If you are of the King generation (lotsa books, bookstores, drugstores with books, tobacco stores with books, no computers or personal devices) then you probably have your own views on his place in the creative continuum.
My view is that his "early" works (including IT, THE STAND, SHINING) were his best. Wonderfully warped. And great fun to read.
That was the good news. The bad news is that, with rare exception (eg - SHINING) the B-grade studios that made easy money doing "tv movies" (you had to be there, otherwise you would not understand) generally snapped up his stuff and then did cheap, low-talent adaptations.
Wotta waste.
IT was one of King's more interesting works and this is one of the less awful adaptations. For insiders, most of the fun is in the first few scenes where one of the "characters" himself a writer explains that he has a job adapting his own work: "If anyone is going to mess it up, it may as well be me." The inside joke is that King himself was brought in as co-writer here because so many of the earlier TV adaptations were a disaster.
Again, one of the better ones. Lots of interesting faces here and there, including Ritter (an unappreciated dramatic talent) and Otoole looking radiant.
