Today's post is not remotely about the Scottish highlands but is instead about a small fictional (I think) town in Maine in the US and the power of the books we make movie adaptations of. If you cannot think of what movie I might be referencing, I am speaking about the recent remake of It based on the Stephen King novel of the same name but heavily drawing on the 1990 miniseries adaptation of it at times in place of the original source material.
I don't want to spoil the film for anyone so I will offer a brief synopsis and review from my point of view, because I get to the more spoiler-y bits and I will warn before I get there. Here we go...
In the late 1980s in the small town of Derry in Maine, it is raining and a small boy and his slightly elder brother are trying to build a paper boat to float in the rain waters. The elder boy, Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), has a cold so cannot go out with his little brother, Georgie, to test the boat. Georgie falls behind the boat and it goes down the sewer. Reaching in to grab the boat, Georgie sees two bright eyes and a clown appears behind the sewer grate and introduces himself as Pennywise the dancing clown (Bill Skarsgard). The clown seems harmless, as far as a sewer dwelling clown can be, until he broadly grins showing many rows of teeth (like a shark) bites Georgie arm off and then drags him through the grate. Skip to six months later and many more kids have disappeared. Bill who suffers from a stutter is determined to discover what happened to Georgie as the body was never found. Bill ropes in his friends to help with the task- Richie (Finn Wolfhard) a fast talking smart alec; Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) a severe hypochondriac thanks to his over protective extreme hypochondriac mother; and Stanley (Wyatt Oleff) the cautious son of the local rabbi. After they save him from the town's sadistic gang of teen bullies, their group is joined by Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), the overweight new kid in town, and Ben brings with him, his only friend, Beverly (Sophia Lillis), a girl who is being abused by her father and about whom sexually charged rumours have circulated. The kids embarks on some normal 13 year old summer time bonding like swimming at the local quarry and riding their bikes around, with occasional run in with the two years older group of bullies, from whom they also rescue Mike (Chosen Jacobs) an orphaned black boy who is homeschooled by his grandfather. However at the same time as all this summer time bonding is going on, something dark is lurking in Derry, and Ben shares with the other kids the research he has been doing on mysteries murders and disappearances in the town dating back to its founding and currently manifesting in the child disappearances. The kids all start to see manifestations of Pennywise who they surmise is just one manifestations of mysterious being that they christen "It". Mainly spurred on by Bill's quest for closure with regards Georgie's disappearance, the group of kids (themselves now known as the Losers' Club thanks to Richie) start to think of how to stop It.
I have a bit of an odd history with It. When I was 11, I went to a friend's party which was to be a slumber party but my parents were of the overly protective (no judgement on them for this) type and I was just allowed to go for the afternoon and evening and was to be picked up before the whole slumber part (or lack of slumber part) of the party. Like many slumber parties of kids aged from upper primary up, the aim of the party was it seems to be scare the hell out of us and then not sleep at all- that said a future slumber party at the same friend's house where I did stay resulted in my seeing the original version of Total Recall (in parts very scary for a sheltered 11/12 year old but generally I was OK with that one likely because it was and is an awesome (if in parts awesomely bad) film) and two Police Academy films and part of a third (that is a horror of another kind and I'd like those hours back please). Anyhow so at the party where I didn't stay, we had just put the 1990 miniseries of It into the VCR when my folks showed up to collect me. I think we got as far as Georgie's death when I left and that was enough for me especially as clowns...never been a fan, and find them mighty creepy. Also this brief glimpse of the miniseries confused me with the new production as I thought adults featured more heavily- no spoilers really, but the novel of It is set in two time periods, the 50s and the 80s with the Losers' Club being young teens in the 50s and adults in the 80s, the miniseries started briefly in the later timeline and then flashed back to Georgie's death, whereas the new film shifted the earlier timeline to the 80s and only covered that part of the novel, the second half of the novel shifted to occur in around 2016/7 will be covered in a sequel that is currently being made. That history and confusion aside, in a spoiler free way, what did I think of the new version of It?
