene with a giant bird, it’s really scary. But, in the movie he hasn’t had that yet. But, they, they, Mike’s dad is a historian, I guess. Or at least an amateur historian. And he knows the history of the Todd. And Mike has this scrapbook full of pictures, and he flips through all of these things. And you see every 30 years going back, I think Todd like the late 1800, where Pennywise appears in first, like, illustrations and then photographs, and then Pennywise reveals himself to the whole group. And that, to me, that stands out as one of the scariest scenes in in the movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. That was the one that scared the bejesus out of me when I was a kid is this photograph that they’re looking at comes to life, and at first it’s just, you know, carriages going down the street, and people walking around, there’s clearly a carnivore something going on, but Pennywise is flipping, doing back flips down the street closer and closer to the the frame of the of the photograph. 

Craig:  I’ll drive you crazy and I’ll kill you all. I’m every nightmare you ever had. I am your worst dream come true. I’m everything you ever were afraid of. 

Todd:  And actually his hand comes out of the photograph. Yeah. That Yeah. It’s a pretty terrifying scene when I first saw it. And it’s interesting because and again deviates from the book because it has to. It really simplifies things, and one of the things that it simplifies is in the book, it’s really emphasized that Pennywise is more of a force. He chooses to show up as a clown, but that’s not all he does. He generally picks everybody’s biggest fear, and so, you know, Richie, he has a moment with a stovepipe.   I’m sorry. There’s a whole deal. I’m not gonna explain everything. I’m just gonna say one kid sees a bird, one kid sees a werewolf, one kid see you know, all everybody sees something different. But in the movie, they simplify that, and for the most part, every kid just sees Pennywise. And I think that was another smart move when you’re when you’re stretched for time and you’re trying to simplify the story, and you’re also trying to give them all a story to tell that’s similar. They don’t have to make 2 or 3 different leaps to get to the fact that all of their weird experiences have some connection. You just make that the cloud from the get go.   And so that creates some scenes that weren’t even in the book, that just kind of replaced them. For example, I believe it’s, Richie, who ends up or it’s either Richie or Eddie who end up in the showers at school. 

Craig:  It’s Eddie. Eddie’s in the shower and, like, the shower, you know, all the shower heads come out and kind of assault him or whatever. And then Penny Pennywise puts his hands up through a drain and stretches the drain out and comes up through the Craig. And my partner screamed.   And he said, write that down. So I so I have written in my notes, Alan’s scream. But but you’re but you’re you’re right. Yes. He   he can manifest into their darkest fears. I hear that they’re gonna explore it a lot more in in the remake, but I agree with you that I think that it was it was wise in in this context to to focus, to to give us a central villain. In the book, Pennywise can manifest into whatever he wants Todd. And he can in the movie Todd, he just doesn’t as much. But like at one point in the book, he he manifests as jaws in the in the river, like in the barons or whatever. And they don’t explore that much in the movie. But I think that for the purpose of the movie, it was smart to kind of give us a kind of a central villain with the clown. 

Todd:  Well, and there’s one other distinction there that I actually think would have been better if they had put it in the movie, and that is in the in the movie it kind of does this traditional horror film kind of thing where Pennywise just like appears and scares everybody. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  For each one, he’s he’s basically just exposing himself to them, like Right. It’s a pretty big deviation from the book. In the book, each of these encounters is supposed to result in the child’s death. Right. Pennywise is very definitely trying to kill these kids, and they managed to escape. And so the book tames that or the movie tames that down just a little bit, and I honestly think it it wouldn’t have been too hard, and it might have been just a little more intense and effective to to have gone that extra mile. But in this, you know, in this case, he’s just, hey, I’m Pennywise, and I’m gonna kill you eventually to to 

Craig:  each Right. Right. 

Todd:  Return. So, you know, I I wish it had gone just a little more for the gut, in that in that respect. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I agree with you, but watching the movie as a kid, and having not read the book, that didn’t bother me. I mean, he was so menacing. I mean, there’s really no explanation for why he would just be trying to scare them and not kill them. In fact, it almost seems like, why wouldn’t he? Especially if he knows or or he begins to realize that these kids are coming together as a unified force that is actually in in in the book, he he’s really never scared. Pennywise is never really scared. He he’s always confident that he will be able to take these kids out, or at least until the last minute. Yeah. 

