Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
57 minutes ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

Yeah, I'm in more or less the same boat. I've read the book (as well as a substantial portion of King's output) and have seen both the Tim Curry miniseries and the more recent movies, so I'm pretty much committed to it even if it doesn't grab me, but Mrs. Doom is coming into this with no frame of reference.

It reminds me of Castle Rock in that regard.  
 

I am digging the focus on Halloran using the shine; I’ve basically lost interest in the kids and I’m considering Halloran the main character (I say that, I’ve never seen Taylour Paige in anything previously and she’s terrific, and I’m hoping we get to see her do more).  
 

The show does seem to have taken King’s stated goal of “…I will try to terrorize the reader.  But if I find I cannot terrify I will try to horrify.  If I find I cannot horrify I will go for the gross-out.  I’m not proud.”

16 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

And they clearly didn’t want to pay Bill Skarsgard for more than a cameo so that’s disappointing

I think it’s more that the clown becomes less scary the more you see him.  

Posted
On 10/24/2025 at 6:20 PM, TonyTexas said:

Damn. I was hoping this was Derry Girls related. 

Pennywise haunting the Derry Girls would make for some fantastic cinema

  • Haha 2
Posted

Saw Skarsgard's name in the credits as a producer so I figure he'll get some run at some point.  Seems like they threw a bag at him for at least a cameo. Maybe they're letting anticipation build. 

Agree the show has remained kinda mid.  With it being a prequel not based on King source material my expectations were on the low side.

The backstory with the Native Americans was interesting as it touched more on It's origins. I wonder if King had input because I don't remember it being in the book.

Posted
16 hours ago, CurlyDumps said:

Saw Skarsgard's name in the credits as a producer so I figure he'll get some run at some point.  Seems like they threw a bag at him for at least a cameo. Maybe they're letting anticipation build. 

Agree the show has remained kinda mid.  With it being a prequel not based on King source material my expectations were on the low side.

The backstory with the Native Americans was interesting as it touched more on It's origins. I wonder if King had input because I don't remember it being in the book.

It's as though someone fed Tommyknockers and Pet Sematary (sp?) into AI to generate the rough backstory. 

  • Haha 1
Posted

I'll finish out the season because I'm a glutton for punishment, and I want to see how the fire at the nightclub goes down, but this show is so dumb. Spoilers below for this show and for the original novel.

Spoiler

OF FUCKING COURSE Matty was a projection of It, and of course Phil was dead.

Looks like I was wrong about Madeleine Stowe being a figure of Lilly's imagination - I guess now they're making her a younger version of the Mrs. Kersh that Bev visits as an adult, who turns out to be a projection of It. So I guess It was basing her on an actual person.

The whole military storyline and the Native backstory both don't make sense. If you could bury some items around a perimeter and create a "cage" of sorts to contain It, why would you make the boundary so huge? Maybe you don't want to risk getting close to It, but over the hundreds of years since the boundary was created, you couldn't creep them in closer and closer? Especially since It apparently can't get within a few feet of the shards? And anyway, how exactly does the military think they can use It as a weapon, even if it can get to all the shards?


Y'all know I love horror and I can suspend a lot of disbelief, but this show isn't working for me. 

Posted

I first read IT in an original hard copy when it came out in the 80’s, have read it cover to cover three times, loved the Tim Curry TV version, the 2017 movie, and even enjoyed the second chapter which wasn’t as good. I even read 1963 because I heard there was a Derry scene in it with a couple of the kids from the Loser’s Club. On vacation in Maine I made sure we hit Bangor and went to the Standpipe, Paul Bunyan, the Public Library, all the landmarks from the book. 
 

I say all that to say that to establish my bona fides when I say that this show sucks.


 

Spoiler

The first episode broke canon with IT being a car full of people driving on the highway and it seems like this is taking place during the Kennedy Administration, which would be several years after the book’s cycle from the late 50’s took place. Then we have the revolting pickle man scene in the grocery store, and the girl with her eyes bugging out staggering all over the school like a scene from Evil Dead 2 that veers into comedy.  
 

The Army looking to make IT a weapon is a tired trope and the “Aliens” ripoff episode where they send a squad into the house on Niebolt Street was ridiculous.  The Native American characters and storylines seem like they are stereotypes taken from a Billy Jack movie in the 1970’s.  I’m waiting for Chief Dan George or Iron Eyes Cody to show up.  The kids in this show are terrible actors with none of the likeability of the kids from previous screen representations. I keep telling myself I’m done with it, but I may keep watching just to see how bad it can get  


 

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted
6 hours ago, Duane Moore said:

I first read IT in an original hard copy when it came out in the 80’s, have read it cover to cover three times, loved the Tim Curry TV version, the 2017 movie, and even enjoyed the second chapter which wasn’t as good. I even read 1963 because I heard there was a Derry scene in it with a couple of the kids from the Loser’s Club. On vacation in Maine I made sure we hit Bangor and went to the Standpipe, Paul Bunyan, the Public Library, all the landmarks from the book. 
 

I say all that to say that to establish my bona fides when I say that this show sucks.


 

  Hide contents

The first episode broke canon with IT being a car full of people driving on the highway and it seems like this is taking place during the Kennedy Administration, which would be several years after the book’s cycle from the late 50’s took place. Then we have the revolting pickle man scene in the grocery store, and the girl with her eyes bugging out staggering all over the school like a scene from Evil Dead 2 that veers into comedy.  
 

