It series

  • Stephen King’s It (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2021) Considering the lavish two-part movie treatment given to Stephen King’s It in 2017 and 2019, it’s tempting to dismiss the two-episode 1990 miniseries as obviously inferior. That’s largely true on a technical level—there was a definite limit to what you would do on a TV budget in 1990—but from a plotting perspective, the TV adaptation holds up quite well even today, even to those who liked the Muschietti diptych. It helps to have Tim Curry in the antagonist role, even if the conclusion underwhelms with an overly literal take on the monster’s final form. Still, the result is not bad. Adapting a 1,000+ novel in barely more than three hours is a quasi-impossible assignment, but the result is still cogent and, in some ways, less abrasive than the King novel. (Readers know what I’m talking about.) The cast of character is still too large and too male, but that’s from the novel itself—the TV version finds good ways to create suspense, flow between two distinct periods, keep its entire cast occupied and delivers a rather nice conclusion as a final flourish. Rough around the edges but not bad at all, this version of It still warrants a look for those with recent memories of the next-generation adaptation.

  • It Chapter Two (2019)

    It Chapter Two (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) To clown a phrase; there are a whole lot of conclusions in this conclusion to the It diptych. At a staggering two hours and forty-nine minutes (for a horror film!), It Chapter Two clearly sets out to provide the ultimate definitive adaptation of Stphen King’s novel and succeeds despite some middle-act fatigue. The story skips forward twenty-seven years after the events of the first film, as the killing cycle begins again and the Losers, who won a temporary reprieve in Chapter One, are called back to Derry to finish Pennywise once and for all. If there’s one thing to be said about this film, it’s that this is big-budget high-grade horror: Director Andy Muschietti gets to use plenty of good special effects in the achievement of the film’s vision, also making an effort to dig into thematic concerns (about memory) and go beyond the obvious scares to deliver something a bit deeper. Having A-grade actors also helps, with Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy providing most of the dramatic heavy lifting, with Bill Hader as the self-recognized comic relief and some fine work by others, such as Isaiah Mustafa and obviously Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. The meta gets thick once Stephen King shows up as “The Shopkeeper” in order to criticize his stand-in writer for bad endings and the adaptation of The Shining. But, as good as It Chapter Two can be in bits, pieces, intentions and means, the overlong duration eventually takes its toll, leading to exasperation during the schematic setup of the film, and then again during the ending that can’t stop ending. On the other hand, there’s nothing more on the other side of that ending: it’s refreshing to see a horror film that dares do a definitive conclusion without any hint of a follow-up. While it has its issues, this wrap-up to the It series is a success: it knows what to adapt from the original novel and what to forget (readers know what I’m talking about), and the result is likely to be the best adaptation of that novel we’re likely to get.