Editorials
Why We Should Enjoy ‘IT’ 2017 Without Comparing to ‘IT’ 1990
“When it comes to IT and Pennywise the Clown, there’s enough room in our cinematic universe for both adaptations and interpretations to coexist.”
As we approach the much anticipated opening night of IT on the silver screen, I ask you to consider this question: is it really worth your time to compare the miniseries and this new version, to position one film against the other?
For me, the answer is no.
Before jumping in (the sewer) I think it’s worth noting that I’ve been a superfan of the book and ABC miniseries since the mid-1990s. In recent years, I’ve also become a sort-of collector of memorabilia from said miniseries (production swag, a screen-used costume, pins, fanny packs, autographed laserdiscs, and…you get the idea). It’s also worth noting that I’m one of the filmmakers behind the new documentary film, Pennywise: The Story of IT (starring Tim Curry), currently in production. So, clearly, my appreciation for IT—both book and miniseries–is well documented.
Let me also say that I’m so glad Andy Muschietti’s version of IT exists and will be unleashed upon moviegoers starting tonight. In fact, I just returned from Hollywood where I attended the world premiere, with cast and crew in attendance. Wild horses wouldn’t have been able to drag me away from the theatre this past Tuesday night.
All that said, I’m well aware of the flaws that exist in the 90s miniseries. Those flaws—as well as the successes—have been discussed at great length across the Interwebs and beyond, so they won’t get much airtime here. I’m not here to convince you why I think the miniseries is great and why I feel it sometimes gets a bad rap. Instead, I’d rather challenge you to try and appreciate both as two distinct bodies of work entirely because I think, if you can, you might get more out of them.
Andy Muschietti’s upcoming adaptation of IT is not a remake of the 1990 miniseries. Calling it a remake (or reboot or redo) suggests that his version is utilizing the miniseries as its source material. But as many of us know, the real source material is the 1986 tome penned by The Master himself, Stephen King. And while the end results of both Tommy Lee Wallace’s vision and that of Andy Muschietti’s are no doubt unified in that they are filmic adaptations of King’s written work, they are inherently different.
They were created in different eras, under different circumstances, with drastically distinct resources, for a different medium, and ultimately experienced (at least initially in 1990) by a different kind of audience.
Those last two differences (medium and audience) are worth looking at more closely. The expectations imposed on a film destined for network television (in this case ABC) will always differ from those imposed on one destined for the theater—particularly if it’s given an R-rating. Also, keep in mind TV audiences of the late 1980s/early 1990s were not yet conditioned to the intensity, sexuality, and on-screen violence we now accept as commonplace thanks to the likes of “The Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones.” Even in 1989, the AIDS epidemic was still very much in the headlines, so the sharing of blood in the Lucky 7’s blood oath from the book, for example, was obviously not going to fly on network television. Tommy Lee Wallace skirted some of these obstacles by harnessing the horror in other ways, oftentimes by relying less on jump scares and more on creating an unsettling atmosphere to contrast against the kids and their stories. Some of this spooky subtlety is one of the reasons I think the miniseries works.
Yet even by today’s standards, direct violence on and oppression towards children is considered somewhat taboo. Thankfully for Muschietti & Co., one of the gifts of having a theatrical project with an R-rating is having that broader, artistic license to create something darker and more sinister—to push the boundaries even further. And I think it’s that amount and variety of terror in a film that can dictate who the audience ends up being.
If you’re of a certain vintage, you either first saw the miniseries when it aired over two nights in November 1990 or—if you were slightly too young to stay up and catch the broadcast, like me—you experienced it with the help of your local video rental store. In either scenario, our small screen relationship with the miniseries was an important part of that initial viewing experience as well as our nostalgia for it looking back.
Nostalgia is a powerful emotion and it can come into play when a film we cherish from our younger years is interpreted in a new way. But instead of succumbing to the half-true notion that “nostalgia” is a dirty word or retrogressive emotion, I accept that for many of us it’s one of the many reasons we cherish the miniseries. It’s the genesis behind comments like, “Yeah, but he’s not Tim Curry.” Some can’t get past the idea of anyone but Curry playing Pennywise the Clown. It’s our nostalgia for certain films and characters that can allow us to accept their flaws (maybe even sympathize and enjoy them) while focusing on their strengths—sometimes to the point of romanticizing them. It’s all just part of our personal histories with films and how our opinions of them evolve as the years go by.
While nostalgia plays a role in keeping fans loyal to the miniseries, it’s clear to those who have read the book that the film strays from King’s story. For some of us our very first experience with the Losers’ Club was in the miniseries—not the book. It’s clear to those who’ve read the book that plenty was left out and changed in order to accommodate myriad things (runtime, the audience, etc.). King’s work is so extensive, it’s inevitable that there would be deviations. Though our sneak peaks of the new version suggest certain elements will be truer to the book, we’re going to see other kinds of deviations. But it’s another reason why I won’t compare 1990 and 2017: each represent a unique interpretation of a book of enormous size and depth. Much like the miniseries, Muschietti’s version may overlook or change certain things, but I have confidence that these decisions were made for good reasons and with pure intentions. At the end of the day, it’s just the nature of the beast.
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t dig a little deeper into the portrayal of Pennywise. Much like the films themselves, I don’t believe it does a service to either Tim Curry or Bill Skarsgård to stack their portrayals of Pennywise against each other. The innate brilliance and versatility of both Curry and Skarsgård as actors is surely one of the reasons why both were cast in the first place. Curry brought his own flavor to Pennywise, transcending the even-then legendary role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, and allowed audiences to get lost in his dead lights. From what we’ve seen by way of trailers and sneak peaks, Skarsgård is bound to do the same—but with his own flavors. Because King’s source material is so robust and rich, there’s plenty of room to explore and play with how Pennywise is interpreted and realized on-screen. Again, like the films themselves, both performances should (and will) stand on their own.
Whether it’s to satisfy a tamer TV audience within the confines of 192 minute miniseries, or a diehard horror community with two highly anticipated theatrical films, both attempts to bring King’s story to life are nothing short of heroic—by filmmaking standards. It’s a challenging book with challenging characters and themes. That the writers and filmmakers involved in both have given it a go is good enough for me. As a fan, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.
So, when it comes to IT and Pennywise the Clown, there’s enough room in our cinematic universe for both adaptations and interpretations to coexist. If we can adopt that mindset, we’ll all be able to appreciate both—independently—for what they are and what they aren’t.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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