They ALL float down here

PENNYWISE

            For the month of October it has become a tradition around the Altadonna household to watch strictly horror movies for those 31 days.  Most horror films I find creepy at moments, but few leave me lying awake at night.  The only film that still freaks me out is the 1990’s TV mini-series “It” based off of Stephen King novel. If you are unfamiliar with the 2 part mini-series or novel, it is about a creature that appears as a clown that is killing children in small town of Derry Maine.  I am not sure if I had been a fan of clowns prior to this movie, but after Pennywise, my motto became “all clowns should not be trusted”.  Tim Curry plays Pennywise, and the man should have won an Emmy for this role.  Curry is so creepy and realistic as a killer clown, that on the DVD commentary track the actors noted they avoided him during the filming.  I often remind myself this is Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”  To this day Curry still haunts with his role as Pennywise, with the clown makeup, that crazy laugh, and his big read mouth.

            The year this aired on TV, I was about to turn 9 years old, and my parents were never concerned with me watching horror films.  Besides the child killing clown, the other reason this film freaked me out was my mother.  I recall she wanted to watch the mini-series in our living room.  I was interested in the film and remember watching most of it through my bed room with the door cracked, so I could close if needed be.  I must have missed the very end of the film and I asked my mother the following day, “did they finally kill the clown?”  Where she replied, “well I can’t tell you, because I do not want to spoil the ending.”  Then to add insult to injury soon afterward my mom started laughing like Pennywise, which would freak me out.  I know my mom was just teasing me and that’s the way we show our love in the McKinney household.

            I have found that many people have one film that they saw as a child that scared them at time and then continues to haunt them still as an adult.  I wanted to see if “It” would still scare me now, since I have not watched it in ten years.  Ashley and I viewed the movie a few nights ago and the clown is still creepy, but not nearly as scary.  Overall, I do enjoy the story line, that these seven outcast children come together to kill this supernatural clown and then promise to come back together if the clown ever returns.   The story starts with them as children in 1958 and then six of them leave the town, except for one, Mike Hanlon.  Then in 1985 the children of Derry start to die again and Mike calls his six childhood friends back for one last battle.  For the last few years I have had Stephen King’s “It” on my book shelf I hope to start reading it in the next year or so.  I have so many books on my list to read and this one is 1,138 pages, but I want to know more about this nightmare.  After re-watching the movie, I did not have too much trouble sleeping.  However, I will admit that when I went to the bathroom at night I might have been sprinting back to bed faster than usual.