Streamin' King

Streamin’ King: ‘Pennywise The Story of IT’ on Prime Video, A Crowdfunded Documentary About Tim Curry’s Creepy Clown

By Zach Dionne Twitter @ZachDionne

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Pennywise: The Story of It

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Streamin' King

Streamin’ King is grave-digging through the myriad Stephen King–based offerings on streaming. This time we’re watching the column’s first-ever doc, 2022’s Pennywise: The Story of IT.

STREAMIN’ KING: PENNYWISE — THE STORY OF IT

THE GIST: Some extremely passionate documentarians with the help of over $37,000 crowdfunded on Indiegogo rounded up more than 40 people involved with ABC’s 1990 miniseries It, touching on almost everything you could want across two hours.

PEDIGREE: Co-directed by John Campopiano (Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary, plus a short film about poor Georgie Denbrough) and Chris Griffiths, co-written by Gary Smart (who, with Griffiths, did a Fright Night documentary and the upcoming RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop) and Campopiano. Makes great use of almost everyone interviewed, with some of the most-seen and impactful participants being co-writer Lawrence D. Cohen (Carrie), director Tommy Lee Wallace (Fright Night), Emmy nominees Tim Curry and Tim Reid (adult Mike), three-time Emmy winner Seth Green (young Richie) and one-time winner Richard Thomas (adult Bill), as well as Brandon Crane (young Ben), Emily Perkins (young Beverly), and Jarred Blancard (young Henry Bowers).

WORTH WATCHING FOR IT FANS? Definitely, and even if you’ve only experienced the book and/or Andy Muschietti’s 2017/2019 films. If you’ve never seen the 1990 IT miniseries, this’ll either nudge you to dig it up—with tons of bonus knowledge—or live the rest of your days in peace without doing so. It’s also a way for not-so-hardcore fans to re-experience a classic without committing to a rewatch, and the footage actually looks sharper than ever.

The doc’s divided into nine chapters that deal with, in order: the challenge of condensing and adapting the book; all things clown—Ronald McDonald, Rob Zombie’s Captain Spaulding, actual clowns, authors, historical details, the fact John Wayne Gacy made a Pennywise painting once; some pretty elite casting; Vancouver, Canada in its early days as “Hollywood North”; the Losers’ Club (a notably meaty section); the bullies (with a moment of unexpectedly potent emotion); special effects, gore, and dealing with Broadcast Standards and Practices; the spider monster; and the film’s legacy. That final chapter commendably takes a moment to give 76-year-old composer Richard Bellis his flowers for winning an Emmy (he credits King and Curry for his victory). Pennywise: The Story of IT, very strong as it is, could go to another level if it delved deeper into the relationships the cast went on to have with It and showbusiness—especially some of the child actors we never really saw again; Marlon Taylor, Adam Faraizl, Ben Heller, et al.—and if it figured out a way to work in Muschietti’s remake. (The first movie—and eventual highest-grossing horror movie ever—had wrapped shooting by mid-2016.) Co-director John Campopiano was gracious enough to DM with me on the subject. Here’s what he had to say:

“Our team talked a lot about whether to make mention or include the new IT films and we ultimately decided not to. Our doc is really about the birth of the miniseries and Tim’s particular portrayal of Pennywise, and we didn’t want to date the doc by referring to an ‘upcoming’ adaptation by Andy and Barb Muschietti. Perhaps the title of our doc suggests that the film will be looking at Pennywise as a character more generally. But, ultimately, we decided to keep our focus on Tim and the miniseries.”

WORTH WATCHING FOR DOCUMENTARY FANS/CONSTANT READERS WITH NO IT EXPERIENCE? Arguably yes. There’s no exclusive King interview—which, based on how much he’s spoken about It in the last few years, is fine—but a trove of absolutely delightful and well-deployed archival footage of him, including a cold open with a super-bearded 1980s Steve speaking at an event about the moment the birthed It. The documentary is so rewardingly thoughtful about SK’s oeuvre, his growth, and what makes him special. No good doc rises to greatness without at least one or two instantly iconic interviews, and Tim Curry delivers. Everything about what he brings to a straightforwardly shot, medium-close-up conversation is electric, profound, and cheeky. It’s cheering that a film so centered on celebrating and dissecting his performance and participation also has him heavily in the mix. As far as nonfiction storytelling, it’s a confidently made tapestry weaving in folks from just about all the departments, including visual effects, casting, score, costume design, producers, makeup, a “character designer/spider performer,” and most living cast members. Some of the scene-setting visual transitions are awkward, but I’m happy this bit exists:

