I grew up on a steady reading diet of Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, The Baby-Sitters Club, Christopher Pike, classics, and Stephen King. When I was ten, I read both Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and Carrie within a month or so of one another. If you're not familiar with these books, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is Blume's beloved novel about a 6th grader, Margaret, who is navigating middle school, experiencing her first crush, and dealing with the inevitability of being female, namely developing breasts and having to get her first bra and getting her period for the first time. Carrie is the story of teenage girl raised by a frighteningly religious mother whose telekinetic powers are brought on by the start of her period during gym class. She's tormented by most of the kids in school, including having pig's blood dumped on her at prom. She gets her revenge by blowing everything up and killing everyone...with her mind. Periods are no fucking joke. Judy Blume and Stephen King both understand this.
I had no business reading Carrie as a ten year old but I did anyway. I did an informal poll on Facebook this week to see if other people read "age inappropriate" books as children. I feel so much better knowing that many of my friends were right there with me, reading Stephen King, Judy Blume, Toni Morrison, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Alice Walker well before we maybe should have. It's like when all the older girls at school passed around Forever...(another Judy Blume classic); we want to know what's going on over there. Both my older brother and my Grandma G were into horror fiction, most notably Stephen King and Anne Rice. I had a readily available stash of books at home and in Detroit when visiting so I started reading. Neither of them discouraged me but I wouldn't say they encouraged me either. Unless you count that time I stood in line at an Anne Rice book signing for both me and my grandma; that might have been a bit encouraging. Anyway, I love Margaret and Carrie equally and am glad I read them at the same time. They fit together in a way that was in no way intended by the authors. They're weird bookends on my pre-teen life.
I didn't really get into Stephen King novels until a year or two later when I picked up Christine and IT from among the books my brother left behind when he left for college. IT is my third favorite King novel after Carrie and The Stand. When I first read IT, it was the longest book I had ever read. It clocks in at just under 1100 pages in paperback form. It was also the most terrifying thing, book or movie, I had ever experienced.
IT takes place in the fictional town of Derry, Maine, arguably the worst place to live ever. Derry shows up in a handful of other novels and short stories but is the focus of IT. Derry is as much of a character as the members of the Losers Club and Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The story is about a group of seven friends who come together in the summer of 1958 to battle the evil that has taken over their town and killed a bunch of children, including the sibling of one of the Losers. The story moves between that summer, the present (1985), and several interludes of Derry history as told by the one of the narrators, another Loser named Mike Hanlon. The seven friends return to Derry as adults to do battle with IT again. What they discover is that IT has always been a part of Derry and that the killings will continue on a cycle if they can't stop IT once and for all.
A lot happens in this novel. IT most often takes the form of Pennywise, the world's creepiest clown. Think what would happen if Bozo the Clown and the John Wayne Gacy had a baby. That would be Pennywise. What makes IT more terrifying, is that it appears as whatever the person it's stalking fears most. During the course of the novel, we see IT through the eyes of the Losers as a mummy, a leper, a wolfman, an old crone, a giant bird, and a statue of Paul Bunyon come to life. In the form of Pennywise, IT makes other terrible things happen, like blood dripping from photos, fortune cookies with unfortunate surprises, and the fact that most adults turn the other way when anything terrible happens. They can't see the evil of IT although they can be taken over by it as evidenced by Bev's father and several other adults throughout the past and present.I decided to reread the book in anticipation of the new film version coming out this week. I saw IT last night (more on this shortly) and was not disappointed. I didn't finish the novel before I saw the movie as I had intended; I'm about 200 pages from the end. What this rereading has made me realize is that I forgot a lot of things that happen in this story. Since the novel was published, it was made into a 1990 television miniseries starring Tim Curry as Pennywise. This is probably the reference point I have for IT. The miniseries is good; it's a mostly faithful adaptation of the novel. It gets about as close as it can given that it was on network tv (imagine what it would have been had FX or Netflix been around). In addition to Curry, the cast included John Ritter (in his sexy facial hair phase), Annette O'Toole, Harry Anderson (my favorite tv judge), Tim Reid (my favorite from WKRP in Cincinnati), and Richard Thomas (yes, from The Waltons) as Bill, the leader of the Losers. The kid cast included Jonathan Brandis and Seth Green. Tim Curry is, by far, the best part of the miniseries (I'm sorry everyone else). His Pennywise the Clown is campy and scary and evil; exactly what you want Pennywise to be. A lesser actor would have made Pennywise a joke.
The miniseries stayed faithful to the back and forth between the past and present that makes the book such a powerful story. Stephen King is a gifted storyteller and one of his talents is layering narratives within his novels. In a novel like IT, the history of Derry is hugely important for the children to understand in order to do battle with IT. They uncover the 27 year cycle by tracing old events like deadly explosions, fires, and shoot outs in the town. Mike Hanlon becomes the town librarian, staying in Derry to be the keeper of the history and the watcher. He calls them all back to fulfill the promise they made as children. The rest of them have forgotten what happened that summer; that's the genius of both the novel and the miniseries. We get to watch the six of them remember. We journey with them as they realize what happened and what they're facing again. In the miniseries, it's a little over the top and tv movie of the week but it's still powerful and shows what a capable storyteller King is.
This is the one thing I missed in the new film. Rather than trying to cram everything into one film, director Andy Muschietti has divided it into two chapters. Chapter One, out now, focuses on the Losers Club as children only. Many of the iconic scenes from those chapters are here: Ben being bullied by Henry Bowers and his cronies, Beverly and the bloody sink, the postcard, the rock fight, the movie theatre scene. They're all here but the nuances of the back and forth story telling is missing. I understand why this is and I applaud the filmmakers for making the decision to break it into two films. Normally, I'm against movies being made into two parts for no reason but it works here (I'm looking at you, Peter Jackson and the later Hunger Games films). IT would be disappointing if it was all crammed into one movie. This part of the movie is now set in the late 1980s, which works well for the story. The young cast is awesome; I enjoyed all of them. My favorites are Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie and Finn Wolfhard (from Stranger Things) as Richie. Grazer's Eddie is a 12 year old version of an old man and he is so good at this. Wolfhard is playing opposite of his Stranger Things character and it's nice to see his comic side as Richie, the loud mouth of the group. Sophia Lillis as Beverly steals the movie from the boys; she's the right mix of tough and vulnerable and pre-teen girl. She and Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) have a running joke about New Kids on the Block that is both hilarious and unexpected. And yes, she does look like Molly Ringwald.
That's what I enjoyed most about the new film; there's humor and horror. At the end of the day, these are children who are doing something way beyond their years. It's nice to see the magic of youth and childhood friendship in this version of the film; I always felt that was lacking in the miniseries. They just do things there whereas here, we see the sides of friendship throughout the story. One of the things I didn't remember about the novel was the part where they all fight about taking on IT. Fighting with a friend is the worst without the added drama of an evil menace killing everyone. Friendship, especially when you're young, is about the fun times and the terrible times. Your friends are the ones that stay with you through it all. The film captures that conflict and that truth so perfectly.
And really, that's the power of Stephen King.When you strip away all the gore and scary creatures and sex, his stories are about relationships and the human condition. He captures the magic of childhood and contrasts it beautifully against the harsh reality of adulthood. Our deepest fears manifest as a creepy clown or a leper in an abandoned house. An entire town is both part of and oblivious to a dark evil within. Our relationships protect us and get us through.
Just as long as we never, ever have to go to Derry.
Miniseries kids
New cast
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