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.

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.

It has been too many years since I watched the original series. So I had forgotten most of the plot and also, I cannot point out the technical differences between the original series and this fanedit.

But what I CAN say is, this is a very professional-grade edit and it felt like watching a full-length high-quality movie (as much as technically possible given that the original material is not really recent).

The story and scenes all play out flawlessly, no abrupt cuts or weird pacing. Audio is also flawless IMHO.

I was really glad to be able to re-experience the original story in a version that is, overall, a small-ish (in a good way) improvement. The original feeling and experience are still there, but in a more polished package!