TURTLE screenshot IT doc

9 STEPHEN KING TIES, REFERENCES, AND MISCELLANY:

  1. It’s wonderful seeing Lawrence D. Cohen as one of the main talking heads helping guide the narrative of this doc. He’s got eight writing credits on features, TV movies, and miniseries, five of which are King-based (It, Carrie and its 2013 remake, The Tommyknockers, and a Nightmares & Dreamscapes episode). Major authority on adapting the big guy.
  2. Some of Curry’s most delicious quotes here:
    • “I’d read most of his books because he’s the master of narrative and he tells a whacking good story.”
    • “I can’t say that I ever saw clowns as being threatening, although I loved being threatening. It was a lot of fun.”
    • “There was quite a good photograph in a magazine of me heading for the makeup trailer in a bathrobe with a Marlboro dangling from my face.”
      TIM CURRY MARLBORO PENNYWISE UMBRELLA
  3. The finale fight with Pennywise in spidermonster form is one of the few spots of tension in the doc. Director Wallace and writer Cohen speak throughout about how they’ve never been over the moon with the back half of the miniseries, and some cast members slag the arachnoid efforts. “The one thing I loathed,” Curry says, “was what they did with him at the end, they made him into this awful plastic spider—which wasn’t scary at all.” People who worked on the effects credibly push back against the flak, and it’s wild and unfortunate to learn they spent three months creating a cleverly functional creature yet left the filming process to “literally the last two days of filming” and didn’t make use of many of its features.
  4. Syfy Wire’s Josh Weiss–penned piece on the doc has a bunch of good cast member quotes. Marlon Taylor (young Mike): “This documentary will make people feel more like Losers with us. It’ll bring them into our world.” Seth Green: “And it’s very cool to have filmmakers interested in organizing all of the footage that was shot. … I love that these filmmakers were excited to put all that into something that you could watch. I was interested in memorializing this whole experience.” And Brandon “Young Ben” Crane on the Losers’ Club in Muschietti’s films: “I love those kids and I love the energy that they had together because it was totally like us on set. It was that era, so I thought the humor just came home…they pulled it off. They did it without the benefit of adults, they did it without commercial breaks…I walked out of there like, ‘There’s room for both of us.'” (Crane previously said he “had never had a role in a feature” until appearing in It: Chapter 2 in a quick scene involving the new adult Ben. Once you’ve spent time with him in Pennywise: The Story of IT, the cameo really jumps out.)
  5. In June 2019, Campopiano co-wrote a surreal, part-animated short film called Georgie. It brings back miniseries child actors Ben Heller and Tony Dakota, reprising his part as Bill Denbrough’s murdered brother, but as a gray-skinned adult with a propensity for some clowning around. It was Heller’s first time on camera since debuting in It. Here’s Campopiano again, giving me a little background on Georgie: “That was an odd little experiment that me and fellow filmmaker, Ryan Grulich, attempted. It was a lot of fun putting it together. It was a thrill for me to work with both Tony Dakota and Ben Heller in a creative way like that. It was quite rewarding to see both men in front of the camera again. The stars really aligned for us on that one. We’d likely never be able to recreate that sort of timing again.”
  1. “People are gonna forget who the hell Stephen King was, but they’re never gonna forget that fuckin’ clown,” Uncle Stevie empatically said on the Kingcast last year, a remark he’s made another time or two recently. The title of this documentary is helping his case. (It’s patently ridiculous to imagine King will be “forgotten” at any point in even the medium-distant future, but you know, that’s just like, his opinion, man.)
  2. On Nov. 18, 1990, 17.5 million viewers tuned into ABC for the first two-hour installment, and 19.2 million showed up two nights later for the conclusion. Some high-quality newspaper headlines seen during the doc (there were a lot of newspaper pages to fill at that point in history):
    • Crucial Censoring Makes It Fun, Not Foul, To Watch
    • Worst Horror of It Turns Out to Be Its Ending
    • Ritter Lightens Set of Mini-Series, It
    • ABC’s It: This One Isn’t for the Kiddies
    • It Calms King’s Fear of TV
    • Watch It If You Dare, Then Enjoy the Nightmare
  1. There’s been significant news about a burgeoning It-verse since Streamin’ King last touched on the property: Welcome to Derry was just ordered at HBO Max, a prequel series about Pennywise’s origins and the town in various periods, with It helmer Andy Muschietti directing a few episodes and executive producing with sister Barbara. Also 2022’s Gwendy’s Final Task novel King wrote with Richard Chizmar goes BIG in the “we’re back in Derry and we’re unrepentantly referencing Pennywise” department. Great little book.
  2. Fans of this iconic King cat pic will be elated to find it featured at least four to five times in the doc.

CRITICAL CONSENSUS: Rotten Tomatoes has this one at 100% Fresh, and the apotheosis of SK fan sites, Lilja’s Library, said Pennywise: The Story of IT is “impressive” and “well worth the wait,” which itself had “felt painfully long.” On the Kingcast, co-host Scott Wampler decreed, “They’re not fucking around with this documentary. You get some Curry in there, you get some deep dives into the material. There’s all kinds of archival footage in there that I promise you you’ve never seen before. … Seek this thing out.” (Brandon Crane, one of three actors on the entertaining episode, added, “It was educational for me, and I was there.”) Dead Ringers podcast co-host Emily Von Seele’s “freaking fantastic” verdict pointed out what “a huge love fest for Tim Curry” this is. And Michael Roffman of the Losers’ Club podcast called it an “elaborate visual storybook of an era rich with creativity and a slice of IP that has yet to sleep.”

FILMOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT FOR IT (1990): Pet Sematary came in April 1989, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (with George Romero’s “The Cat from Hell” adaptation) in May 1990, Graveyard Shift in October ’90, then It on Nov. 18 and 20, followed by Misery on Nov. 30. Second King novel adapted for TV, 11 years after CBS did Salem’s Lot, though his stories were the basis of two Twilight Zone episodes in the ’80s.

Zach Dionne writes and records Stephen King things regularly at SKzd on Patreon.