Film / It (2017)

"We all float down here..."

"Derry's not like any town I've ever been in before. People die or disappear six times the national average. And that's just grown ups. Kids are worse. Way, way worse."

— Ben Hanscom

It (a.k.a. It: Chapter One) is a 2017 supernatural horror film directed by Andrés Muschietti and written by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman, and the first of a two-part adaptation of Stephen King's classic 1986 horror novel of the same name. The film tells the story of seven children as they are terrorized by the eponymous being, which exploits the fears and phobias of its victims in order to disguise itself while hunting its prey. The film depicts roughly half the book, focusing on most of the childhood events of the main characters.

The film stars Bill Skarsgård as IT/Pennywise The Dancing Clown, Jaeden Martell as William "Bill" Denbrough, Jeremy Ray Taylor as Ben Hanscom, Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh, Finn Wolfhard as Richie Tozier, Wyatt Oleff as Stanley Uris, Chosen Jacobs as Mike Hanlon, Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie Kaspbrak, and Nicholas Hamilton as Henry Bowers.

Set in 1989 in the fictional town of Derry, Maine, the story begins when a young boy named George "Georgie" Denbrough disappears after the sudden arrival of a mysterious clown named Pennywise. Georgie's older brother, Bill, is left distraught by his disappearance, and after an encounter with Pennywise, looks for the help of six other outcasts who have had similar encounters with the clown and its other forms. The seven work together to examine the behavior of this shapeshifting creature — which they dub "IT" — and see if they can rescue Bill's missing brother at the same time.

The movie is an adaptation of the parts of the novel that are about the Losers as children and was released on September 8, 2017. A sequel, It: Chapter Two, based on the parts of the novel about the Losers in adulthood (with flashbacks to their childhood), was released on September 6, 2019. A prequel series for HBO Max was announced in March 2022, under the title Welcome to Derry.

Previews: Trailer 1 (preview), Trailer 2. Trailer 3

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These tropes float...

• The '80s: The film is set in 1988/1989 (the original book was set in 1957/1958).
• '80s Hair: Henry has a mullet as opposed to a ducktail.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Derry's network of storm drains and sewers is big enough for people to maneuver through, draining into the Barrens. They converge at an old cistern under the Neibolt house, where Pennywise has made its lair.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Beverly's father is extremely possessive of her to the point of showing an incestuous interest, and tries to act on it. It's also likely this was not the first time he did, from Beverly's fear of him and, moreover, of blood. Eddie's mother is emotionally abusive to him, encouraging his fears around his poor health and deliberately instilling hypochondria in him.
  • Henry Bowers' father is both neglectful of his son (letting him run wild when the boy is clearly violent toward others and possibly a danger to himself) as well as psychologically abusive, having no qualms firing a gun inches from Henry's feet to frighten him and humiliate him in front of his friends. In a deleted scene, Henry is caring for some nasty cuts and bruises, implied to be inflicted by his father, also making the elder Bowers physically abusive.
• Action Girl: Beverly Marsh is the most physically active of the Losers and inflicts the most damage on Pennywise. Bonus points for utterly defying his attempts to scare her.
• Adapted Out: Small, but still worth noting:
  • Gard Jaegermyer, Peter Gordon and Moose Sadler, one of the lesser known members of the Bowers gang.
  • Minor characters such as Arlene Hanscom, Ms. Douglas, Captain Hanscom, Dave Gardener, and James Gardener. Also Beverly's mother—in both adaptations, she's nowhere to be found.
  • Finally, both the Ritual of Chüd and (aside from easter eggs) the Turtle. The Ritual of Chüd would ultimately be reincorporated into the second half, although this time, it’s completely useless.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • Many of the Losers' initial encounters with IT in the book are changed or cut entirely, with only Eddie and Beverly's encounters remaining intact. Whether or not Richie's encounter still happened is a bit ambiguous; he says he's the only one who hasn't, but that's also what he says in the book, where it is finally revealed more than halfway through that he did have his own experience.
    • A good example is the projector scene, which is a composite of two different encounters with IT from the book (Bill seeing a picture of Georgie winking at him; and Pennywise jumping out of a book of Derry history) but modified to make the sequence more engaging on film.
  • Richie's sense of humor is modified, where he now makes a lot more risqué jokes and becomes Sir Swears-a-Lot. In the novel, he is more of an off-the-walls goofball who does (very bad) Voices, including some ethnic caricatures that were pushing Values Dissonance even in the '80s. This may be done to downplay Richie's obnoxiousness and make him more funny and appealing to the audience, but has the effect now leaving his only claim to Loser-hood being his Nerd Glasses and probably also the fact that he clearly thinks that he's much funnier than he actually is.
  • In the novel, Bill and Richie plan out their trip to the Neibolt house beforehand, bringing Bill's dad's gun, Bill's slingshot, and as a gag from their conversation, Richie brings his sneezing powder — the last of which is actually the most effective due to Richie's power of belief and allows them to escape the pursuing monster on bike. With all of them now thoroughly convinced of IT's existence, the Losers then take the time to try to find out more information about IT, staging a smokehole to get visions of IT's arrival on Earth, melting down silver dollars into silver slugs, and all of them practicing with Bill's slingshot to figure out who's the best shot (it's Beverly) in preparation to shoot IT with silver, before they take IT on. They also determine that the adults of Derry (and it's implied, outside Derry, with nobody picking up on the on-and-off murders in Derry) are under IT's control and will not help them, adding an extra frightening factor to their situation. Their movie counterparts do not prepare as much or get as much information on IT, presumably because it'd take up too much time in the movie. Becomes an Idiot Ball in the case of the first trip to the Neibolt house, where they even rush in entirely unarmed against IT, and upon the climatic trip into the well, don't take precautions against getting split up despite knowing they need to stick together and in doing so lose the only advantage they know they have against IT, which almost gets Stan and Bill killed and results in them losing most of the shots in the only weapon they brought. IT's control over the adults is also only suggested and not explicitly stated by the Losers' Club.
  • At one point, the novel uses a form of The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You where IT hijacks the narration and talks about IT's age and killing prowess. Since a scene like that is basically impossible to do on film, it's replaced with a Character Tic where one of IT's eyes always stares at the camera.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Georgie's death is fairly close to the original novel, but after Pennywise bites off his arm, he remains alive and crawls on the ground, yelling for Bill. Pennywise then stretches out his arm and drags him in the sewers, instead of leaving him for dead on the road.
  • Betty Ripsom finally makes an appearance, having only been mentioned in the source material. Hooray for her! It's as a severed torso hanging in one of the rooms of the Neibolt house.
  • Beverly's first encounter with IT is lifted straight from the book, with voices coming from her sink drain before blood bursts out and covers the bathroom. The film adds to it, however, with Bev having cut her hair to look less desirable and that hair coming back out of the drain to restrain her to the sink and force her to be covered in the blood. The scene also gains a menstrual/puberty subtext, with Beverly's discomfort about buying tampons preceding the encounter.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication:
  • Pennywise says "Beep-beep, Richie!" when encountering him, which is taken from the book, where it was the Losers' phrase to shut Richie up when he was getting annoying or not taking things seriously enough. However, in the film, Pennywise is the only character to say it (the Losers just say "shut up, Richie"), making it seem to come out of nowhere.
