They Filmed The Book: It by Stephen King

With the second part of It coming out this year I thought I’d look at this book-to-film adaptation.  To begin with, the book is one of King’s classics and it’s one of his heftier works that jumps between the lives of a group of kids/adults at they span three decades of fighting a horror in their hometown.  The book is a descriptive, long story that really takes us into the world of the Losers’ Club and the terrors, both supernatural, personal, and human, they face throughout their lives. It also goes well into the trauma they face after fighting a monstrous being that’s had decades of killing under its belt.

The movie, in my opinion, did great at capturing a lot of main points of the book without getting too drawn into the more terrible parts of the narrative.  The horror of Pennywise is caught in the film in great ways and while there are some diversions from the book, I think the movie is a great adaptation to a source that has a lot to draw from.

I think the changes made for the movie are well done, the characters are just as sympathetic and charming, despite the trials they face.  I think the look of the movie is great as well. It didn’t look cheap and some of the visuals are both beautiful but haunting as well.

I’m looking forward to the second part but I hope that it can capture the magic of the first movie.  It’s difficult for movies from books to hold up on their own, without being criticized for not living up to their source.  However, It does a great job of getting the story across in a way that is unique to the big screen.  This movie seemed to take the novel and run with the idea, incorporating some of the events in the book, but becoming its own thing. I hope they can do the same with It: Chapter 2 as it has the chance to become a great duo of films from one of King’s most horror-inducing novels.