Sometimes things are better...

Lennon loved recording technology. He loved the way George Martin and Geoff Emerick could take his ideas and use all these clever tools to make them a reality.

I like the movie however I agree with some of your critiques. Part of why I think I liked it was that I thought the cast was pretty good. I am also probably guilty of filling in the gaps of movies where I have read the books. But overall I actually liked it quite a bit.

The one thing that I missed most was the…

I feel that way about James Cameron. He just doesn’t look right to me without a beard.

Or Sam Elliott without his mustache:

Yeah, Jerry needed that beard. 

Well, if Jeopardy! is anything like Star Trek: The Next Generation, this is when the show gets good.

I agree, but it still wasn’t as jarring as seeing Sam Elliott without one on Justified.

Tom Selleck always needs a mustache. Burt Reynolds looked okay without one, but Selleck’s face looks weird to me minus one.

Seeing him in Fargo made me realize how badly David Thewlis’s face needs a mustache.

Oh yeah...

Yeah, he was not a bright kid. I remember the first time I watched the miniseries I thought that Georgie’s dead scene was so creepy because the clown looked so normal in that drain, yet the more you looked at him the creepier he got (which is how they describe him in the book, as a creepy middle-aged clown, but not…

I’ve been very lucky (as I imagine most of us are to date) to only read and hear about these sorts of situations. Remember that years ago, I heard and was shocked (like so many others) of the assassination of John Lennon. When I heard who had done it, my wife came running in to the bedroom, “Is it him?”, she asked.…

My heart went out to Bev, and I was terrified for her during scenes with her father, but that had nothing to do with any supernatural threat, just the horrible, very real threat of child rape. Other than that, the movie was meh in terms of horror.

The original is not a great film by any means, but Tim Curry was a far better Pennywise. They did a much better of job of actually making the movie frightening. The remake too often shows Pennywise to the point that it desensitizes the audience.

Semi-related, this was also one of those reasons that bumping it to the 80s bugged me.

In the 50s, a clown was still generally treated as completely safe. By the 80s, John Wayne Gacy had already been caught (who King has credited as an influence for Pennywise, but I digress) so the idea of the evil clown was already…

I haven’t seen the movie since it was in theaters and can’t remember which Richie line you’re talking about. What is it and when?

I agree with about 95% of what you’re saying, especially in regards to how what the people of Derry are doing (or not doing) wasn’t hit strongly enough.  Thanks. 

Yeah, I wasn’t impressed. I didn’t hate it, and I can’t point to any one instance of it falling particularly flat. But I found myself checking to see how much was left, looking for something else to do while it played (I watched it on HBO, I don’t like movie theaters), and basically shrugging when it was over. The…

The good reviews have more to do with a scarcity in good horror movies, to be honest. The first half of IT is not a perfect movie by any means but the last few years has seen a dearth in truly good horror. I mean, It Follows, the Babadook, We are still here, et al were great... but a few movies that are great don’t…

I agree. I didn’t hate it, but man I just didn`t find it scary. They should have used a lot more practical effects because Tim Curry’s yellow fake teeth keep seeming scarier to me than the CGI teeth that they used in this version. Another thing that made the original scarier is the fact that Pennywise in the original…