  • Averted with the Leper form IT takes to scare Eddie. In the book, Eddie saw the Leper after encountering a sickly hobo on Neibolt Street, with IT creating the Leper form as an exaggeration of that encounter. While the film omits the real hobo that IT based the form on, the Leper still ties into Eddie's hypochondria and germophobia, so it is still resonant.
• Adaptational Attractiveness:
  • The Losers are cute, yet realistic-looking kids, and Henry Bowers and his gang are nowhere near as grim as they're described in the book.
  • Pennywise is this as well, being played by a much younger and physically fit actor, and doesn't have a big bald spot on his head.
• Adaptational Dye-Job:
  • Averted: Pennywise had primary-red hair in the 1990 movie, but it was orange in the novel, just as in this film.
  • Played straight by Bill, who is a brunette here but a redhead like Beverly in the book, and by the platinum blond Victor.
• Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed - perhaps more a case of Adaptational Sympathy. In the book Butch Bowers (Henry's father) was an insane ex-Marine. He killed the chickens of Mike's father and was a racist, anti-semitic sexist. He also rewards his son for killing Mike's dog. He regularly chased kids and beat his son. Here he is a police officer and shows none of his insane or racist behavior. He stops his son from bullying the Losers and from shooting a cat. He comes across as a no-nonsense, Good is Not Nice kind of guy who does what he thinks is right to set his delinquent son straight with Tough Love, as opposed to being the novel's sociopath.
  • Butch's way of punishing his son is by shooting the gun near him and a deleted scene makes it clear he physically abuses him as well so it's played with.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • The librarian in the book was a sweet lady who Ben admired and liked, and who liked him in turn and was impressed by his maturity. In the film, she questions Ben's presence in the library by saying he ought to be with friends, which makes him feel uncomfortable because he has none.
  • Mr. Keene the pharmacist isn't the kindest man in the book, but ultimately has the principles to tell Eddie he's been taking placebo medication meant to placate his mother. In the film, his daughter instead unkindly reveals the information to Eddie, which suggests that Mr. Keene is unbothered by Eddie's situation in this version, and he also has some creepy interactions with the underaged Beverly, buying into the flirty behavior she puts on to distract him from the shoplifting Losers.
  • In the book Victor Criss nearly joins the Losers and tried to stop Henry from cutting Ben. In the film we never see Victor consider leaving Henry and he is seen smiling when Henry is cutting Ben with Belch being the horrified one instead in that scene.
• Adaptational Modesty: The book has some scenes that are unsurprisingly left out, like the young Losers having sex with Beverly in sequence after defeating IT, and Beverly witnessing Patrick Hockstetter giving Henry Bowers a handjob and offering fellatio. IT as the Leper is also not sexual like he is in the book, where he parrots a hobo's offer of oral sex to Eddie.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed. Henry Bowers is still an insane bully in this adaptation. However, in the book Henry showed no form of kindness whatsoever to the Losers. Here, he gives Bill a free pass from his bullying because of Georgie going missing. Also some of his more murderous acts in the book like killing Mike's dog Mr. Chips or trying to murder Mike with firecrackers are toned down to trying but failing to shoot a cat and simply trying to hit Mike in the face with one rock. Here, Henry also only goes murderous when IT starts manipulating him whereas in the book he was already murderous before IT manipulated him as he nearly drowned Bill in a dunk tank, whitewashed Stan's face with bleach until it bleeds, and broke Richie's glasses. All of those acts were removed here. Also in the book he anti-Semitic, sexist and tried to rape Beverly outright and called Mike the n-word. Here he has no interactions with Stan, merely taunts Beverly about her rumors and never calls Mike any racial slur.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Patrick Hockstetter goes from a psychopath with a hobby of killing animals and murdered his baby brother at age five in the book to a generic bully here whose most horrible action is simply him scaring Ben with a flamethrower.
• Adaptational Villainy: Alvin Marsh is an abusive father to Beverly as a result of possible suppressed urges in the book (at one point Bev's mother asks her if he ever "touches" her; the intent goes over Bev's head). He also had moments where he was legitimately kind and loving towards Bev and when he did try to sexually assault her, its clear IT was possessing him. In the miniseries, he is more overprotective with no indications of incest. In the film, his sexual feelings for Bev are much more overt, and the situation is made scarier because her mother is dead in this version, leaving her completely alone with him.
• Adults Are Useless:
  • In dealing with the plague on their town, and in general. IT is shown, both explicitly and implicitly, to dull the adults' awareness of the violence happening under their noses; a couple is shown slowing down and looking, but ultimately driving past, as Henry's gang attacks Ben, as a single red balloon floats in their backseat. Later it's shown that new missing child posters are pasted over the old ones, as if to pretend there isn't a spree going on.
  • Even the parents who aren't outright abusive (such as Mr. Marsh or Mrs. Kaspbrak) still falter constantly and are shown to misjudge their children when trying to help them.
    • Mr. Hanlon, having suffered the loss of Mike's parents, tries to toughen his grandson up and show him how to be decisive to help avoid making him an easy target for the town's racism, but acts on it by making him slaughter a sheep with a cattle gun.
    • Stan's father harshly berates him when he flubs while practicing Hebrew for his Bar Mitzvah, and selfishly frames the whole thing to be about how Stan failing such a huge ceremony will shame him (if the son of the town's only rabbi can't lead services, they'll lose favor with the community and God).
    • The town librarian is possibly the only adult in town that doesn't behave in a hostile way towards children, but she fits this trope too; upon seeing Ben reading in summer, she tells him to go outside instead and make friends. Although it's well meaning, she indirectly rubs it in that the poor kid doesn't have any friends.
    • Bill's parents in spades: The loss of Georgie has his mother literally be non-existent and his father coldly and angrily tell him Georgie's dead after Bill tries to explain his "theory" that Georgie was in the Barrens and still being in denial of his death.
  • Henry Bowers gets his bullying ways from his father, who is violently abusive toward him; after Henry tries to shoot a cat simply For the Evulz, his father fires shots near his feet to provoke a scared reaction in front of Henry's friends and humiliate him. A deleted scene makes it clear he beats him at home as well. Pennywise gives Henry his missing knife to convince him to kill his father.
  • The woman who notices Georgie looking into the storm drain at the start. She sees blood spreading across the street seconds later, no sign of Georgie... and does nothing.
• Aerosol Flamethrower: Patrick, one of Bower's gang members, uses one and lights his way in a sewer pipe with it.
• Age Lift: The Losers and the Bowers Gang. Both groups were kids in the source novel, with the former now being young teens and the latter being mid-to late teens.
• Already the Case: Mike initially rebuffs the Losers' friendship offer, saying it'd make them a target for Henry Bowers and his gang. The Losers promptly inform him that they saved his ass, and Henry's already targeting them.
• Ambiguously Jewish: Richie makes comically ignorant comments about Stan's circumcision before Stan's Bar Mitzvah. However, Richie attends Stan's Bar Mitzvah and is played by an actor with Jewish heritage. It's unclear if Richie is just attending for moral support or if he's a fairly secular and irreverent Jew. In the book, he is not Jewish, but the film is less clear.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • IT rips Georgie's arm off when dragging the boy into the sewers. When Georgie shows up later missing an arm, this might trick the audience into thinking it's the real Georgie, since they were shown him losing his arm, but Bill wasn't.
