The Eater of Films and of Children: Stephen King's IT

      Clowns....y'all know they're real creepy. Once meant to bring laughter, clowns now bring what's mostly anxiety and fear. This is extremely manifested in the media and on film. That, ladies and gentlemen is where ETF introduces Stephen King, an iconic horror writer. One of his works is a story called, It. When the book was adapted into a 2-part tv movie in 1990, one of Hollywood's scariest clowns was born. 

       Once upon a time, there was a town in Maine called Derry. Children are disappearing and when they're found, the sight of what's left of them is horrific. No one knows what's happening. Nobody, that is, except for 7 friends. When they were kids, they and other children were terrorized by an evil clown called Pennywise. Apart from being evil, Pennywise is no ordinary clown. He has the ability to change into whatever you're afraid of. He does this to children, and then proceeds to eat them. Since he isn't actually a clown, he earns the name of It. This group of friends, calling themselves "Lucky Seven," takes it upon themselves to venture into It's lair and destroy it in order to save the other children in Derry. They succeeded the first time, but now It's back. Will Lucky Seven come back together to destroy It once and for all, or are they all going to be It's next meal?

    Pennywise is given plenty of scenes in the film, and when he's on screen, it's impossible to focus on anything else. Derry looks like a run-down, dull place, and has not much color. Pennywise, being a clown, stands out with his vivid clothes and bright red hair. Intentional or not, this effect makes Pennywise all the scarier because he doesn't blend in with the rest of Derry. 

     It makes us think about how we face and react to our fears. Each of us fear different things, including the kids of Lucky Seven. A lot of the time, but not always, It puts strain on the some of them by taking the form of a specific person. For Beverly Marsh, it was her abusive father. For Bill, it was his little brother, George. The link with seeing these people? They provide weakness, making the victim more vulnerable to It. In addition to the mere sight of the person, they would usually say things that would bother the desired person. When Beverly saw her father, she heard him say, "Bevey, what do you think you're doing down here with these boys? Now get home." This was naturally distressing to Beverly so she tried answering or talking to the hallucination as she would her real father. Luckily, the others were able to remind her that who and what she was seeing wasn't real. 
 
    Once something's gone, it's gone right? Not always. This surfaces multiple times throughout the film. The main thing is Lucky Seven's impression that It was dead. But now it's thirty years later, and It's back and hungry once again. When the friends come back to Derry and stay in a hotel, they're unexpectedly confronted by an older and insane Henry Bowers, a fellow student who had bullied them as kids. The meaning is basically that you never know when, and if, something could come back to haunt you. 

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