It (1990)

Unintentionally hilarious because of the dated effects, but hilarious all the same, "It" is one of the iconic Stephen King novels brought to horrifying life on the small screen.  This interesting spectacle can be accredited to terrifying children and impressionable youths who were blown away by the effects of the time, and most notably starting the lingering effects of coulrophobia for many viewers.

I would like to say that this is the case of another black man a team of monster busters, but really, this starts out with the librarian calling his amnesiac friends to remember a promise they made in their youth. So begins the seemingly endless flashbacks back-and-forth to a group of kids who were prime targets for bullying, and thus banded together to find solace in each others' quirks. Through many scenes of bonding and finding strength in each other, they also find themselves wrapped up in the grand conspiracy of their little Maine town: that children just up and get murdered and the adults do nothing about it.  Further digging reveal that these horrific mutilations seem to be by a shape-shifting entity that seems to favor Tim Curry in poofy clothes, white face paint, and a red wig. Through a lot of dumb luck and a hope and prayer that their meager tools were enough, these kids vanquished the demon and sent it packing. Just in case though, they swore to return and destroy the evil once and for all. Now that they're all wildly successful adults (not in love anyway, but whatevs), they are VERY reluctant to not only face the demons of their past, but the literal demon who can Nightmare on Elm Street their very sanity away. Can they even beat the thing now that they're adults and have pretty much lost their youthful optimism?

It's funny that the credits list Tim Curry as a "special appearance" since this guy steals the show almost as much as Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean." He is playful yet very menacing; he's hammy yet as deadly serious as you can get in a clown getup; the voice is iconic, and the only thing that weighs it down is that his last appearance is as some kind of stop-motion arthropod (spider?) with a lightup belly. Considering the actor himself had to avoid all mirrors since he is terrified of clowns, this performance is truly an iconic role.

The rest of the film however, is hindered from being truly a "horror" movie. If horror films to you comes from getting immersed in the dread of the situations the characters are going through, you'll be sucked out of the immersion from the hammy acting from nearly everyone involved, the cliches that most of Stephen King's work is known for, and the strange tonal whiplash of trying to juxtapose heavy and disturbing material with goofy antics and strange, happy music segments. I would recommend this one only if you have 3 hours to kill and a couple of pals with who you can riff the film.

Gotta respect the classic jokes from kids' joke books.