JUUUST finished reading the book, which STUNNED me...haven't read a Stephen King story like that in quite a while...so, naturally, I hit the net to see when they were going to make a film out of it.

I was "pleased" to see they already HAD! Was "horrified" to see it was a Made-for-TV mini-series (a la The Stand) and was directed by the same guy who did the TERRRRRIBLE "Sleepwalkers" (note to self: check if "Sleepwalkers" has been reviewed on this site).

So I hit the ol' You Tube and watched it in 13 installments...TERRIBLE. Simply terrible. Even MORE-so since I read the book and knew more about the characters than this trash let on...

I admit Pearlman did a so-so job with Collie Entragian (one of King's BETTER villains since Pennywise)...and they actually DIDN'T shy away from many of the more gruesome aspects of his "acts" and colourful vocabulary...

And the kid did a passible job with David, the Prayboy...though they did lay on the violins a bit too much everytime he prayed or referenced God...

Overall, it was another lame adaptation of a fantastic page-turner!

If you haven't already, you should read 'The Regulators'. It's the companion piece he released as Richard Bachman around the same time he did 'Desperation'. I think I liked that one even more.

I think I might...they say it's a re-imaging of the same story, same characters but "shuffled", no? So you'd have different chars in different roles...

Might be good for a hoot.

I'll add it to my list of must reads...next in line is "The Road" before seeing THAT movie...also want to read "No Country for Old Men"...

WAIT! We're discussing books on this site.

FOR SHAAAAME!

I like books.

Ok, glutton for punishment that I am, I hit the ol' YouTube and gave it a whirl.
Yep, pretty bad!
Thing is, as far as made-for-TV Stephen King adaptations go, it started out with promise.
AND...then it slowly descended into crap.
Thing is, with King novels, they're just so fantastical and his verbal imagery is so unique that one always has a specific notion of what his words look like, or how certain images should be represented. So when you read a great book like 'It' and then you see them cast Tim Curry as Pennywise, well, eyes roll and disappointment sets in. The novel 'Desperation' had a lot of supernatural imagery and strange goings-on that just didn't transfer well in this adaptation.
This is why (IMO) I think King's more human stories work better when made into movies (i.e. Misery, Shawshank, Green Mile, Stand By Me, and The Shining - which admittedly has some suupernatural stuff, but is overall about Nicholson going stir-crazy).
Anyways, here you get a half-assed teleplay and a made-for-TV cast (isn't Matt Frewer in every made-for-TV movie ever?), and WAY too much focus on the God-Prayer kid.
Read the book, skip this film.
TAK!