The Army looking to make IT a weapon is a tired trope and the “Aliens” ripoff episode where they send a squad into the house on Niebolt Street was ridiculous.  The Native American characters and storylines seem like they are stereotypes taken from a Billy Jack movie in the 1970’s.  I’m waiting for Chief Dan George or Iron Eyes Cody to show up.  The kids in this show are terrible actors with none of the likeability of the kids from previous screen representations. I keep telling myself I’m done with it, but I may keep watching just to see how bad it can get  

 

 

Totally agree, with one note - I think they are using a timeline based on the later It movies, not the book. I was confused by this, too, and that's the only thing that makes sense. In the recent movies, they're kids are in the 1980s, not the 50s, so the series taking place in the 60s lines up.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
13 hours ago, austingirl said:

Totally agree, with one note - I think they are using a timeline based on the later It movies, not the book. I was confused by this, too, and that's the only thing that makes sense. In the recent movies, they're kids are in the 1980s, not the 50s, so the series taking place in the 60s lines up.

That’s fair and probably what they were thinking. In the book the cycles were 1957-8 and 1985 and in the movie the kids were listening to Young MC (Bust a Move came out in 1989), so the previous cycle being circa 1961-2 makes sense. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted

I got caught up last night.  A few thoughts:

Spoiler

1.  There's something about the way that this is shot (really, how it's lit) that makes everything look fake.  I get "we have CGI now, let's use it", but I was more frightened by the implied child abuse of Beverly Marsh cleaning out the bloody sink than pickle dad.  

2.  This probably ties back to my dislike of prequels, but the clown is scarier without knowing a backstory. 

3.  We have pilots going into the sewers to do what exactly--try to capture something supernatural?  With guns and a six man crew into unmapped sewers with zero coms?  Are they hunting more dragonglass or something?  Also, we have a (somewhat under duress) American citizen collaborating and he runs off so we shoot at him?  Finally, I could reach out and move the gun barrel, or knock into my wingman to move the line of fire, but instead I will use my Cuban superspeed to get in front of the bullet?  I'm convinced the show runner is a fourth grader.  

4.  I'm a US Air Force Major, I've got a supernatural force terrorizing my kid, and I'm giving into his preference to run around town with a bunch of kids similarly getting terrorized?  Also, I just killed my best friend, but I'm very reluctant to let my wife and kid get the fuck out of town.  

5.  How big is Derry, anyway?  It has it's own tv station and a sewer system so big you can walk around in it, not even under the urban areas but under a ramshackle farm house?

6.  Kids running away from stuff is never scary.  

7.  Is it not a little contrived that the same person is the nurse that Lilly connects with, the child of the Pennywise inspiration, and the paramour for the projectionist?  That reads like someone in the script room said "rather than three people for these, why don't we reduce it to one?"

7.  Dick Halloran remains the main thing working for me, and the actor is compelling.  

Lagniappe for @austingirl: I've never read the script Cary Fukunaga's adapation, but a script review I did read talked about how it did a great job of getting inside the kids' terror.  I feel like they aren't even trying to do that here (or they just aren't doing it well, with the possible exception of Ronnie).  

 

Posted
1 hour ago, LCHorn said:

I got caught up last night.  A few thoughts:

  Hide contents

1.  There's something about the way that this is shot (really, how it's lit) that makes everything look fake.  I get "we have CGI now, let's use it", but I was more frightened by the implied child abuse of Beverly Marsh cleaning out the bloody sink than pickle dad.  

2.  This probably ties back to my dislike of prequels, but the clown is scarier without knowing a backstory. 

3.  We have pilots going into the sewers to do what exactly--try to capture something supernatural?  With guns and a six man crew into unmapped sewers with zero coms?  Are they hunting more dragonglass or something?  Also, we have a (somewhat under duress) American citizen collaborating and he runs off so we shoot at him?  Finally, I could reach out and move the gun barrel, or knock into my wingman to move the line of fire, but instead I will use my Cuban superspeed to get in front of the bullet?  I'm convinced the show runner is a fourth grader.  

4.  I'm a US Air Force Major, I've got a supernatural force terrorizing my kid, and I'm giving into his preference to run around town with a bunch of kids similarly getting terrorized?  Also, I just killed my best friend, but I'm very reluctant to let my wife and kid get the fuck out of town.  

5.  How big is Derry, anyway?  It has it's own tv station and a sewer system so big you can walk around in it, not even under the urban areas but under a ramshackle farm house?

6.  Kids running away from stuff is never scary.  

7.  Is it not a little contrived that the same person is the nurse that Lilly connects with, the child of the Pennywise inspiration, and the paramour for the projectionist?  That reads like someone in the script room said "rather than three people for these, why don't we reduce it to one?"

7.  Dick Halloran remains the main thing working for me, and the actor is compelling.  

Lagniappe for @austingirl: I've never read the script Cary Fukunaga's adapation, but a script review I did read talked about how it did a great job of getting inside the kids' terror.  I feel like they aren't even trying to do that here (or they just aren't doing it well, with the possible exception of Ronnie).  

 

#2 is the biggie IMO. Certain things get worse as you try to explain them, the old dissecting-the-frog problem. If you want to do a prequel just show all the awful stuff that happened, don’t try to explain it all in granular detail. 

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...