Todd:  Until the 

Craig:  last minute. He’s never really threatened. He’s confident that he’s gonna be able to take them out. But yeah. Okay. You know, nitpicking, why would he just let them band together? But whatever. It didn’t bother me at the time. It doesn’t bother me now.   So Well, 

Todd:  and and you could also make another argument because and this is another line. I mean, it’s again, it’s heavily emphasized in the book. It’s just touched on with the line, but he says something about, how they taste so much better when they’re afraid. Because his whole thing is he literally, like, consumes the children, and so and and, like, children are supposed to taste better than adults because they have more pure fear and all that kind of thing. And so I guess you could make that argument. He’s just trying to fatten him up, you know, he’s just trying to scare him up. Sure. 

Craig:  Yeah.   That makes sense. After after they see him in the, in the scrapbook, Stan has been the one who has been reluctant to believe their stories, but, they get him to believe. So now they they all believe, and Bill, and the kid who plays Bill has this, you know, very touching moment where he kinda walks away from the group and and then he says,   help me. You killed my brother George, you bastard. Let’s see you now. Let’s see you now. It’s scared of us, you know? I can feel that. I I swear to Todd I can. I I wanna kill it.   They make a pact and they start to make a plan. We get, Stan’s phone call where he is living in some sort of, you know, lavish house and he and his wife are watching Perfect Strangers together. He’s the last one to get the call and we get to see the climax of the movie through his, his flashback. And what happens is that they, they plan this out, they, get slingshots, and they they, practice, and they find out that Bev, is a ringer, with a slingshot, like, she can she can nail her target every time. I think it’s, one of them, Richie, has some silver. He, he stole his mom’s earrings or something and, and melted down this silver, and they believe that silver kills monsters, And they end up all going down into the sewers, and and Henry Bowers, and his crew follow them. They’re they’re planning on getting their revenge, and I don’t know, you know, I don’t know if Henry is planning on killing them or what he’s planning on doing, but they’re all going down there. Bowers and his group, are the ones that end up getting getting taken out first.   They split up and and the one that splits off from them gets taken down by Pennywise first, and then another one of the other guy, from Bowers Group gets taken. And Pennywise takes a different form. We don’t really see it. It manifests itself mostly through light, these bright lights that are coming through these sewer pipes. And it’s really cool imagery because it’s the, the, the light is just, you can see that it’s progressing through the pipes, but it’s just streaming out of these small holes in the pipes. It’s really, it’s very scary and very menacing, and with the sound design, it works very well. And we get some POV shots from, the perspective of whatever it is, or as it’s manifested. And the way that I understood it is that when it’s in that light form, it’s kind of at its actual natural form.   Yeah.   And and we and we see it, you know, progressing through the pipes. Henry’s guys, and it gets, it doesn’t get Henry. Henry just sees it in all its glory. And because he sees it in all its glory, his hair turns completely white, and he’s just, like, stunned. Stung. Yeah. The kids find one of the the pom poms from the clown’s costume, so they know they’re on the right track. Stan, at some point, gets separated from them.   The Bowers group gets them for a little bit, but then they all end up back together after it has gotten the Bauer’s group in this very spooky, kind of central point in the sewers where there are tunnels going off everywhere. And it approaches, and at first, it kind of tries to trick or tempt some of them. Right? Like, it appears as Georgie   Yeah. Todd try to   kind of, tempt Bill. It appears as Bev’s dad to try to get her away from the group, but they stand firm. They hold hands, but then it gets really foggy in there, and somehow Pennywise gets himself in their circle and gets Stan and holds Stan up by his neck up against the wall, and Beverly tries to shoot it, with the the slingshot, but she misses. And then, Eddie approaches with his asthma inhaler and says, this is battery acid. And he sprays the clown’s face. And I guess the suggestion is that because the power of the kid’s belief is so strong, or because Pennywise believes in the power of their belief that it actually is like battery acid, and it like melts part of his face off. But eventually, Beverly with her very last shot, the very last piece of show silver she has, she shoots at it and it hits him in the corner of his head and part of his head breaks away, and that bright, bright light shines out. And he screams, and he pirouettes 

Todd:  That’s the best way to describe it. 

