It

This morning [just, it was an 11:50 showing] I went to the Rochester Cineworld Cinema down by the Medway’s edge. Earlier in the day I had run along a stretch of the tidal Medway and also the non-tidal part above Allington lock and then later I found myself parking alongside the river but on the western bank.

I went to see It and after the film I rated it on IMDB, you should see this communication as it deals with the ratings system.

Before the film started there were trailers for a weather disaster film called Geostorm. This looked absolutely terrible. The timing of the trailer with its gratuitous floods and storms was pretty poor given Harvey and Irma this month. Another trailer for a horror film was called Jigsaw and I couldn’t give less of a shit for watching it. I’m not a horror movie fan. Mostly because they don’t scare me, I just think they are stupid. Then there’s a film trailer with an interesting guilt start which I thought should be called “We should have gone to Vegas” but was really called The Ritual. That looked hilarious too. AND there was a trailer for a modern Flatliners!!!!!! Along with The Lost Boys, Flatliners is one of the seminal films of my teenage years, it scared me senseless! The new film looks just ok.

IT

I’ve read the book a long time ago. I’m not sure I could tell you a great deal about it. Certain things stick in the memory but who knows? I also watched the original TV series with Tim Curry as Pennywise and remember it being good. I remember the adult characters but not a lot else.

This film turned out to be chapter one. You can’t do a Stephen King film in two hours. Especially It. Mazza and I once watched all of The Stand on video back in 1994/5 and that was a whole evening job, six hours I think. Good but long.

I recall the book being about the adults remembering the summer previously but I could be wrong about that. The overall set up was good. The film was good. Jump scares are boring. For a truly terrifying experience there needs to be a film with little incidental music. As it was so long ago that I read this story I don’t know how faithful it was to the book. It served memory well. Apart from the child orgy.

In the book there is def a thing where Beverly Marsh has sex with all the survivors of the experience. I think it happens in the barrens. It’s written in a very sensible way. This film version avoided that. Maybe the 1990 version did too!

I would be tempted, if I had the time, to go back and read the book or watch the last version of the film. The book is significantly more detailed. But then it would be.