It

It is an American television miniseries of the supernatural thriller genre. It is based on the 1986 novel, It, by author Stephen King. It was directed by Tommy Lee Wallace with a script written by Wallace and Lawrence D. Cohen. The miniseries aired as a two-part television movie on November 18th and November 20th, 1990 on ABC.

Part I
Set in the town of Derry, Maine a young girl witnesses a strange man dressed in a clown suit, watching her from a close distance. Moments later, her mother discovers her dead body in their front yard. Mike Hanlon, a local librarian sees this and makes calls to his local friends; first is to Bill Denbrough, an author married to a beautiful model. When Mike proclaims that "It's back" Bill has a flashback.

In 1960, Bill sends his little brother Georgie out into the rainy afternoon with a paper boat he made as he is too ill to go out. Georgie encounters the same clown, this time standing in a sewer drain, who introduces himself as "Pennywise the Dancing Clown" and promises him candy and balloons along with his paper boat, which had fallen in. When Georgie reaches down for it, his arm is viciously torn off by the clown. After Georgie's death, Bill enters his room and encounters a picture of him, which comes to life and winks at him before the album begins to drain blood. Bill is startled that his parents don't seem to notice it and tell him to stay away from George's room. He tells his friends Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrack, Richie Tozier, Stan Urich and Ben Hanscom about this, but they don't believe him, but they all agree that strange things seem to be happening in Derry. Back in the present, Bill agrees to go to Derry and packs unexpectedly, upsetting his wife Audra in the process. Next, Mike calls Ben, now a successful architect who has a flashback as well. Starting on his first day of school, he meets and becomes infatuated with Bev. After his father died in the Korean War, he and his mother moved in with her sister and son, but Ben's cousin insults him for writing love letters to Bev and the ensuing argument makes him run away. He comes across a sewage treatment plant where he sees his father in full dress uniform telling him to come visit him at the plant, but he slowly changes into Pennywise, who taunts Ben & then disappears, making him run off in fear. Having a love for building, Ben meets Richie, Stan, Eddie and Bill who are trying to build a dam for their hangout spot. Ben tries to give Bev a love note, which she is flattered by, but when her abusive father confronts her about it, she ends up rejecting him and breaking his heart.

Mike then calls Bev, a successful designer who has fallen into an abusive relationship. She has a flashback to 1960 as well, where It torments her by causing a balloon to explode in her bathroom sink, covering the entire room in blood that her father doesn't appear to notice when he comes in to check on her. Bill later comes over and relieves Bev's fears that she is losing her mind by seeing and helping her to clean up the blood. She, Ben and Bill discuss their encounters, but Richie laughs it off. Later, they take Eddie home to his worried-sick mother. Bully Henry Bowers tries to make advances on Bev, as he has tormented all of the group, but he is dissuaded by Bill and Ben. Back in the present, Bev stands up to her boyfriend when he objects to her going to Derry and she knocks him out before packing up and finally leaving him. Mike calls Richie next, who has become a popular late night comedy host. In his flashback, he remembers being teased by Henry Bowers one too many times and he accidentally drops a soda on him and his gang during a horror movie. Bowers and his friends chase them out of the theater, but lose them. The next day at school, Henry tries to humiliate Richie after accidentally being bumped into and spilling his lunch all over him, but Richie retaliates by creating a food fight. Richie is sent down into the basement for a mop to clean up the mess he started, but while he is down there, he encounters a wolf man, and then Pennywise. He runs back to the cafeteria, where no one believes his claims of seeing a werewolf, but Bill, Ben, and Bev all look at each other quietly.

Mike calls Eddie, who is the owner of a successful limousine company still living with his mother. In his flashback, Eddie is told by his pharmacist that the inhalers he has needed for his asthma is actually a placebo requested by his mother, resulting in Eddie being a hypochondriac. Eddie angrily tells him that he does not believe it to be a placebo and that he needs the medicine before running out. During gym class, Eddie is confronted by his coach who notices that Eddie does not shower with the other boys after class and orders him to do so. While frightened, Eddie enters the showers alone, all the shower heads activate around him with the pressure of a fire hose. The shower rods extend out, trapping Eddie in the shower and forcing him to cower in the corner. Pennywise appears in the shower drain and widens it to come through. Laughing at Eddie's insecurities, Pennywise reveals a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, but does not attack him. Back in the present Mike calls Stan, the last member of their Losers club and tells him "It's back." Stan, a successful real estate broker becomes despondent, telling his wife he needs to take a bath.

Back at the library, Mike has a flashback as well. Remembering when he met the rest of his friends who defended him against the racist Henry Bowers and his friends by hurling rocks at them. They call themselves the "Losers Club" all being outcasts and being the only ones who realize what's going on. Going through Mike's photo album, he shows them an article of Pennywise that everyone recognizes. To Mike's horror, Pennywise comes to life in the book and threatens the seven of them before trying to attack them through the photograph. They realize that "It" must be stopped, and using silver, and Bev's ability to use a slingshot well they decide to attack it where it dwells. They go to the sewage plant Ben was unsuccessfully lured to before, while Henry and his friends; seeking revenge for the rock throwing, follows them intent on killing them. In the sewers, Henry orders his friend Victor to ambush the Losers, but Victor is killed by It. Stan is grabbed by Henry and taken to another tunnel where he is threatened by Henry and his friend Belch before It, shown purely as its 'deadlights' form bursts from a pipe & kills Belch before dragging him through the pipe. It comes back and frightens Henry so badly that his hair turns white as Stan escapes to rejoin the others. The group joins hands, and Stan is grabbed by Pennywise. Eddie pretends his inhaler is battery acid, and sprays it in Pennywise's face, who reacts to the placebo. Beverly uses her slingshot, but only wounds Pennywise, who sinks into the ground. Before Pennywise is almost completely gone, the Losers grab onto the clown's hand to prevent him from leaving. However, the glove rips off, revealing a hideous three-fingered hand, which then disappears into the ground.