  • IT waves a detached child's arm at Mike while hiding in bushes.
• Artistic License – Religion: In the scene where Stan is practicing his Torah portion, he's actually reciting the aliyah, a blessing that is recited before and after a portion of the Torah is read.^note During a Bar or Bat Mitzvah ceremony, an oleh (congregant who recites the aliyah) is traditionally a family member, except for the final reading, where the Torah reader him/herself gives the last blessing. This would be excusable, except Stan's rabbi specifically criticizes him for being unable to finish his Torah portion when he is practicing the aliyah.
• Ascended Extra: Greta. In the book, she's named Greta Bowie and is one of the school Alpha Bitch girls. She dislikes Beverly for being one of the prettier girls in school, but doesn't actively bully her the way she does in the film. Her role in the film is also expanded into being Mr. Keene the pharmacist's daughter. His Mr. Exposition role in telling Eddie his medication is a placebo goes to Greta. Also counts as Spared By Adaptation, since Eddie sees her walking corpse when he goes to the Tracker Brothers' abandoned lot. In the book, she died in a car crash at the age of 18 but is alive and well in It: Chapter Two.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Butch Bowers is just as much of an abusive father as in the book, beating his son from losing his switchblade, shooting a gun inches away from his feet to terrify him into tears and clearly being the reason for Henry’s violent behavior. He ends up being killed by his own son.
  • While downplayed from the book version, Patrick Hockstetter is still a bastard here, threatening to light Ben on fire when Henry's gang has him cornered. When Patrick goes looking for the Losers in the sewer, It scares the shit out of him with the visage of It's previous victims, before butchering him.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: During the projector scene, a King Kong-sized Pennywise climbs out of a projection and into the garage with the Losers, baring more teeth than can fit in his mouth.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Anthrax's "Antisocial" serves as the background music to the rock war scene.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Henry tries to shoot a cat while playing with his father's gun.
• Badass Boast: Delivered by Richie just before the final beat down.
  "And now I have to kill this fucking clown. Welcome to the Loser's Club, ASSHOLE!"
• Bait-and-Switch: The girl working at the pharmacy asks Eddie why no one signed his cast. She then says she will, but in the next scene, we see she wrote the word "LOSER" on it, which Eddie tried to cover up with a "V" over the "S".
• Balloon of Doom: The titular Eldritch Abomination often carries balloons in its Monster Clown disguise or leaves balloons for the children to find as a tacit threat that it's watching them. Exaggerated when It appears before Eddie standing stock-still, its face hidden by the point of a huge triangle arrangement of red balloons.
• Batman Gambit: Pennywise kidnaps Beverly because he knows the boys will inevitably try to rescue her, bringing the group back together after they split up in the wake of their first fight with IT.
• Batter Up!: Richie grabs a baseball bat from Pennywise's trophy collection to use against him during the fight at the climax.
• Beauty Inversion: The dashing Bill Skarsgård had to sit in the makeup chair for more than four hours each day to transform into Pennywise.
• Big "NO!": Georgie lets out one when his paper boat is about to be washed down a storm drain.
• Bittersweet Ending: The killings have stopped — for now — and the Losers manage to save Beverly before they all promise to return to Derry if It ever comes back. However, several children are dead, including Georgie, which Bill has finally come to terms with after being in denial. Beverly is also moving to another town to live with her aunt, and it's implied that the Losers are beginning to lose their memories.
• Blatant Lies: The doors marked "Scary", "Very Scary", "Not Scary at All".
• Bloodier and Gorier: Compared to the 1990 movie made for television, this version is by far more graphic and violent, which is closer to the book.
• Body Horror:
  • When Pennywise shows Bev the Deadlights, his mouth peels open and lifts his face off, revealing the light.
    • in fact, if you look you see the opening follows the red clown markings on It's face, implying that is It's actual mouth.
  • When Bill meets Georgie in the basement, Georgie begins to repeat the phrase "You'll float too!" as his body starts decaying.
  • Mundane example: when Eddie flees Pennywise and ends up crashing through the second story house floor, he breaks his arm very badly, leaving it hanging limply at a disturbingly bad angle. He isn't in much pain at least, because he's in shock. When the other kids save him, however, one of them quickly snaps his arm straight again, to reset the bones, which hurts like hell.
  • IT as the leper, whose rotted face is shown in loving detail.
• Boom, Headshot!: Bill delivers one to a Georgie-disguised Pennywise with Mike's cattle pistol.
• Boyish Short Hair: Beverly cuts her hair out of disgust at her father and is portrayed as a short-haired tomboy.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: IT's deviated stare is a subtle version of this. One of his eyes always seems to be staring directly at the viewer, while the other is facing whatever is drawing its attention within the film.
• But Now I Must Go: At the end, Beverly announces to the other Losers she's moving to her aunt's to escape her incest-seeking father. She and Bill kiss.
• Canon Foreigner: The Flute Player, a.k.a. Judith, who is an entirely new creation for the film and has no basis in the source material, unlike IT's other forms. Instead, she's based on the director's childhood fear of the paintings of Jewish artist Amedeo Modigliani.
• Character Catchphrase: "You'll float too."
• Celebrity Resemblance: After Beverly cuts her hair, she ends up resembling Molly Ringwald. Lampshaded by Richie.
• Censored Child Death: Double Subverted. When It was about to kill Georgie, instead of an offscreen death, we see him ripping his arm off, with Georgie trying to escape. Then It reaches out to get him. This time, his death is offscreen.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Bowers's switchblade returns to prominence when he uses it to murder his father.
  • Mike's boltgun is shown at his Establishing Character Moment, where he hesitates to kill a sheep. He later is shown killing a sheep with it and then brings it with him for the final confrontation.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe:
  • "IT's" powers run on this, as Bill and Richie are able to escape a trap set by IT simply by accepting that it isn't real.
  • Similarly Bill tries shooting Pennywise again with an empty needle gun, which Mike tries to warn him about. Since he thinks the gun still works, it still ends up hurting him.
• Cold Ham: While Tim Curry fully embraced being a Large Ham in the television movie, Bill Skarsgård's portrayal of the character seems to be based less in hamming it up and more in being creepy while remaining a bit larger-than-life. Since he's playing a Monster Clown, he can't be too serious.
• Coming of Age Story: What the movie is at its core, covered under the guise of a horror movie. It's a story about seven kids coming to terms with the uglier realities of life as their childhoods come to an end.
• Crapsack World: Derry, in spades. This is largely due to Pennywise's presence. The adults notice when children go missing, putting up posters, but gradually lose interest and put minimal effort into finding them (it's noted, at one point, new "missing" posters are just stapled up over old ones, like the previous children don't matter). No one but Ben notes the alarmingly high death rate in the town, which is readily available information for anyone who cares to look.
• Creepy Child: Little Georgie appears to Bill as a somewhat deranged figure lurking in the basement following his own encounter with Pennywise. Justified by the fact that it's not Georgie, but Pennywise himself.
