Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1776 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-08-07
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 187 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Is there anything scarier than clowns? Of course not. And who knows scary better than Stephen King? You see where we're going. It puts a malevolent clown (given demented life by a powdered, red-nosed Tim Curry) front and center, as King's fat novel gets the TV-movie treatment. Even at three hours plus, the action is condensed, but an engaging Stand by Me vibe prevails for much of the running time. The seven main characters, as adolescents, conquered a force of pure evil in their Maine hometown. Now, the cackling Pennywise is back, and they must come home to fight him--or, should we say, It--again. Admitting the TV-movie trappings and sometimes hysterical performances, this is a genuinely gripping thriller. As so often with King, the basic idea (the bond formed during a childhood trauma) is clean and powerful, a lifeline anchored in reality that leads us to the supernatural. --Robert Horton

Synopsis
A small town group of youngsters are terrorized by a malignant force that kills. Some thirty years later, they learn of another string of child murders back in their home town, and this time team up to fight back. Based on the novel by Stephen King.

Customer Reviews

A Dumbed-down Version Of A Great Horror
The first thing I have to say about this DVD is that, like reviewer Mrs Green below, I was stumped by the film apparently finishing half-way through, until I realised that the rest of it was on the reverse side of the disk. This really might have been mentioned somewhere on the sleeve, it had me flummoxed for about thirty minutes ...

"IT" is a really scary story and is an extremelly well-written book. It's the story of a group of misfit children who team up together to fight a supernatural entity, and then in their adulthood find themselves having to reunite with half-forgotten friends and memories to return to their hometown and fight it again.

There were some elements of the film that reflected the horror of the book, but there was a lot lacking. Salem's Lot, Pet Semetary and the Shining managed to capture it; this one didn't for me. The bullies which were so evil in the book were a shadow of this in the film, and I find Ronald MacDonald a million times more scary that the depiction of Pennywise in the film. The fairground musical score was also a bit off-putting - bit to jolly - but the depictions of 1950s New England were well done, and the acting, particulary from the children, upstaged their adult counterparts.

It's a farly enjoyable horror film, but those that know the book might agree that Stephen King's ability to take you into another, darker place with his writing on this occasion isn't captured by the DVD.

And a note to Warner Home Video: If it's a double-sided DVD, for heaven's sake TELL people. Don't just leave an empty box with nothing on the disk, and nothing on the packaging to say so!

coulrophobia
If there's one thing Stephen King knows how to do it's to reach into your childhood, find something you were frightened of, and then dangle it in front of you until you gibber!
Not all that keen on clowns? Me neither and thats really all you need to get the most out of this cheesy old telly 2 parter.
The best part is the first half where we see the kids in a small town terrorised out of their tiny boots by a quite simply horrific clown. Why? no idea and really it doesn't matter as the atmosphere is kept nice and chilly with the constant appearing of Pennywise the clown,in fact its worth the entrance price just for the scene where you just see his eyes staring out from a storm drain as he stands there holding a bunch of balloons. It goes a bit naff in the second half as the kids return as adults to face the evil in the town and be warned, if you read the book,this strays right off of whats in that hair raising read. but still, even so, Tim Curry's truly horrid clown abides in your mind as a constant reminder of exactly why most of us hate clowns.
Bit of a stingy release this one, the old region 1 has a commentary, this has nowt.

A review of two halves
The first hour and a half of IT is probably some of the best television to come out of the 1990s. This tells the story of a bunch of kids in a small town and how they defeat the being which is killing children in the town. The kids are played beautifully by Jonathan Brandis, Seth Green and others and show up the adult actors completely. This first episode is (mostly) brilliantly written although it is a little ham-fisted in getting all of this material into 90 minutes.

The second episode is a disaster. The adults are awful, in the main, and the writing, directing and effects are diabolical. It almost seems like a different film from charming yet scary first half. The ending is ludicrous and completely misses the entire point of the book about the decaying of society which is a shame.

As others have noted, the disc is double sided - I pity anybody who hadn't come across double sided discs before as there is no warning at all on the packaging. There is a commentary but I don't know when this was done as the director says he is proud of the way that Jonathan Brandis' (young Bill) career has panned out. Sadly Brandis committed suicide 2003 at the age of 27. It seems lazy and somewhat in bad taste to leave the directors comments in considering the region 2 release of the DVD was 3 years after the event. Even though the commentary may have been used for the US edition from a few years back, you would think that someone might have checked this out.