--Pennywise, Stephen King's It
Enormously limited in scope and full of acting that is very unnatural in its delivery, the 1990 miniseries adaptation of It, assembled into a single cut for physical media release, is a narrative of rushed plot developments and often poor special effects. The greater restrictions on visual effects norms at the time is not the fault of the creators who happened to be making a project then, though it does hold this adaptation back. The cosmic horror of Pennywise with his ability to manipulate sensory perceptions, his way of seeing into and preying on an individual's fears, and his origins away from Earth is all but minimized as much as it can be due to technological limitations in how the supernatural being is portrayed. Writing and acting, though, cannot ever depend on the effects work an artistic era allows for. This is where the miniseries forfeits much of what it could have had.
Production Values
As mentioned, the effects distinctly hinder the realization of Stephen King's lore details and the general premise itself. The deadlights and spider-form of Pennywise look incredibly artificial, far more than a great deal of terrible CGI seen today. The spider in particular looks transposed over a background that is not in the same location as the creature. Pennywise's flips and almost anything that does not involve It standing still and just talking do not look integrated into the world well, which of course diminishes the depth of both the supernatural source of terror and, indirectly, the depiction of how the Loser's Club grapples with their fear, since the being that amplifies or feeds on their fears is so visually underdeveloped.
On the acting front, the miniseries-turned-"film" fares better, but reaches nothing more than mixed heights. Mike Hanlan's adult actor Tim Reid gives the best performance for its lack of exaggeration and its quiet, personal lines. Annette O'Toole, the adult actress for Beverly, and Richard Thomas, the adult actor for Bill, are also among the best of the cast here for sharing their more personal lines as if their characters really are psychologically invested in overcoming their demons and defeating a force that complicated their already difficult lives. They contribute to the sometimes seemingly faux flirtation between her and the other men of the Loser's Club, whose moments of lighthearted flirting do add layers of sweetness with the lack of outward possessiveness or jealousy between them, even as she is treated as a full friend and equal to each of them. Unfortunately, cast members like Harry Richardson deliver lines with very unnaturally inflated levels of energy or volume, making them seem like caricatures of a character more than serious characters in a grim horror setting. While the child flashbacks are vital to the story, the child performers do not come close to the skill of the 2017 film's young cast.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
A young girl's sudden death in the town of Derry brings Mike Hanlon to call the other six members of his childhood "Loser's Club," a group of children that developed deep friendship in the midst of family trauma, frequent bullying, and appearances by a mysterious clown figure. As kids, they faced the entity and forced it into retreat, promising to return to Derry if needed to make sure It never kills any more children, the deaths of which were ignored by the adults of the town as with the more human antagonists they dealt with. Amnesia blocked off memories of what occurred all those years ago, and as the Loser's Club reunited, the clown toys with them and revisits some of their childhood fears.
Intellectual Content
Again, the seemingly ancient special effects boundaries of 1990 severely impact the degree to which the ultimately eldritch aspects of Pennywise can be explored aesthetically. What makes it into the miniseries is mostly dialogue that lightly, sporadically touches upon the supernatural nature of Derry's scourge, a being that the young Bill says has to give itself a physical form to feed, meaning it would otherwise be immaterial--something related to what one of the children initially thinks (assumes) is impossible, confusing empirical probability or reality with the even more fundamental logical possibility. The deadlights from within It, inducing a catatonic or "insane" state of mind, do not visually radiate the Lovecraftian elements that they conceptually entail.
Likewise, the spider form of It in the final confrontation, which is supposed to be the closest thing that humans can perceive to Pennywise's core physical "form," pales in comparison to the book's ending that, together with the ending of the novel Revival, suggests there are multiple Pennywise-type beings that have spider-like manifestations in Stephen King's multiverse, with Mother being far more objectively worthy of terror than It. In a smaller manner, the miniseries does still include bouts of bizarre sensory experiences that brush up against how much of what the senses perceive in everyday life is already absolutely involuntary, arbitrary, and unverifiable beyond the veil of subjectivity (as opposed to logical necessities about the senses or what would or would not follow from certain ideas about the material world). It just utilized them less effectively than the more recent adaptation.
Conclusion
Falling far short of the wild nature of its literary source material and the greatly heightened quality of the 2017/2019 cinematic reboot, the 1990's miniseries of It is very abbreviated, leaving out core parts of lore from the books. This would not be particularly bad, or negative at all, if the story threads that were incorporated did not tend to be minimally explored. The very hit or miss acting only makes the plot execution stumble all the more, whether with the child cast or their adult counterparts. The deadlights and the Lovecraftian nature of Pennywise call for more than what this now decades-old series could offer. In its best moments, the calm warmth or desperation of the Loser's Club is what stands out as sincere and competent.
Content:
1. Violence: Most violence is implied or takes place offscreen, such as with Georgie losing his arm to Pennywise, but some blows are shown in non-graphic manner.
2. Profanity: "Damn" and "bastard" are infrequently used.
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