• Creepy Children Singing: The soundtrack is full of this. It even sounds like Benjamin Wallfisch, the composer, went up to eleven and even made the creepy singing children growl and scream.
• Creepy Circus Music: Plays when Pennywise dances out of desperation.
• Creepy Souvenir: Pennywise keeps trophies from his victims, taking a personal item from each to add to a mountain in his lair.
• Damsel in Distress: Near the end of the movie, Beverly gets captured by Pennywise, which forces the male Losers to go and save her from the clown. It ends up being sort of a bait-and-switch subversion: Pennywise captures her, but since she's just conquered her own worst fear (her father), he is unable to frighten her, and thus unable to feed off of her (and is therefore unwilling to kill her immediately). Also, showing her the Deadlights renders her catatonic but doesn't actually physically harm her. That all being said, we still don't know exactly what Bev went through while she was trapped in the Deadlights. Also due to the potential threat she posed, it's likely Pennywise would have eventually killed her anyway, even if he couldn't use her for food.
• Darker and Edgier: Compared to the movie made for television, especially considering the opening shows Georgie being mutilated and then dragged away by IT.
• Darkest Hour: After surviving their encounter with Pennywise in #29 Neibolt Street the Losers lose all hope and courage. They regain their courage when Beverly turns into a Damsel in Distress (mentioned above) and they have no other choice, but to save their beloved friend from Pennywise.
• Dead All Along: Throughout the movie, Bill is under the impression that Georgie's just been kidnapped after being mutilated. But eventually accepts his brother's death after finding his torn raincoat.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Mike Hanlon's parents were alive in the novel and had an extended feud with the Bowers family.
  • Subverted with Stan, who gets separated from the other Losers in the sewer near the climax and attacked by It, who begins eating him. As he dies early on in the adult segment of the book without contributing to the storyline, it suddenly looks like his fate has been rewritten to die as a kid instead as a Sacrificial Lion to let Pennywise take down one of the Losers and increase the threat he poses. Stan gets saved by his friends but is traumatized and if he does kill himself in the sequel as he does in the book, it's likely the trauma of being "abandoned" and having his face gnawed on by his worst nightmare contributed.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: A minor example, but at least one of the Losers freely uses "retarded" as an insult, which, though still considered vulgar, was much more acceptable in the 80s than today. Henry Bowers also refers to several of the Losers as Bill's "faggot friends"; while intended to reinforce Bowers' thoroughly contemptible nature, it's also emblematic of the time period, as slurs about sexual orientation and homophobia in general were utterly rampant in the 80s.
• Delusions of Eloquence: Eddie tells his mother that the quack remedies he's prescribed for his fictitious ailments are "gazebos."
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The Losers' Club, in the climactic battle, beat up Pennywise and boot the native Eldritch Abomination back into hibernation...unfortunately, for anyone familiar with the book, we know it doesn't stay there.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Several.
  • In the novel, IT merely ripped off Georgie's arm which killed him instantly. In this film, he is still alive after having his arm eaten off but Pennywise then drags him into the sewers where he most likely consumed him entirely.
  • In the novel, Patrick Hockstetter died by being consumed by IT in the form flying leeches in the town junkyard while here, he is killed by IT in the form Pennywise while in the sewers.
  • In the novel Victor Criss and Belch Huggins were killed by IT in the form of Frankenstein's monster in the sewers while a deleted scene in this film implies that Henry is the one that killed him.
• Dirty Coward: Under his cruelty and sadism, Pennywise is a craven, cringing creep who can't fight back if his victims aren't afraid of him.
  • The same goes for Henry Bowers and his gang. After the Rock War, Henry's gang abandons him on the spot and Henry's left stunned and on the verge of tears. Which is probably why he kills the both of them in a deleted scene.
• Dirty Old Man:
  • The pharmacist gets in a couple of lecherous stares at Beverly, who was distracting him while Bill, Eddie and Stan shoplift bandages for Ben.
  • Bev's father, too. In the book and 1990 version, he hits Bev; in the 2017 version he sniffs her and it's all kinds of creepy. While it's never stated outright that he's been molesting her, it's heavily implied.
• Disney Villain Death:
  • Henry dies after Mike shoves him into the Neibolt Well in the climax of the movie. Or does he?
  • Pennywise himself retreats to a drainpipe in the sewer system after the Losers' Club beat the shit out of him, and he falls apart partially before succumbing to a similar fate. Of course, since there's a sequel on the way, this'll turn out to be a Not Quite Dead.
• Divided for Adaptation: This movie adapts only the plot line about the Losers Club as children, with Chapter 2 picking up the story when they're adults.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The major narrative throughline of missing children takes on a new level of subtext in this adaptation as a result of its timeline starting in the 1980s, evoking the paranoia over child abduction and stranger danger that was pervasive in the decade in real life.
  • Beverly, whose father is a pedophile and may have been molesting her, drives a pipe through Pennywise's mouth. Three guesses as to what it resembles.
• Dude, Not Funny!: When the Losers find a missing girl's shoe in the sewer (a girl whose mother has been seen crying in front of the school every day, hoping she will show up), Richie makes a joke about her jumping around the sewer with only one shoe. After one glance at everyone's expressions, he clams up very quickly.
• Eating the Eye Candy: The boys all stare when Bev strips to her underwear, first getting into the lake with them and then sunbathing. As she looks, they all turn away and look innocent.
• Eldritch Abomination: The true nature of IT/Pennywise: a monster with an incomprehensible shape (for humans, its closest understood form is that of a giant spider) that arrived to Earth millions of years ago to the place that would become the town of Derry. Since the Spider is nowhere to be seen (so far), this film puts greater visual emphasis on Pennywise's design by making his costume a bizarre combination of bygone eras, as if he's been doing this a very long time.
• Eldritch Location: The house on Neibolt Street, due to Pennywise having total control over its interior. It's located above a major hub junction where all the sewer lines connect, which is how it prefers to get around town.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Henry's gang have no qualms about bullying the Losers' Club, but are openly taken aback by and try to dissuade him from his more deranged stunts. This includes Belch (but only him) being disturbed by Henry carving his name on Ben, but all of them and Henry's dad were appalled at Henry using a live cat as shooting practice. Incidentally, Vic worries for Henry after the latter is abused by his dad, and Vic doesn't harass the Losers early on before the rock fight, nor do he or Patrick bully Mike in the alley.
  • Henry himself admits to Bill that he didn't bother him for a while because of Georgie's death.
• Evil Is Bigger: Pennywise is very tall even by adult human standards, and in certain sequences he becomes gigantic.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Inverted. Pennywise speaks in a high-pitched, almost girlish giggle, and it's extremely creepy.
• Fangs Are Evil: Pennywise is often seen with two sharp front teeth. When his jaws pull back, he has More Teeth than the Osmond Family — and a literally bottomless maw with the Deadlights at the back...
• Finally Found the Body: A variant. Bill spends much of the film in denial that Georgie is dead because they Never Found the Body. At the end, he finds Georgie's raincoat in the pile of objects from It's victims and accepts Georgie's death.
• Fire-Forged Friends: The Losers go through hell and high water together and come out with the strongest bond imaginable. Fighting a demonic, child-eating clown tends to bring people together.