The seven agree that if It returns, that they would return to Derry and face it again and they swear on it. Back in the present, Stan's wife goes up to check on him and finds him dead; having slashed his wrists in the bathtub and scrawled "IT" on the wall in his blood. Meanwhile, Mike discovers a balloon that somehow appeared in his library which explodes suddenly in his face, terrifying him.

Part II
Bill is the first to arrive in Derry and sees Pennywise in a graveyard digging graves for the Losers. The clown laughs and says Bill can choose any grave he wants, except for one that is already filled in (referring to the recently-deceased Stan). He meets with Mike, who shows him his old bike "Silver". He asks Mike if he remembers everything from that summer, while it seems to have faded for him and Mike surmises that it's the same reason the adults don't notice anything; it's part of It's cover that allows it to emerge and feed every 30 years. Elsewhere, Bev has returned to the house she grew up in, and buzzes the Marsh apartment, but is confused when an old woman answers the door, claiming that her father died years before. She is invited in by the old woman who offers her tea. Bev goes into the apartment and while stirring her tea notices it turning into blood. This startles Bev, who then drops her teacup to the floor. As the old woman leans down to get the broken teacup, Bev proclaims, "The door did say Marsh", the old woman states "you are very wise" and looks up. When the old woman looks up she is a zombie-like image of Bev's dead father. This causes Bev to go running out of the house. When she gets to the street, she turns around and Pennywise is on the porch laughing at her. She looks back a second later to discover that Pennywise has vanished, and that everything she just experienced was one of his illusions. The apartment building has been abandoned, and there was no old woman. Ben goes down to the old dam that the kids used to hang out at, and has a flashback of being threatened at knifepoint by Henry Bowers. He goes down to the river and sees the skeleton of his father, who still tells him to come visit him, claiming they "all float" which was what Pennywise had told Georgie about the balloons he was luring him with.

Richie tries to catch up with Mike at the library, but he is goaded by a loud, raucous Pennywise, who sets off dozens of balloons which explode blood into the faces of the patrons who don't realize it, and he tells the librarian that he would meet the party for dinner. Meanwhile, Eddie returns to the pharmacy he went to as a child, and discovers his old pharmacist, now elderly and suffering from dementia who warns him about It, before he leaves clearly disturbed. That night, the six of them meet at a restaurant, where all of their dinners come to life in shocking and frightening ways. They decide to leave their dinner and reconvene at the library, where they learn after calling the Uris residence that Stan had killed himself. Mike opens the library's refrigerator, where dozens of balloons come out, revealing Stan's severed head from inside the refrigerator. Stan's head taunts them, telling them that death is preferable to what they will have to face before his voice becomes like that of Pennywise's. Bill remembers that Stan was the last one to see It in 1960, after escaping an attack from "The Mummy" by reciting all the birds he had memorized. He and Bill then escaped It on Silver, making him realize that it was the only thing that beat the deadlights that day.

In an asylum, where he had been committed to 30 years ago after admitting to killing all the children in Derry, Henry Bowers is convinced by Pennywise and by an undead Belch to escape from his imprisonment and kill the Losers. He attacks Mike at the hotel they are staying at and succeeds in injuring him before he himself is killed by his own knife. After Mike is sent to the hospital, Bill suggests they all confront It for one final confrontation. Meanwhile, Audra arrives in Derry and is frozen in the deadlights when she encounters Pennywise disguised as a police officer. As they make their way into the sewers, Bill, Eddie, Richie, Ben and Bev are stopped by a ghostly image of Pennywise, who gives them one last chance to turn back and leave, warning them that they will go insane in his deadlights. After Pennywise fades away, they are confronted by their fears again before they find It; though not as Pennywise the Clown, or as the Deadlights, but its physical form, which is a gigantic, hideous spider-like creature, who quickly captures Bill, Ben and Richie in its Deadlights. Bev drops her pellet, and Eddie tries to distract it by spraying it with "battery acid" again, but this time it doesn't work and the spider attacks him, mortally wounding him. This snaps the others out of their trance and Beverly's shot finally rings true, severely injuring It. As Eddie dies, the men and Bev take their revenge on It who tries to retreat and they successfully kill it by ripping its heart out. Bill rescues a comatose Audra from captivity, while they carry Eddie out of the cave, burying him in a nearby graveyard.

In the aftermath, Mike marks his own fading memories of the past as a sign that It was truly destroyed that time, and the adult Losers Club can return to their lives as the memories of the traumatic events fade entirely. Richie gets a part in a movie and he partners up with a man who looks and sounds just like Eddie. Beverly and Ben leave Derry together and head west; one week later they are married and just weeks later Beverly is pregnant. Audra, still catatonic from her encounter, is coaxed back to life aboard Bill's old bicycle "Silver" when he takes her to outrun It's fading influence the same way he did when the bike helped Bill while trying to save a young Stan who was frozen with fear: in the end, she returns to life and to Bill. All as it was, they realize that they can now move on with their lives. As the film fades to black, Pennywise's evil laugh is heard one last time.

Notes & Trivia

 * Production on It began on May 23rd, 1990. Principal filming concluded on July 27th, 1990.


 * It was released on DVD in Region 1 format by Warner Home Video on October 1st, 2002.