But, if I remember correctly, it was quite the difficult read. Gangly and convoluted, even compared to King's massive The Stand, it was tough to get through. And, the whole supernatural quasi-demon alien shit at the end with the Deadlights and The Universe Turtle, and, of course, the bizarre sex shit really threw me for a loop.
I like SK stories to leave the interpretation of phycological or supernatural explanation up to the reader. Stuff like The Shining, was it psychosis induced by life-long alcohol abuse (or in the case of Wendy's visions, battered wife syndrome) or supernatural haunted hotel shit, or both? You can even believe all the interactions Halloran had with Danny could be Danny's own dose of the crazies.
IT didn't do "it" for me. In fact, after that book, I started to become a little less gaga over new King novels and collections. It was the end of my "number one fan" reign. Until a year later with Misery. Then all was forgiven.
Over the past week or so, I caught up on rewatching all the IT miniseries and movies. Somehow I thought there was a feature film in the 90s but it turns out it was a TV 2-night miniseries, which I do remember, but I thought it was preceded by a theatrical box office release. Memory slip? Or Mandala Effect? Hmm.
Anyway, there were 2 theatrically released bigger budget films if IT in 2017 and 2019 respectively, splitting the kid/adult stories essentially into two. Oh, I really liked the 2017 film. I just finished it tonight and as I moved through it scene by scene it came back to me that I had seen it before. Maybe at the movies or more likely considering I hadn't remembered it till seeing it again, I watched it during a previous stream while drinking. I watched the 2019 one, most likely for the first time, last week, and in between, I rewatched the 1990 mini-series which surprisingly held up pretty well. Skittish way to binge it, I know, but I cam across them accidentally on Tubi for the newer ones and I think Hulu for the older one.
The films lifted my spirits oddly enough. Made me see that big, bad monsters lurking in the dark are many times just clowns waiting to capitalize on one's own fears. You got to face these fuckers down and kill 'em. Kill 'em good! And if they try to come back, you promise to come right back too, and kick IT to fucking hell!