IT

It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real… They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name.

Why we’re looking forward to this: Stephen King’s IT is quite literally a monster of a book, clocking in at well over a thousand pages, and remains one of his best loved tales. There was a two part mini-series made in 1990, starring Tim Curry as Pennywise in a role that he is fondly remembered for, and while it was actually a pretty good adaptation, the ending left a lot to be desired.

In addition, and a similar criticism can be levelled at the 1994 television adaptation of King’s other masterpiece The Stand, it suffered from the limits of what could be shown on TV at the time, and so the horror aspect was somewhat muted, but this is something that director Cary Fukanaga has addressed, stating that he wants to bring back some of the viciousness of the book.

We’re very heartened to hear, then, that this new adaptation will be split into two movies, the first dealing with the novel’s protagonists when they are children, and the second picking up several decades later when they realise that IT is back, and that they have to face, um, it all over again.

Much has been made of the fact that Will Poulter (The Maze Runner) has been cast as Pennywise, but we happen to think that by making the creepy clown a younger, almost innocent presence – on the surface anyway – it may just up the ante in terms of him being genuinely terrifying.

King himself is also apparently very pleased with Fukanaga’s take on his story, with the original 1960s setting being updated, most probably to the 1980s, in order to set the adult part of the story in the present, so if the Master of Horror is happy, then so are we.

It begins filming June 2015.

RICHARD COSGROVE