Craig:  Into the sewer drain. And and they they try to grab it to keep it from going down, and it sounds like it’s dying. So they all go out. Fortunately, in the movie, they choose to skip the child orgy 

Todd:  scene. Yeah. Imagine that on network television. Right. That one comes out of left field in the book. I’ll tell you that. 

Craig:  That’s that’s a whole another discussion for a whole another time, but they skip over it in the movie fortunately, and they get out and then we revisit that flashback that we had already seen where Bill says, we hope it’s dead, but if it comes back, promise me we’ll we’ll come back. And then it cuts back to Stan’s, current day, and his wife goes up looking for him, and he’s in the bathtub. And rather than going back to face it, he has killed himself. He’s he’s slit his wrist in the bat in the bathtub, and, he’s he’s written it in his blood on, the shower wall. And and that’s that’s that’s where the first part ends. 

Todd:  And that’s a really effective ending. I remember being absolutely freaked out by that, by that ending when I was a kid. But I I have to say the fight, the battle with him is it’s it it just highlights the difficulty of taking 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  You know, of of of taking something that’s written and and translating to the screen, especially considering what was written. What’s written is a very, supernatural kind of fight. Yeah. They’re almost kind of like going into this other dimension of sorts to Yeah. What it is and and even even reading it, you’re kind of confused as to what’s going on. 

Craig:  Well, yeah. Bill Bill is like floating through space and there’s the giant turtle. There’s the 

Todd:  turtle talking to him. 

Craig:  There’s there’s all kinds of weird stuff. Yeah. 

Todd:  And then, of course, they’re limited by budget Todd, what they can do with the movie. So, again, this was one of those same situations where they kept him as Pennywise for the most part, so that he was a little more vulnerable in that form anyway, and they they kinda dispatch him in that in that manner. 

Craig:  The final battle of the first part of the movie is actually more similar to an early bat earlier battle that they have with them in the book. The the the scene in the book where they’re in the old abandoned house and, he appears as the leper and the werewolf. The final scene in the first part of the movie is very similar to that. Much more similar to that than it is to the actual, final battle with them, as kids, in the movie. But I actually like this. I like that they face off against Tim Curry, in the first part of the movie. We’re gonna talk about the second part of the movie for next week, but the the final battle, in the the second part of the movie, the climax of the whole miniseries is really what left many people very dissatisfied, and understandably so. We’ll talk more about that, but, I liked that we got to see the kids showdown with Pennywise in his clown form as Tim Curry for the climax of this first part of the movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. And I also like the fact that this allowed them to highlight an idea. It’s not really it’s an idea in the book, but in the movie, it kind of becomes the central notion that, their their belief, or they can use these aspects of their personality as their strengths. So, like, the kid who’s always got the asthma inhaler, oh, it’s battery ass and he sprays and it hits him. The girl who’s a good shot, you know, she hits him or whatever. The kid who has to deal with a werewolf or whatever has contributed the silver, to shoot him with. And all of these things, have an effect and contribute. So it’s almost like almost every kid has a hand in, dispatching him, at least in this in this first half.   I don’t really remember how they do it in the second half, so I’m I’m looking forward to that next discussion. But and I felt that was the way that it was going in the book, and it turns out to be not that way at all. So yeah. So for again, movies have to sort of simplify things and have to really coalesce a little bit more and get a lot more together in in a shorter amount of time. They don’t really have the time to go off on all these crazy tangents, And, and so I thought, yeah, it worked. Was it the best choice they could have chosen? I don’t know. 

Craig:  I don’t know. And we’ve already talked for far too long. So I’ll I’ll talk about my hopes and expectations for the sequel next week. 

Todd:  Right. Agreed. Agreed. Okay. So, we’ll look forward to meeting up with you again next week to conclude it as we watch the second half and talk about the entire film. Thank you for listening. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes and Stitcher and Google Play.   You can also find us on Facebook, like us there, leave us a comment, let us know what you thought. And until next week, I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig.  

Todd:  With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.