It’s not that I disliked the original 1990 tv miniseries of IT… it was perfect fine in a made-for-tv-in-the-90s sort of way. But that was back when made-for-tv wasn’t exactly a medal of honor. It was edgy and bloody for network tv and I was happy to get a pretty good adaptation of the book. But I never thought I needed a documentary about its production… and, after watching one, I’m still not so sure.

The doc does cover the basics of King’s novel, the development of the tv miniseries including discussions with standards and practices, hiring the bigshot tv actors and their mini-me 12 year old versions, discussions about makeup for the clown, and the big ol spiderheck puppet. Basically, if you’ve ever wondered about the minutiae of a 30 year old made-for-tv miniseries, this doc might have you covered.

And, yeah, I guess it does a fine job covering (sometimes in too much detail) aspects of filming. They interview many of the actors and behind-the-scenes guys… though they do not get Steven King in for an interview. And some of the actors are dead but, weirdly, only Johnathan Brandis gets an in memorium (though John Ritter gets some extra praise).

I wish there had been some discussion about the revitalization of IT as a property due to the recent remake. But that was probably not part of their directive. Understandable… but also those two new movies cast a long shadow over any discussion of this tv version.

This documentary is fine but seems a bit superfluous… I mean, unless you are a die hard IT 1990 fan (and I suspect such a person would already know all this info). Everyone else will learn something about a 30 year old tv movie, sure… but that and a bag of donuts will get you a bag of donuts.

Score: 77