• Footprints of Muck: Inside his house, Bill discovers bloody footprints that lead downstairs, and the trail stops in the kitchen... where he sees a vision of Georgie running across the room.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Stan is the first to leave the circle of Losers after the blood oath. Eddie leaves directly after. This foreshadows the two major character deaths in It: Chapter Two: Stan by suicide, and Eddie by Pennywise impalement, in that order.
  • During the final battle in IT's lair, Pennywise turns his arms into spider-like appendages and tries to impale Mike on them, hinting at IT's true form.
  • Bill's drawing of Beverly has water splash on it turning it red. Cue Beverly in the sewers, blood splashes on her in the same spot as in Bill's drawing.
  • When Henry's dad humiliates him in front of his friends, he says that putting fear into someone "makes a paper man crumble." When IT realizes that the Losers aren't afraid of it anymore and IT flees deeper into the cistern, ITs head starts to flake away and disintegrate like rotten paper.
  • During the projector scene, when Pennywise comes out of the pictures, he corners Beverly away from the rest of the Losers. During the climax, Beverly is abducted by Pennywise.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Just as in the book, when Georgie first sees Pennywise in the sewers, the eyes of the clown are an evil yellow, but soon become a softer, more human blue: the eyes of Georgie's mother.
• Four-Man Band: Initially in The Losers Club, there was:
  • Only Sane Man — Bill
  • The Smart Guy — Stan
  • The Plucky Comic Relief/Casanova Wannabe — Richie
  • The Butt-Monkey — Eddie
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You:
  • One of Pennywise's eyes is always fixed on the camera, giving the impression that he can see the audience watching the movie.
  • In an in-universe example similar to the photo album scene from the 1990 TV miniseries, Pennywise hijacks a slide reel while the Losers' Club is viewing images of Derry's history in Bill's garage and gets it moving so fast that the pictures form a moving image. He then pops halfway out of the screen as a giant clown-monster and tries to attack them, but they drive him off by opening the garage shutter.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • During the scene where Pennywise appears on the slideshow, you can briefly see a frame where Bill's mother appears as she does in the original photograph.
  • In one scene, Richie finds himself in a room filled with creepy clown statues. One of them resembles Tim Curry's Pennywise.
  • When Ben is looking at photos from the Kitchener Ironworks explosion at the library, he comes across a photo of a large group of children at the Easter Egg hunt. A very blurry, out-of-focus Pennywise can be seen in the background behind the kids.
  • In the scene when the kids are in the alley outside the pharmacy, a mural can be seen on the wall behind them depicting the Massacre of the Bradley Gang, an event from Derry's history described in the original book. Pennywise can be seen painted into the mural, peeking out from under a car.
• Funny Background Event: When the kids are looking at Eddie Corcoran and Betty Ripsom's missing posters, you can see Richie in the background fighting with a band member over a trumpet.
• Groin Attack: Beverly kicks her dad square in the nuts when he attacks her.
• Hard-Work Montage: The kids cleaning up the blood in Beverly's bathroom.
• Hate Sink: Bill Skarsgård's take on Pennywise the Dancing Clown outdoes the original version in sheer depravity. Along with IT's crimes from the novel, IT taunts the possibility of Georgie being alive just to send Bill on a fruitless hunt that puts his friends in danger in the process. 27 years later, IT also pretends to save a gay man from drowning only to devour his heart in front of his boyfriend. IT kills a young girl after promising to remove her embarrassing birthmark, and — to further taunt Bill over his inability to save Georgie — makes him relive it by killing another boy in front of him.
• Hell Is That Noise: The inhuman roar Pennywise emits when he attacks Bill in his own basement.
• High-Five Left Hanging: Happens to Richie often enough to qualify as a Running Gag, usually while he's seeking approval for a joke that clearly no one liked. On one occasion, Stan actually grabs his arm and lowers it rather than ignoring or humouring him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: After being subjected to a beatdown at the hands of the Losers' Club, Pennywise is reduced to cowering against the wall, repeating the same mantra Bill used to get over his stutter (He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.) They also use items from Pennywise's trophy collection as weapons in the fight.
• Humanoid Abomination: As Pennywise, It behaves like an alien wearing an ill-fitting human suit, which is exactly what It is.
• Immune to Bullets: Played with. The bullets won't do lasting harm - the forms IT takes can be damaged, but he'll just shapeshift into another. Even impaling him in the head with a metal rod seems to only make him really mad. But because it feeds on fear, Pennywise can be opposed by bravery and love. If someone works up their courage to attack him, it doesn't really matter what they use but that they believe it can hurt him.
• I'm Not Afraid of You: Pennywise still needs his victims to fear him, and is far more vulnerable when they don't. He actually gets annoyed with Beverly because of this.
  Beverly: I'm not afraid of you.
  Pennywise: [sniffs for a moment before nodding disapprovingly] You will be.
• Important Haircut: Beverly cuts her long red hair short to rebel against her undeserved reputation for promiscuity as well as utter shame and revulsion at her father's clear incestuous attentions.
• It Came from the Sink: Bev makes the mistake of looking down the bathroom sink's drain when she hears voices in it. First she's grabbed by hairy tendrils that pull her in close, before the drain blasts a torrent of blood directly into her face.
• Ironic Nursery Tune: The movie's opening credits uses "Oranges and Lemons" in a creepy, ominous way. Of course it's sung by a bunch of children.
  "Oranges and Lemons, say the bells of St. Clement's."
  "You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St. Martin."
• Irony: At the Neibolt haunted house, sunflowers grow just outside the house. Sunflowers represent healing and hope. Two things that house does not have an abundance of.
• Jump Scare:
  • When Georgie's paper boat is washed down a stormdrain, he looks into the drain to see if it's still there, and is rightfully startled when Pennywise suddenly pops up in front of him.
  • Generally speaking Pennywise loves this trope, but perhaps the scariest example is: in the garage, when he appears in the projector image. The Losers destroy the projector and he disappears from its image. They turn around...and there he is, twice as big and with his glamour already dropped, every one of his More Teeth than the Osmond Family showing.
• Karma Houdini: Unlike the novel, where she dies before the events of IT: Chapter 2, Greta is this. She is the only major Jerkass bully character in the entire film who doesn't get some dose of Laser-Guided Karma.
• Kick the Dog: Pennywise might as well have puppies tied to his shoes for how much he punts them.
  • His initial contact with all of the kids is intended to terrify them to "fatten them up" for his eventual feast.
  • When he finally meets Bill face to face, he acts offended Bill thinks he isn't real — before coolly adding he was "real enough for Georgie!"
  • Convincing Henry Bowers to murder his father and go after the Losers was a real dick move, but shows that Pennywise actually is starting to show fear, and takes the Losers seriously as an opposing force, as opposed to just more prey.
  • Even when getting overpowered and beaten by the Losers, Ol' Pennywise still somehow finds the gumption to turn into Beverly's sexually abusive father and taunt her.
• Kidanova: Richie constantly cracks jokes about his supposed sexual prowess and his friends' lack thereof.
• Kubrick Stare: Pennywise frequently does these, such as in the promotional materials and when meeting Georgie.
