Production

The miniseries was filmed in New Westminster, British Columbia, which stood in for the town of Derry. An actual former movie house in New Westminster, the Paramount, appeared in several scenes in the miniseries, including an establishing scene where the young Losers go to a Saturday matinee and a later scene where the adult Richie drives by the theatre and sees a disturbing message from “It” on the marquee. In reality, the New Westminster Paramount stopped showing movies in 1983 and now functions as a strip club.

As part of the casting process, Rozz Williams of gothic rock band Christian Death auditioned for the part of Pennywise, going so far as to arrive at the audition in a costume he made himself. However, Wallace ultimately decided that Tim Curry’s audition was of a higher quality. Footage of Williams’ audition, in which he recites Pennywise’s dialogue from one of the more sexually explicit scenes in the book, has circulated widely amongst Christian Death fans, and has given rise to (false) rumours of an “alternate version” of the film with Rozz in the Pennywise role and most of the excised content of the book restored.

The other notable casting decision was to hire performers predominantly known as comic actors — Harry Anderson, John Ritter and Tim Reid – in dramatic roles.

Deaths

• Laurie Ann Winterbarger: At the very beginning of the film, In the form of the clown, Laurie Ann was killed by It in her backyard. The actual cause of death is unknown. Her mother finds her under the washing line in the backyard. She is the first person to die in the film.
• Georgie Denbrough: In the form of the clown, his arm was ripped off when trying to reach for the wax paper sailboat that went into sewer drain; he bled to death.
• Stanley ‘Stan’ Uris: Committed suicide in the bathtub, after being haunted by his past memory of It. On the bathroom wall ‘It’ is written in blood.
• Henry Bowers: Killed by Mike Hanlon after attempting to kill him, nearly succeeding.
• Patrick Hocksetter/Belch Huggins: Belch is pulled into a pipe in the sewers, frightening Henry so immensely that his entire head of hair turns white. Patrick is picked off while off on his own, but the actual scene of his death is not shown. It’s form was not seen, only the deadlights.
• Eddie Kaspbrak: Attempts to blast It’s true physical form (a giant spider) with his inhaler as he did as a child. However, It is unaffected, and picks him up and drops him to the ground, fatally wounding him.
• Velma Daniels: Her body is found near the canal, severely mutilated.
• Koontz: In the form of the clown with the head of a Rottweiler, Koontz is mauled to death offscreen.
• Pennywise/It: Dies after being dismembered by the Losers at the end of the movie.

Reaction and possible remake

Radio Times magazine in 2004 held a survey for the scariest program aired on television, in which It came first. The X-Files came second. Others on the top ten list included Twin Peaks, Ghostwatch and Tales of the Unexpected. The Sci Fi channel announced a 4 hour remake of the film which will be made sometime in 2008.

The main criticism of the film is that it is vastly different from the book, for reasons including the task of preserving King’s book while keeping the running time at a reasonable level, altering it to be sanitized for television, as well as budgetary limitations.

However, the film has received praise amongst fans for Curry’s role as Pennywise. Fans feel that his role was both scary and quite comical.

Cast

• Federico Fellini     …     Himself
• Riccardo Billi    …     Clown
• Tino Scotti    …     Clown
• Fanfulla    …     Clown
• Dante Maggio    …     Clown
• Galliano Sbarra    …     Clown
• Nino Terzo    …     Clown
• Giacomo Furia    …     Clown

The film is about aliens (who look like clowns) that arrive on Earth to capture and harvest people in order to use them as sustenance.

Movie notes

• Actor Sam Rockwell appears in his film debut in an uncredited role as a busboy.
  

• The opening and end credits feature the punk rock band The Dickies performing the film’s theme, “Killer Klowns”.

• The movie’s taglines: “They make Aliens look like a circus” and “In space no one can eat ice cream” parodied that of the 1979 Ridley Scott film Alien.

• The hardcore/emo band Chiodos stated in an interview that their name was taken from the production company’s name of “Killer Klowns…”

• The DVD Commentary indicates that Charles Chiodo portrayed “Klownzilla” in the film.

• Hanson originally died in the original ending, but test audiences liked the character so much that the ending was altered to have him survive.

Action figure

There are two such figures. The first is the most common Klown in the movie, a Klown warrior armed with a deadly popcorn blaster, cotton candy coccoon victim, and a colourful base with a pole to hang the deceased. A Tower Records exclusive figure of the same Klown mold has a radical blue paint scheme with vibrant red and purple highlights. This warrior comes with all the same accessories as the regular Klown, with the exception of the blaster; instead he is equipped with a sinister bat (similar to those the aliens use at end of the movie to pummel the heroes). Though the latter Klown model is considered a one-off variant, it can clearly be seen near the end of the film as one of the first Klowns to reveal itself. It can also be seen earlier in the film during the Klown parade, where it is one of the two Klowns pushing the vacuum that collects the cotton candy cocoons. The only discrepancy is that the figurine comes with a white bat, rather than one of the red ones wielded in the film.There’s a Shadow Puppet Bozo action figure also.

SOTA’s Jerry Macaluso has stated that he would like to create a mega-size “Klownzilla” figure (approx.size up to 20 inches high or more).

Cast

• Grant Cramer     Mike Tobacco
• Suzanne Snyder     Debbie Stone
• John Allen Nelson     Dave Hanson
• John Vernon     Curtis Mooney
• Michael Siegel     Rich Terenzi
• Peter Licassi     Paul Terenzi
• Royal Dano     Farmer Gene Green
• Chris Titus     Bob McReed
• Irene Michaels     Stacy
• Karla Sue Krull     Tracy
• Emily Beck     Smartass #1 and Queen of the Klowns