As a horror film, I wasn't hugely scared but that maybe because of how I like my horror films, namely I like them B-grade (or worse) and cheesy whereas I look to suspense based thrillers if I want to be scared. My dislike of clowns did mean that I was quite creeped out by the film as a whole but never would I have said scared. Others in the cinema who I overheard speaking after the film indicated that my not feeling scared was maybe a me thing and that they themselves were quite scared by the film. If you rate on creep factor instead of sheer fear and dread, Pennywise/It is a very off putting figure as primarily a clown but also in other manifestations as the image of the person seeing Its phobia or fear- the closest I got to scared was when It manifested as version of Georgie to target Bill because creepy kids are high on the terror bar for me (probably just above clowns). I have never seen Bill Skarsgard in anything before as far as I can recall- I'm a big fan of his father and especially his elder brother- and as quite a young guy, he had big shoes to fill what with the incomparable Tim Curry having played the Pennywise manifestation of It in the 1990 miniseries. Much like Heath Ledger playing the Joker after Jack Nicholson, he succeeds in making the character his own by making Pennywise as different to the Tim Curry performance as he could within the range of the plot. From my hazy memories and the clips I've seen subsequently (I've still not seen the miniseries the whole way through), Tim Curry's Pennywise was a creepy in understated way with joy to his creepiness, whereas Skarsgard's Pennywise angles straight at malevolence. By aiming for a more obvious evil in the portrayal, Skarsgard achieves the impossible and delivers a performance nearing Curry (from what I've seen of Curry's performance).
However Pennywise is at times somewhat of an unwanted intrusion for the viewer because the heart and soul of the film is the Losers' Club, and this may be why I was less scared by the film than the makers maybe wanted me to be. These kids also had big shoes to full- the miniseries Losers' Club included Seth Green and Jonathan Brandis (if you don't know who he was, sadly he is no longer with us, but he was a 90s heartthrob whose career stalled in the late 90s when it should have exploded, and he was year 7 me's favourite teen actor- if you can, go and find the early/mid 90s TV series Seaquest and watch it). Oddly the Losers' Club member with the arguably biggest shoes to fill (those of Seth Green) is also the most well known of the new crop of losers. Whilst Stranger Things did not have a wise arse kid in the mix, Finn Wolfhard seems quite at home moving from Mike Wheeler to Richie- a new type of character in the genre he is now at home with (that of 80s coming of age film/TV series featuring creepiness and bicycles). The smart mouthed Richie was possibly my favourite of the kids but there is no less praise for the rest of them. I assume Jaeden Lieberher does not naturally have a stutter and he very convincing puts on one as Bill, which is no small achievement. Sophia Lillis's Molly Ringwald-isque looks (which Richie comments on at one point so you know the makers of the film welcomed the association) highlight the 80s time period of the film but that it is not to detract from the fact she is outstanding in her vulnerability in the scenes where Beverly is at home with her abusive father. I could praise each of the seven Losers' Club members but suffice to say that they are all amazing and the chemistry between them really works. My favourite line of the film I will not spoil but is delivered by Eddie about his medication when he discovers they are placebos, so watch out for that one. The film when it focuses on the relationship between the kids and their emergent adulthood is at its best- such the scene where Beverly sunbaths in front of the boys in her underwear after swimming in the quarry, and she seems innocently naive of the fact they are staring at her, and they all seem uncomfortably aware of her and that they are staring and even it seems maybe unsure why they are staring, but they do not look away.
So all in all, to paraphrase a review I saw elsewhere and in part agree with, It is a delightful coming of age film interrupted at times by a clown.
Maybe not for the faint hearted or the those who dislike horror and blood (there is lot of it in some scenes) but definitely worth seeing. Also though, who are these kids who in any day and age follow clowns down sewers?!?!? Sewers dangerous and gross, clowns creepy, where is the appeal?
OK and now to the spoilers...if you have not seen the film and don't want to hear anymore detail about the film or the miniseries or the book before seeing it, look away. If you seen the film or are familiar with the plot already or have no desire to see the film but are reading this for some reason, continue.
Just to scare off those in the first group have a picture of Pennywise...
Are they gone?
Just in case have the older version...
So clowns terrifying and hopefully they scared away the people who hate spoilers...
Now to the point of this post which wasn't to review It but was more to ask whether we should be concerned about the original source material for adaptations and whilst It has a few glaring cliches, the cautious Jewish kid and the segregated misunderstood black kid for example, there is big issue with the original story that needs to be discussed and that is the treatment of the character of Beverly.
As a habit, I tend to either commit to reading the source material for adapted texts or at least investigating the quality of the adaptation if the source is something I'm unlike to read. For example, I just finished the first Outlander book after watching seasons 1 and 2 of the show- short review, good holiday reading but prefer the show- and only read Harry Potter after friends said they would make me watch the films- prefer the books but some of the films are good too. Now I've tried to bring myself to read Stephen King novels, I even own a few, but I'm yet to crack the cover on one. I don't even watch King adaptations as a rule- I saw some of the miniseries of The Shining (not the film, the late 1990s miniseries), saw the X-Files episode he wrote, and I've seen (and love) Running Man (but to all opinions, it is solid cheesy film which is nothing like the book)- yes I've not seen the Kubrick version of The Shining nor have I seen The Shawshank Redemption. For some unknown reason, he isn't my cup of tea as rule and that is odd because I'm not adverse of a good horror film (prison films though not a fan which explains the not seeing Shawshank). This meant that for all my good intentions I'm unlike to ever read It and so I just read a synopsis online and one thing that is deeply troubling jumped out at me.
