Tim Curry in the Pennywise Makeup Again
Why Tim Curry's Pennywise Is Nonetheless Scarier than Whatsoever Modern-Twenty-four hour period Monster
"I am every nightmare you've always had."
There are enough of images that still stupor and disturb when you revisit the original miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's IT , which debuted on ABC 30 years agone today. The leper design is withal stomach-churning. The teenage werewolf is a gnarly throwback to classic creature features. Adult Pecker Denbrough's (Richard Thomas) ponytail remains a mode choice more nightmarish than anything King himself e'er dreamed upwardly. But there's really only ane aspect of the Information technology miniseries that stands the test of fourth dimension, across how like shooting fish in a barrel it is to mercilessly douse on the raccoon pelt escaping from the back of Neb'due south caput. That would be Tim Curry's truly timeless operation as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, the immortal fear-demon that haunts Derry, Maine, more normally referred to, just, as It. If you lot're of a certain age–say late 20s, early on 30s—you lot probably call up where you were when Curry'southward Pennywise first popped upward from backside a line of linen and taught you what it meant to ruin a pair of pants over a scary movie for the first time. It'due south a no-brainer to telephone call the character a horror icon. But when was the last time you lot revisited this performance in full and in context? Information technology's still scary, it's still funny, simply it'southward likewise a fascinating masterclass onwhy a character becomes iconic in the first place.
Like Andy Muschietti's contempo two-part film adaptation, the 1990Information technology miniseries adheres pretty closely to the events of the book, minus a reality-bending child orgy and at to the lowest degree ane cosmic turtle. (IT is goddamn wild.) Vii misfit children, bonded past the blazon of pure, unironic beloved that could only form between kids on the fringes, defeat the fear-devouring entity that haunts their pocket-sized town. 27 years later, grown up and scattered around the earth, the crew returns to Derry when it becomes clear the monster isn't quite every bit dead as they believed. It's one of King'southward best works, an absolute unit of a book packed with equal parts warmth and terror, and director Tommy Lee Wallace gamely tried to pack equally much of those vibes as possible into his ii 90-minute episodes. But the glue holding both past and present—and the reason the miniseries is worth a rewatch at all—is Back-scratch, bouncing through the narrative in total clown regalia, half Bozo, one-half Beelzebub.
Again, over the years the effectiveness of Curry's Pennywise has been boiled down to "clowns are scary," which isn't inaccurate. Think when clowns were just popping up in the woods a few years ago? Did we always get to the bottom of that? Either way, it'd be a shame to lose the brilliant subtleties both Curry and Wallace brought to a role that is not, on the surface, subtle at all. Unlike Pecker Skarsgard's 2022 take on the character—besides not bad, for completely different reasons—there are no concrete augmentations to Curry'southward clown-form Pennywise; no inhumanly big forehead, no wandering eyes. Before he reveals his terrifying truthful face, Curry is just...a clown, and information technology's the context that's jarring. It's that idea of the Monumental Horror Image, that the scariest visual is simply something being where it absolutely should not be. A clown sitting in a grave, for example. 1 of the virtually memorable moments of IT doesn't involve any over-the-top makeup or VFX, information technology just sees Curry gleefully telling a terrible joke—"Say, do y'all have Prince Albert in a tin can?"—afterwards taunting the adult Richie Tozier (Harry Anderson) with a library filled with claret. The result, in Curry's own words, was "the idea of turning what a clown is upside-down, then he's not peculiarly lovable."
But so much of that is also nigh how rapidly Curry could turn the clown act into something menacing, fifty-fifty earlier the monstrous contact lenses and teeth. Curry gave Pennywise a strong Bronx accent that hits like a falling star in IT'southward small-town Maine surroundings; coupled with the histrion's deep, played-to-the-back-seats baritone, every line Pennywise delivers gives an unsettling sense of a peek backside a curtain. It's like yous're simultaneously watching a circus clown take a dramatic pratfall on stage and a smoke interruption between sets at the same time. The mode Curry twists the makeup with a sneer or pounds punchlines like a bass pulsate forms an embodiment of why, subconsciously, nosotros find clowns scary; Back-scratch'south Pennywise is a abiding reminder that beneath every painted-on smile is a person capable of anything. Except, in this case, he is literally capable of anything. "I am every nightmare you've ever had," Pennywise tells a horrified Losers Club in one of Back-scratch'due south best line deliveries. "I am your worst dream come up true. I'm everything you ever were agape of."
And really, it's those small touches that add up to something iconic. Curry'southward Pennywise is proof that performances last longer than your most cutting-border effects. Scares that stick under your pare for months, much less years, can only come from a identify that feels at least a little real. The terminate-move spider that ends the It miniseries is a dopey, dated footnote in horror history. (Curry, hilariously, on the spider: "I hope [Andy Muschietti] makes the ending better, because on Goggle box I turned into a sort of giant spider. And, it was...not very scary.) But that bike continues: The third-human activity of IT: Affiliate Two also turns Pennywise into a massive beast, impressively rendered in slick CGI, and it still feels soulless next to the deranged concrete performance from Bill Skarsgard. Look, also, to the 2010 Nightmare on Elm Street remake; the effects team went to bang-up lengths to turn their Freddy Krueger into a more realistic burn victim, but Jackie Earle Haley—a fantastic actor!—didn't give the character any of Robert Englund's soul. Or, also, the 2019 Kid'southward Play remake, which introduced reintroduced the franchise with a clever, modern techy twist, only in turning Chucky into a malfunctioning circuit board, it also sucked all playfulness out of one of the all-time voice actors alive, Marker Hamill.
In that style, Tim Curry's Pennywise offers upwards a blueprint for which of our modern-day monsters might stand the test of time. What is the Saw puppet without Tobin Bell's voice? What is the macabre menagerie of the Conjuring -verse without Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson grounding them? Horror icons are born from homo touches. The original Pennywise still floats through our nightmares because Tim Curry pumped fears into a recognizable shell, like helium into a airship.
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Source: https://collider.com/why-tim-curry-pennywise-is-horror-icon/
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