The character was portrayed in its Pennywise form by Tim Curry in the 1990 television adaptation and by Bill Skarsgård in the 2017 film adaptation and its 2019 sequel It Chapter Two. King thought of a troll like the one in the children's tale " Three Billy Goats Gruff", though he imagined it living in a sewer system rather than under a bridge. King stated in a 2013 interview that he came up with the idea for Pennywise after asking himself what children feared "more than anything else in the world", and feeling that the answer was clowns. "The Losers Club" becomes aware of Pennywise's presence after he kills Bill's little brother, Georgie. During the course of the story, It primarily appears in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The character is an ancient, trans-dimensional evil entity who preys upon the children (and sometimes adults) of Derry, Maine, roughly every 27 years, using a variety of powers that include the ability to shapeshift, manipulate reality, and go unnoticed by adults. It is the titular main antagonist in Stephen King's 1986 horror novel It. Thank you for your continued support.Top: Tim Curry as Pennywise in the 1990 miniseriesīottom: Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise in the 2017 film This i s the 500th review to be published on FictionMachine , collectively accounting for roughly a quarter of a million words since the website expanded to short-form reviews in February 2017 (the first review was of Gavin O’Connor’s western Jane Got a Gun). Still, as a two-part re-opening of the Stephen King adaptation for business – there have been six new Stephen King film adaptations since It with 10 in development – it acquits itself remarkably well. It is imperfect in places – the climax struggles a little, and an early scene of two homosexual men being assaulted feels tonally misjudged – but overall it satisfies in a manner that the original film did not quite manage. Stylishly shot, well paced, and overall very satisfying, It: Chapter Two feels like a strong improvement, and a solid slice of commercially-minded populist horror. This revised iteration is funnier, and more subtle where it counts: finally a temptation for which you can believe a child would fall. Clowns are naturally creepy characters – more so in the 1980s than the 1950s – and a screaming demonic monster as a clown made a mockery of the idea it could ever tempt a child into harm’s way. Particularly strong is Jessica Chastain – one of the USA’s best contemporary actors – as Beverly: still a victim, but still fighting to escape a legacy of violence.īill Skarsgård brings a much more comfortable and light tone to Pennywise, warming up the character to an extent and in doing so pulling away from the relentless horrors that made him difficult to believe in last time around. With the benefit of age the protagonists have much more depth to them, and a strong cast of actors do an exceptional job of fleshing them out and showing how each has changed and developed in the intervening years.
This sequel did not gain the popular audience or acclaim that its predecessor did, but personally I find it a much stronger film. “It” has returned, and as the last remaining member of the Losers Club still living in Derry, Mike calls and begs his childhood friends to return.
It: Chapter Two is set in the present day, and adapts the second half of King’s lengthy novel. A reduction in Mike’s role in the narrative also hurt the film somewhat, weakening the story’s sole person of colour for no easily justifiable reason. Its take on the demonic clown Pennywise, a character still dominated by Tim Curry’s theatrical performance in the 1990 miniseries, was rather too horrific and bleak, while a shift in setting from the 1950s to the 1980s felt a poor fit for Stephen King’s original novel. Twenty-seven years after a group of children ventured into the sewers of Derry, Maine, to defeat a mysterious shapeshifting killer, a new spate of murders reveals that what they thought was dead has returned: and a promise to come home and finish the job re-unites Beverly (Jessica Chastain), Bill (James MacAvoy), Richie Tozier (Bill Hader), Mike (Isaiah Mustafa), Ben (Jay Ryan), and Eddie (James Ransone) one final time.Īndy Muschietti’s first It film was a huge commercial success, but made quite a few changes from the novel that did not entirely satisfy.
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