Beverly is the only significant female character in It and even in the film, there are questions about her characterisation. She is cruelly victimised by bullies for her rumoured sexual activity (by her own declaration all falsified gossip) but at the same time, is clearly victim to abuse possibly sexual in nature (that is strongly hinted) at the hands of her father. She is seen purchasing tampons and It's initial manifestation to her is to spray her entire bathroom with blood, as if a girl's only thing to grapple with in her early teens is getting her period and this being known to others is therefore also her greatest fear. She is clearly set up as primarily victim only and for a minute I was worried there was a Barb from Stranger Things vibe going on and she might just disappear, especially after she is kidnapped by Pennywise late in the film. Ultimately it turns out that the horror of her life enable her to be the one who It cannot kill because unlike the boys she does not fear him as she has experienced worse at the hands of her school mates and particularly her father. Beverly is also the one who has the vision that makes them realise that they may need to return and fight It again in 27 years. Therefore though they are issues, she does not end the film as victim only.
In the miniseries, Beverly had a similar arc to the film from the synopsis I read online of that. The miniseries did venture more into the weird who is It vibe than the film which didn't really touch on this at all but Beverly still was key to initial defeat of It.
Now to the novel, which as I said I have not read and reading the synopsis now definitely don't plan on reading. It was the 22nd Stephen King novel to be published, and he weirdly seemed to need a character to strongly identify with as Bill who is the main character, if there were one, grows up to be a horror author. Also Stephen King has a weird over arching mythology to his horror stories which I will not go into because as not a reader of his work, I don't fully get it but needless to say, it plays into who It is in the book.
The characters in It from what I read in the synopsis and in reviews of the film are, as they were in the miniseries, fairly neatly and accurately adapted. This means that in the original text, Beverly is an abused young teen girl who is bullied by her class mates. In the book, the Losers' Club discovers who It is and how he plays into the over arching mythology of the world, and their battle with him he disorients their reality so much that after defeating It in the sewers they cannot find their own way out. Now in the film, Beverly is the one who figures out that in order to defeat It, the Losers need to work together and that unity is their strongest weapon, and this manifests as the seven of them attacking Pennywise together simultaneously which results in his defeat (for the time being) and it seems they have no issue getting out of the sewers. In the original book, they figure out that they need unity as a group to clear their minds and find their ways out of the sewer not to initial defeat Pennywise and how do they resolve it??? If you guessed, all six of the boys has sex with Beverly in turn...you'd be right. Now if you are the kind of person to whom that doesn't appear remotely logically and suddenly you are very horrified, welcome to my world. Both the miniseries and the film got rid of this event which is possibly the most salacious part of the novel (a novel about a clown that kills children, let's not forget that), and that is wise for many reasons not least of which nothing kills box office like a thirteen year old girl with a history of being abused having, hazy line here, semi (at best) consensual sex with six thirteen year old boys as a way to solve a problem. To me, this female character whose anatomy exists to solve a problem tips this pretty squarely into a zone of gang rape and that is flat out sickening and this book won awards how?!?! This to me solidifies my possibly reading some of his books, into a wish to not read Stephen King's work ever because this is terrifying treatment of women, but it also makes me worry about the kind of books that score adaptations.
As I said, both adaptations removed this section but what happens when a film adaptation is released and gets good box office (as the new version of It has)? That's right sales of the original text soar. Now I know in the past I know I've spoken about artistic license in the other direction, e.g. when adaptations add to the original (see my comments on the negative aspects of season 5 of Game of Thrones), but does tidying things up a good novel with bad bits make it something we should be adapting? Or more accurately with not just bad but atrocious bits? I would argue that maybe Hollywood needs to be more careful in that space.
I would say to parents with kids in their teens who see the film of It (which as I said is quite good on its own) and want to read the book, or anyone who sees it and hasn't read the book, give the book a hard pass based on the above scene alone. Stephen King doesn't need the money (he is getting some from the film in any case) and as small message in total book sales as it might make (likely not a noticeable one), it is worth sending the message that having an already abused teen girl have group sex as a plot point is not something anyone wants to read.
Justice for Bev!
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