Stephen King's IT: The Cinematic Cut

I write this review having revisited the edit recently, after first watching it around its release.

I am very pleased to say that the high quality I remembered from my first viewing was neither imagined nor unduly expanded by hindsight - this is an excellent presentation of the best elements of the 1990 miniseries, reworked with an eye towards more modern sensibilities.

There are one or two moments I noticed where the musical transitions where just abrupt enough to signal that something had been reworked there, but I'm almost certain those will be down to limitations of the source material. They are more than made up for by all the hard work that has gone into this edit. This is a permanent replacement for the original as far as I'm concerned.

This was such a great way to watch this miniseries! I felt like even more than 20 minutes was cut because at no point was I bored or felt like it was dragging. In fact I couldn't believe only 20 minutes was missing! You tightened it up and kept all the important stuff while removing lots of filler and dated special effects.

I did notice one harsh audio cut at 1:53:11, but outside of that this edit is flawless.

Each character gets the love they deserve and the story feels warm and full of classic Stephen King life. Excellent work!

There were a couple of instances where the cuts seemed jarring. The new music and sound effects were also too loud in comparison to the rest of the audio. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this edit very much.

THEY FLOAT, GEORGIE. THEY ALL FLOAT!

This edit of the 1990 IT TV mini-series was SO good to watch. All of the power of the original series is preserved or improved upon and a vastly reduced number of jarring distractions are removed. The original TV series has a lot of great value, scare factor and great narrative for Stephen King's story but suffered from some clunky acting and special effects. I remember watching the original 1990 TV series version and finding the switch to 1985 really jarring, and noticeably more on a re-watch a few years back.
This edit fixes so much of that and the weaving between 1960 and 1985 works really well. as does the new framing, and the location title cards are a nice idea and I find this version makes it very clear which adult is portraying which child. The re-ordering of the scenes is amazing as is the edit and special effects that have been added. Even though nearly half an hour has been removed I didn't seem to notice any removals that detracted from the story and all of the best lines (I still laugh at Eddie's mom "you don't need friends, you just need your ma" ) and all the best scenes I remember were still in there too. I liked the soundtrack as well. The fear factor presented by Pennywise to the viewer is really amplified whilst maintaining his clown "charm" . His introduction is great too. Some occasional choices made in the original production can't be changed but this was such an enjoyable watch. I knew there was a great movie in there.
Conrad has made other changes here which are so seamless that the best compliment I can give is that I didn't have any overlong boring scenes or bad film-making which took me out the narrative like in the original edit. A thrill seeing this tightened and heightened edit. Very well done indeed.

I hope Tim Curry gets to see this version of IT, such a good actor. He really shines though. Loved the Pennywise nod with the balloon in the end credits! BEEP BEEP, RICHIE!

What a marked improvement of the original miniseries! Conrad MacIntyre succeeded in elevating the original cut with a theatric aspect ratio and darker, grimmer color palette. The narrative is tightened considerably without losing coherence. There were minor edits that pulled my from the film - fast cuts used when It attacks for example, do help to offer a more aggressive tone, but contrast with how the rest of the film is cut.

That's a minor nitpick however in an experience that now stands alongside other 80s horror in its horrifying offerings.