Stephen King's IT

[tinyrn]

It's one of my favorite SK novels. Chills throughout. I love the way he taps into the adolescent mind. His characters are fleshed-out well. I resisted seeing the movie at first, since I had read the book long before. Tim Curry is great, but not my favorite in overall casting otherwise, which seems to be a problem with a lot of his older movie adaptations.

[Caretames1]

I read IT when I was 14, BIG mistake! LOL Can you say nightmares, and lights that never went off at night! I've read it 3 times since and love it. I think the movie was just okay.

Sewer drains will never be that same!

[michellezo]

I saw the movie waaaay before I ever read the book. I was going through my romance phase and so Stephen King books were not on my radar at the time. I remember the movie scaring me so much I was afraid to go upstairs to the women's bathroom, I was watching it in a dorm, without someone else coming with me. Unfortunately they were a bunch of guys and I begged my best friend to stand with the bathroom door open so nothing could sneak in to kill me, he was not happy about it. LOL. To this day I do not park near sewer drains and I make a wide berth around them when walking down the street. I was already afraid of clowns thanks to the scene in Poltergeist with that clown under the bed, but this solidified it for me.

Needless to say I did eventually read IT and that started me down the Stephen King/ Dean Kootz reading pathway to which I believe my fear of the dark, closed closets and rampant insomnia are attributed. I loved the book, and even though it has now been 20 years since I first saw the movie, I cannot watch it after dark.

[MandiD]

The novel is one thing. the movie on the other hand was just.........
A 1990 release I was prob 5 at that time. I got to see that movie when I was around 8-9 years old and it ruined my life!
Till this day I think clowns are creepy and horrible. Ronald McDonald is my biggest enemy and I never look at Krusty the clown the same. I never got a chance to read the book yet because of the sequence of events and the fact that I saw the movie before I was into reading novels.

I just want to know, has anyone been creeped out of clowns after that movie? and if you didn't see the movie or read the book, and clowns creep you out in general what was the reason for that?

I was 5 the first time I watched the movie but just last year I read the book and the book was terrific. I couldn't put it down. Clowns on the other hand creep me out because of the movie my fiancé's aunt is a clown and she terrifies me when she is dressed up.

[Raykersten]

I thought that this was a wonderfully planned novel by King. The characters were very rich, and the world being displayed is very believable. I read last year, and it is worth re-reading.

[theniceiceman]

I started watching IT with my older sister...I think I was about 9 and she was 10. As soon as I saw the clown the first time, I left. Since then, it's become one of my favorite movies. I know it's around 3 hours long, but I feel like it flies by every time I watch it. I haven't read the book, but it's on my list. Every time I go to the library it's checked out, sigh.

[Schaefy72]

I read this book when I was 20 and was living in my first apartment. I was reading the part that Mike was telling the history of the Black Spot. Scared me so much, I had to put it away, turn on thelights, turn on the radio . To this day, I I can not think of that part. Eeeeeesh

[StephenKingman]

The folllwing clip still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end even now and Im a grown man, I think its the fact that the clown is 100% evil and he has no mercy for the innocence or fears of children..the kids are reading an old book about the history of Derry and along comes Pennywise-when he spots them in the photo and runs right up to them, wow, frightening stuff..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bSQavJfbqM

[kfagan-14]

I think the movie is definately laughable compared to the book. This is coming from someone who hates horror movies, if I can avoid it I won't watch them. I love horror stories for some reason though. go figure. Following the kids stories in this book really reminded me of being that young and still sometimes wondering if there really was something there in the dark. I've never had a problem with clowns but pennywise was definately awful.

[ambvoz1920]

I saw the movie when I was about 8..and it just horrified me for years! I still remember stuttering Bill's incantation his mom taught him that he uses against Pennywise, "He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts." Ahh! I loved how Beverly was the straight-shooter of the gang, and would pretend to be her in the woods behind our house, fighting off pretend bad guys and evil spirits.
I read the book as an adult and was completely engrossed by the fuller, more in-depth story depicted than that is in the movie (of course) and was probably more shaken up than when I was a kid. A Stephen King classic; such an example of how a book can make you look at completely innocuous things (drains, friendship, childhood) and see how many layers of reality and truth can lie in them, and slightly creepy things (clowns, dark woods) and make them horrifying. Bill's line where he yells "You killed my brother George you bastard!" reminds me of Inigo Montoya's classic line and makes me want to shake my fist in triumph.

[Ellie Woods]

IT was the second King book that I read. I was 12 years old. Amazingly I did not have a horrific time or find myself terribly scared through the whole thing. Although I have always since then been a bit mindful of the drain in the bathtub...I think that as a child I was just so facinated with the story and the kids that it was about. I still to this day don't know that I have ever read a book with such a complex story line. I remember being very dissapointed when the movie came out because I knew there was no way to transfer to the screen some of the concepts that King wove into the story. I can not stand the movie!