• Lampshade Hanging: Many fans of 1980's films will realize early on in the film that Beverly's physical appearance is an homage to Molly Ringwald, during her classic teen movies (now that the setting of the film has been updated to the 1980's). Premiere screenings drew a lot of laughs, however, when about two thirds of the way through the movie, one of the other kids bluntly calls Beverly "Molly Ringwald", to sarcastically point out the resemblance in-universe (see "Celebrity Resemblance").
• Last Kiss: Just as Beverly and Bill are separating, Bill plucks up just enough courage to give her a quick good-bye kiss. She responds by kissing him back with a more meaningful, "what-might-have-been" one. Then she simply leaves to go live with her aunt in Portland, because, after all, she is only a thirteen-year-old girl.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When he loses his boat down the drains, Georgie moans that "Bill's gonna kill me".
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: When the Losers enter the well and wander around the sewers, they end up splitting up quite often. Stan is somehow teleported away from the group and ends up getting attacked by the portrait-lady. After that, Bill goes after Pennywise on his own to rescue Beverly while the others stay behind with Stan for a short time.
• Light Is Not Good:
  • Pennywise now wears white clothing. Considering his true form is the Deadlights, as in the novel, the white clothes may have been intentional to give Pennywise more light imagery.
  • Victor Criss has platinum blonde hair and is not a nice guy.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Richie and Eddie have a fair few moments. As well as Richie and Stan, Richie and Bill... basically, Richie seems to generate this dynamic with all of his long-term friends. Presumably he's not like that with Bev, Ben, and Mike only because he hasn't known them for so long.
  • Example: the scene where Eddie is patching up Ben's stomach wound, with Richie providing unhelpful commentary in a variety of accents. Eddie wearily tells him "I don't need you doing the British guy with me right now", a line which implies a long history of Eddie putting up with Richie's poorly-timed jokes.
• Living Drawing: There's a painting in Stan's father's office. Pennywise takes the form of this deformed, flute playing woman (who is named Judith in the credits) multiple times throughout the film to terrorize and attack Stan.
• Logo Joke: The sky of the Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema logos transition from a very cloudy sky to a dark thunderstorm, as one of Pennywise's balloons floats upward. The RatPac Entertainment logo also has a raining sky background.
• Losing Your Head: Ben gets chased around the library by a headless boy.
• Lovecraft Lite: Arguably more so than the original story. The aid of a god turtle isn't required to defeat the local Eldritch Abomination here. When he's not powered up by fear, IT can be stabbed or bludgeoned to death by a group of teenagers with baseball bats and improvised spears, despite still possessing shapeshifting, regeneration, and minor superhuman strength. The movie implies that this is why IT's stuck to the isolated town of Derry.
• Love Triangle: Bill and Ben are both infatuated by Beverly, who seems to have a thing for Bill.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: Pennywise glories in his victims' screams. It means they're afraid, which improves his victims' flavor.
• Madness Mantra: When Bill encounters Georgie in the basement, the latter starts repeating "You'll float, too... You'll float, too..." and ends with him yelling the mantra at the top of his lungs.
• Magical Clown: Pennywise is a very sinister version.
• Malaproper: When Eddie first hears his medicine are placebos, he doesn't know what that means. Later when he finally stands up for himself to his mother, he calls them gazebos.
• Mass Hypnosis: Implied with the Subverted Kids' Show. Whenever It appears, it's always with the adults watching it (thereby allowing them to be apathetic to the deaths of the children in the town) while also sending messages of telling children to play in the sewers whenever they get the chance. And then there's the scene when Pennywise himself comes on the show to convince Henry to kill them all...
• Mature Work, Child Protagonists: The protagonists of this film are children, and it is a very mature horror flick.
• Meaningful Background Event:
  • It is subtle, but if you pay close attention to the talk show segments before Henry murders his father, you can clearly hear Pennywise on the talk show, talking in the background. In fact, whenever a television is on in the background, the subject is always clowns, floating or sewers.
  • When Ben is first shown researching Derry's dark history, a woman in the background stops browsing through books and turns to face him, adopting Pennywise's mannerisms.
• Menacing Hand Shot: When the Losers fight Pennywise in the derelict house and Bev stabs him through the head with a poker, as he turns and closes on them the camera focuses on his right hand for a couple of shots, the fingers swelling and tearing through the glove and growing long black talons. Word of God is that this is a nod to Pennywise turning into a werewolf in the novel during the same confrontation.
• Mind-Control Eyes: Bev's eyes turn white/light gray as she's rendered catatonic by the Deadlights. They change back to normal after she's revived with a kiss.
• Monster Clown: One of the most literal examples, Pennywise is actually an ancient Eldritch Abomination that turns into whatever the people that encounter it most fear. Its preferred form is a clown.
• Mood Whiplash: When Bev shows the other Losers the blood in the bathroom her father could not see, the scene suddenly shifts from creepy to cheery as they help her clean up.
• Mook Chivalry: Defied Trope in the climax. The Losers gang up on It whenever it moves to kill one of their number, as it can only focus on one of them at a time. There are a few close calls, but Pennywise otherwise gets curb-stomped.
• Mouthy Kid: Richie, who has no filter and really can't help himself. It bites him hard around Henry's gang.
• Movie Multipack: It is intended to be a two-part film. Muschietti has said he would like to splice both films together so they follow the flashback/flashforward setup of the book and release it as a directors cut. Just before the credits roll, the words "Chapter One" appear in front of the movie's Title Card.
• Münchausen Syndrome: Eddie finds out that all the medicine that his mother was having him take were placebos, since it justified her keeping him away from his friends and "safe."
• Mythology Gag:
  • Bill has a LEGO turtle, potentially alluding to the Turtle entity present in the novel existing in this universe. They also find a turtle while swimming in the quarry, but this is just an ordinary one. Likewise, the walkie-talkies Bill and Georgie use early on in the film have the words "TURTL" on them, and there is a turtle among Georgie's stuffed animals.
  • Pennywise's costume from the 1990 miniseries can be seen◊ briefly when Richie enters a room of clown statues.
  • In the same room, prior to chasing after him, Pennywise says "Beep beep, Richie."
  • After being impaled in the eye, Pennywise transforms in a manner not unlike the werewolf form It assumed in the book's confrontation at Niebolt Street, complete with a canine-like muzzle and claws that tear through Its gloves.
  • Beverly is rendered (temporarily) catatonic by the "Deadlights"; the same thing happens to Audra, Bill's wife, in the novel.
  • During the final battle, IT transforms several times, mostly pulling out the forms it previously used to torment the Losers. When IT briefly attacks Ben, however, IT pulls out a mummy transformation out of nowhere, which doesn't reflect ITs previous encounter with Ben as the Headless Boy. However, the mummy was the form IT assumed in its first encounter with Ben in the novel, so it serves as a reference to that.
  • Also during the final fight, in a blink and you'll miss it moment, it attacks one of the Losers with what looks like arachnids legs.
  • When IT kills Patrick Hockstetter, a balloon with the words "ɪ ♥ ᴅᴇʀʀʏ" written on it appears in front of him right before Pennywise attacks. In the book, this is the same phrase that Adrian Mellon had on his hat right before he was (will be?) killed, and IT makes Adrian's boyfriend, Don, hallucinate thousands of those same balloons under the Kissing Bridge. Pennywise using it on Hockstetter specifically may also double as a reference to Hockstetter's Armored Closet Gay subplot, which was cut from this film.
