Editorials
Stephen King’s ‘It’ Really Doesn’t Hold Up That Well
Twenty six years ago today, the first half of the two-part miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s It premiered on ABC. It followed the children of the Losers Club as they were beset upon by Pennywise the Clown, who kills Georgie, the younger brother of leader Bill. The second part aired two nights later, focusing on the adults of the Losers Club and their attempt to vanquish Pennywise, the alias of the titular character. Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, who co-wrote the film along with Lawrence Cohen, the event was a smash success upon premiere with the first part landing the fifth most watched program in that time slot and the second part was the second highest viewed program.
I hadn’t seen the film in about 15 or so years and I remember thinking very little of it. As I mentioned at the end of my revisit with the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror, it’s worth coming back to something you don’t like when you have a different mindset and different life experiences. Perhaps what didn’t bring enjoyment at one point of your life will at a different point. Alas, It doesn’t fall under that category.
The first half of the film deals primarily with the Losers Club as children, introducing them one at a time and focusing on their connection to Pennywise. This is definitely the stronger half as the child actors are damn good and there is a lot of exciting events going on throughout the runtime. When Pennywise isn’t scaring everyone half to death, there are the perils of simply being a child: overprotective or abusive parents, bullies, and small town life where racism is alive and well (remember, this part takes place in the mid-50’s), as well as the towns folk seemingly doing their best to ignore the rash of child deaths.
Still, it must be said that the first half also feels terribly disjointed. It’s great getting to know these kids but the way it’s done makes it feel like we’re getting the smallest of snippets and there aren’t really any solid connecting lines. There’s a lot of awkward attempts to tie everything together but the film does itself a disservice by constantly jumping back and forth between the two timelines. Since they knew it was going to be two parts, they could’ve done what New Line Cinema is doing now, which is to have the first film focus 100% on the children while the second film focuses entirely on the adults. We all know how flashbacks can become really annoying and frustrating and that’s precisely the problem with the It miniseries.
The second half is more problematic because the film loses its flow and rhythm, coming to a grinding halt when the Losers club reconvenes as adults per the request of Mike Hanlon, who tells them that “It” has come back. They proceed to bicker and quibble about what they’re going to do. If they’re not doing that, they’re swapping random stories, eating Chinese food, and drinking booze. It just feels like all sense of urgency is lost, even though they each encountered a version of Pennywise who warned them to leave before it was too late. Eddie Murphy must’ve had a field day with that.
Plus, we all know that the climax of the film looks atrocious. I realize that this was before CGI was affordable and exceptional (although Terminator 2: Judgment Day came out less than a year later…) but this was also after John Carpenter’s The Thing, so we know how good practical FX could be. The spider-thing was a damn disgrace and its design is laughable at best.
Furthermore, the way the movie was filmed just feels like it’s made for TV. And yes, I realize that it was but c’mon now! Just look at “Twin Peaks”, which was on air in 1991 and was most likely filmed around the same time as It and you’ll see a stark difference in visual quality. It just felt cheaper, even though it was a big event for ABC. After all, King’s “It” was the best-selling novel of 1986, according to Publisher’s Weekly.
Even Pennywise, who is played expertly by Tim Curry, ends up looking bad at points simply because of how he’s shot. To make him scary, the film resorts all too often on close-ups of his face, especially when he’s got those sharp disgusting fangs. It just feels lazy, especially considering the amazing potential that was there throughout the story.
Watching the film with today’s eyes, it’s hard to understand why there is resistance to the upcoming remake from Andy Muschietti. King’s story has a great deal of opportunity within and getting a multi-million dollar studio production is rather exciting! And yes, I realize that Bill Skarsgard isn’t Tim Curry, so Pennywise will be totally different. Then again, Heath Ledger wasn’t Jack Nicholson. Kane Hodder wasn’t Richard Brooker. There are great remakes and there are shitty ones, just like there are great horror movies to counteract the really bad drivel that gets put out without a second thought.
It was a major event in its day but that time has come and gone. We now have much better technology to make something grander and far scarier than what was previously given. I look at It and see potential for something greater. Because I’m an optimistic kinda fella (I promise you, I really am), I’m allowing myself to be cautiously optimistic about Muschietti’s film. But you better believe I’ll speak my honest opinion about it once it’s released.
Until that day comes, “Beep beep, Richie!”
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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