If you need a palate cleanser after what’s sure to be the terror of IT Chapter Two, and you’re still clamoring for more Losers Club, it’s a fun group watch.
The CGI is bad, and the scares aren’t particularly scary, but it’s a fun watch for the sheer drama of Richard Masur’s severed head hamming it up in a fridge, or Tim Curry shrieking jokes as balloons descend from a library ceiling. They never fully explain who, or what, Pennywise is. The actors are overly dramatic in the best way. The CGI is early ’90s TV CGI, which means that it’s absolutely hilarious in hindsight. The ending-spoilers-features a giant fake-looking spider that the surviving adults beat to death with a rock, and then rip the thing’s heart out. Pennywise dons many a frightening form there’s no leper here, but a truly fake-looking werewolf chases Richie through a basement. There are more balloons than you can count, and the adults are absolutely terrified of them. The film is weird and bizarre in all the best ways.