  • During the town's celebration in the park, a Paul Bunyan statue is seen. Fans of the novel know that IT uses it for Richie's first encounter, a scene which is eventually delivered in IT: Chapter Two.
    • The Standpipe water tower is also seen in an establishing shot.
  • One of the Losers wears a Tracker Brothers Trucking t-shirt. In the book, the abandoned makeshift ballfield next to their depot plays a minor plotpoint.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The MTV preview made it look like the Losers were about to encounter Pennywise in the sewer, after the red balloon. In the movie, Patrick was the one who encountered the balloon, and ended up being killed by Pennywise.
  • Georgie's face melting and the accompanying vocal distortion during the "You'll Float Too" scene was also absent from the trailers.
  • The "kill them all" scene in the TV spot made it look like Pennywise was taunting the kids through a television. In the movie, he's actually manipulating Henry into both murdering his father, and afterwards, the Losers.
  • Some TV spots showed the kids going swimming and had a sudden cut to Pennywise watching from the bushes. That shot is actually from much later when Mike is getting pummeled by the bullies.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Pennywise targeting Beverly is exactly what inspires the Losers to band back together to stop him.
  • To a lesser extent Greta mockingly informing Eddie that all his medicines are placebos is ultimately what leads to him standing up to his mother at last.
  • In a twisted way, in the climax, Pennywise uses an illusion of Georgie to lower Bill's defense. But the ensuing conversation they share gives Bill the closure he needs to accept that his brother is gone.
• No Periods, Period: Averted. Beverly stealing a box of tampons at the town's drug-store foreshadows her primal fear, which Pennywise brutally exploits by drenching her in a geyser of blood from her home's bathroom sink in a sickening parody of her anxiety concerning her pubescent body, which her father is implied to have already lusted over for years.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: This is how the Losers manage to defeat Pennywise... temporarily.
• Nothing Is Scarier: While Ben is researching Derry's gruesome history in the library, a woman in the background (implied to be IT in disguise) stares at the back of his head with an extremely malicious look on her face. We expect her to come closer to him or turn into Pennywise, but nothing happens. If one looks closely, when Ben turns around, the woman is going about her normal business, possibly implying she had been possessed by IT.
• Obviously Evil: This Pennywise often looks much more blatantly evil than his book and miniseries counterparts. However, he somewhat averts this trope when speaking to Georgie (and, presumably, other small children), changing his demonic amber eyes to a soft blue and enlarging his pupils, causing him to appear more goofy and fugly than outright creepy, though this trick still doesn't stop him from looking quite uncanny.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When the Losers use a projector to get an overview of Derry's sewer network, among other things. Suddenly, IT arrives and screws with the projector, causing it to uncontrollably switch slides until it shows a woman whose face is covered by her hair, which gradually blows aside to reveal the face of Pennywise the Clown.
  • When Richie strolls around in an abandoned house and is suddenly attacked by Pennywise.
• One of the Boys: Beverly is accepted by the other Losers as such, contrasted by the utter rejection and bullying she gets from other girls at school. That said, the Losers are very aware that Bev's still a girl and sneak peeks while she's sunbathing.
• Out of Focus: Compared to the other Losers, Mike and Stan do not get as much dialogue or screentime as in the novel, where narration shows that Mike is an innocent, sweet-hearted kid with a family feud against Henry Bowers fueled by racial tensions and Stan is a massive Deadpan Snarker and Neat Freak with a love for bird-watching he bonds over with his father. Mike's role as an adult of Haunted House Historian is also reassigned to Ben here, who had an interest in architecture and building in the book while Mike was the one interested in Derry's history, and Stan being the first to deter IT with the power of belief is reassigned to Bill. Coincidentally or not, in the adult segment of the book, Mike and Stan are the only Losers missing from the final confrontation with IT.
• Overcrank: Belch gets a pretty good one during the rock fight with the Losers.
  Belch: [To Bev] FUUCKKKK YOOUUUU, BIIIITCCHHHH!!!
• Patricide: Henry murders his father by slashing his neck with the knife he earlier lost and returned by Pennywise. Averted with Beverly, who knocks her abusive father out with a severe blow to the head. He is later heard groaning.
• Pet the Dog: Possibly the only nice thing that Henry did in the whole movie was give Bill a pass from his bullying during the school year because of Georgie's disappearance.
• Phrase Catcher: "Shut up, Richie!" in response to his constant jokes.
• The Power of Friendship: As long as the Losers' Club sticks together, Pennywise is powerless to hurt them. Which is why, in their first confrontation, he methodically separates them before finally settling on Eddie as his prey. He tries that trick again the second time they face him, but that time they're wise to him and it doesn't work — when they attack him together, they actually start damaging him.
• Plaster Cast Doodling: When Gretta asks to sign Eddie's arm cast and he lets, he discovers she wrote "LOSER" on it in big letters which he later changes to "LOVER" with a red marker.
• Psychosexual Horror: Although it's done differently in the novel, Beverly Marsh's fear of puberty and her fear of being seen as sexually desirable are still present. She's bullied by the girls in school for being attractive and they spread rumors of her being promiscuous. She's also aware that several adults and her own father seem attracted to her, which accumulates in her father trying to rape her and Beverly having to escape him by beating him unconscious with a toilet lid.
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • The movie simply focuses on the Losers' Club's childhood battle against Pennywise, rather than compress the enormous book into a single movie.
  • The time frame for the first half has been adjusted to the 1980s in order to set the second half in the "present day" aka the 2010s, rather than making the whole story a period piece.
  • The fears of the kids are updated to be more personal for each character and don't take the form of movie monsters, likely to keep them just as scary to the audience and not pull them out of the story.
    • Instead of a mummy, Ben is attacked by the headless corpse of a victim from a disaster he'd read about.
    • While IT attacks Beverly the same way (a fountain of blood from the sink), it's much more character appropriate due to the addition of a subplot where her father is incestuously attracted to her, and Beverly facing the fact that she has begun to menstruate.
    • Mike's encounter is changed from a flesh-eating bird to a manifestation of the fire that killed his parents, a backstory invented for the film.
  • The scene of Pennywise suddenly appearing out of a book covering Derry's history has been replaced with a similar scene of Pennywise appearing in a slideshow covering the same subject matter.
  • The movie's narrative changes things up a bit by revolving around Bill trying to find the missing Georgie, as opposed to Bill knowing full well that he's already been murdered from the start, even though the rest of the Losers (along with Bill's family and the town) have no doubt that Georgie is dead. This is for the sake of making the movie something of an R-rated Genre Throwback to the Steven Spielberg movies that were made around the time as opposed to making the movie a standard supernatural horror-themed murder mystery.
  • In the book, rock music was considered controversial among the adults of Derry in the 1950s, but the kids loved it. In this version, set in the 1980s, rock is largely tolerated, but heavy metal is a source of moral panic — and these versions of the Losers seem to take a liking to this as well.
  • The sewer orgy that was present in the book does not happen here. While the scene was meant to symbolize the Losers losing their childhood innocence and becoming adults and served as a way for them to retain morale after defeating IT, the director stated that he didn't think it was necessary to the movie's narrative, not to mention that there was no way he could actually get away with filming such a scene. It's replaced by a group hug and the blood-bonding ritual from the book instead. Viewers reacted positively to this; as much as people like the book, many didn't like the child-group sex bit and found it pointless and tasteless. The kiss that Ben plants on an unconscious Bev, and the Big Damn Kiss between Bill and Bev at the end serve the same narrative purpose but are much more innocent and age-appropriate.
  • The actual entities, the Spider and the Turtle, are absent as direct players, but they are indirectly alluded to. Bill carries a Lego turtle as a kind of charm. Pennywise's face-covering More Teeth than the Osmond Family jaws resemble a spider's maw as much as anything in our universe, and at one point he attacks the Losers with something greatly resembling giant arachnid legs.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Richie to Pennywise, before swinging at him with a baseball bat to kick off the climactic fight.
  "Welcome to the Losers' Club, asshole!"
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: What does Pennywise say before attempting to prey on Eddie? "Time to float!"
• Present-Day Past: Richie refers to Henry's haircut as a mullet. While the term already existed in 1989, it wouldn't be associated with the hairstyle until the 1994 Beastie Boys song "Mullet Head."
• R-Rated Opening: We get to see Pennywise actually bite off Georgie's arm with his fangs. Ouch.
• Raincoat of Horror: Georgie becomes the prey and a form of the eponymous It on a rainy day while wearing a bright, conspicuous yellow raincoat.
• Rapid Aging: When Bill goes down into the basement and sees Georgie, the latter starts to repeat "you'll float, too!" over and over again. As he does this, his face starts to rot until his body gets thrown to the ground by Pennywise (who appears out of the water behind "Georgie").
• Reality Is Unrealistic: Pennywise's costume change got a lot of flak from some fans who felt he looked too gothic and scary. Ironically, his appearance is very on par with how a lot of clowns really did dress back in the 50s and 60s. Comparing him to the clowns he was said to look like in the book and you will find this Pennywise bears a little more resemblance than the Tim Curry outfit. However, it still works in the "boomerang" sense as it makes Pennywise look like it's been doing this successfully for a very long time.
• Reality Warper: It has the power to manipulate Its own form as well as the television program and the layout within the Neibolt house.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Eddie gives one to his overbearing, manipulative mother.
• Re-Cut: As confirmed in an interview with Yahoo, there will be a Director's Cut on video that will include 15 minutes of extra footage. As to what it will entail, we will see an expansion of Stanley Uris' bar mitzvah subplot and more character/humor bits in the film, one of which will be an extended scene of The Losers Club at the quarry that escalates into something "completely bonkers".
• Rewatch Bonus: Richie and Eddie's constant bickering takes on more significance after It: Chapter Two reveals that Richie is an Armored Closet Gay with feelings for Eddie that may or may not be mutual, as Eddie is Ambiguously Gay even as an adult.
• Romance on the Set: In-Universe, Bill and Beverly have a mutual crush on each other after they shared a scripted kiss in a school play.
  Richie: The reviews said you couldn't fake that kind of passion!
• Room Full of Crazy:
  • When exploring the house on Neibolt Street, Richie stumbles upon a room full of clown statues, and on the other side of the room, something is mysteriously covered up with a massive cloth, which turns out to be none other than Pennywise.
  • While not exactly crazy, Ben's room and his obsession with the history of Derry is more than a little unsettling...especially given Pennywise's ability to crawl right out of pictures of him.
• Sadist: Pennywise isn't just a predator. He genuinely loves hurting and killing others, terrifying them to make them especially delicious to him. At Neibolt Street, he mentally tortures the Losers and when trying to prey on Eddie, makes sure to draw it out as long as possible, even miming biting his fingers to savor his 'tasty, tasty, beautiful fear.'
• Sadistic Choice: Pennywise gives the Losers one in the climax. After taking Bill hostage he says they can all stay and he will kill them all and feast on them, or they can leave and he will only kill Bill, go back into hibernation and leave the rest of them alone to live happy normal lives. Richie decides to Take a Third Option, and saves Bill and the group defeats Pennywise.
• Sapping the Shapeshifter: In the finale, the Loser's Club take on Pennywise all at once for the first time in the story. Unused to his prey fighting back, Pennywise attempts to ward them off by rapidly shapeshifting into the worst fears of whatever kid happens to be closest, but for once, the kids are too angry to be scared and counter each attempt by hitting him with whatever blunt instruments they have on hand. The fight ends with a badly wounded Pennywise reverting to his clown form and retreating deeper into the sewers to recover.
• Searching for the Lost Relative: Bill Denbrough's main motivation is to find his "missing" brother, Georgie. Georgie was actually eaten by Pennywise. A deconstructed example, as his obsessive search keeps putting him and his friends in dangerous situations, with everyone calling him out on being in denial.
• Setting Update: In the novel, the story involving The Losers Club as kids took place in 1958, in this movie it takes place in 1989.
• Schizo Tech: One that's difficult to spot, but a noughties-era photocopier appears in the Derry library.
• Security Cling: When the Losers are scared or anxious, they instantly cling onto one another for comfort.
• Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: Through out the entire movie, Bill has only one goal in mind: to find Georgie. He will not be deterred from his mission, despite everyone telling him that Georgie is dead. At the end, Bill finds Georgie's raincoat in Pennywise's lair, and finally accepts that his brother is dead.
• Sequel Hook: The Losers swear a Blood Oath to return to Derry if Pennywise ever returns, which they will do in the sequel. Plus, the title appears on screen before the closing credits, with the words "Chapter One" appearing over it. A rather justified example, considering that this adaptation covers about half the novel and that the sequel was always part of the plan.
• Setting Update: The original was set in The '50s and later The '80s. This adaptation is set in the 80s, and the sequel is set to occur in The New '10s.
• Shout-Out:
  • Bill has a poster of Gremlins above his bed.
  • The Derry movie theater shows that Batman (1989) and Lethal Weapon 2 were double billings during the months of June and July of 1989, with the former having a Monster Clown played by an actor who starred in another Stephen King adaptation as the central villain. Then in the month of August of 1989, it shows the James Bond film Licence to Kill which features actors Anthony Zerbe and Everett McGill both appearing in this film as henchmen, while also had appeared in film adaptations of Stephen King's books (Zerbe appeared in The Dead Zone, which featured music by Michael Kamen who scored this Bond flick and Lethal Weapon 2 and starred Christopher Walken who played Bond villain Max Zorin in A View to a Kill, while McGill appeared in Silver Bullet).
  • There is also a panning shot of A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child being played at the movie theater as well. The film series came out around the same time as It and both focus on supernatural monsters that prey on the young, feed on fear as a source of power, and can create nightmarish visions and realities. Most notably about The Dream Child is that one of the main people to square off against Freddy was a kid, much like Pennywise and the Losers.
  • Judith — the malformed flute-holding woman from the painting that Pennywise uses to torment and attack Stan — strongly resembles Edith Brennan, the titular monster from the 2013 Spanish horror film Mama (Muschietti's previous film). Both were inspired by the paintings of Amedeo Modigliani, which made a lasting scary impression on Muschietti.
  • In one scene, Eddie sports a shirt with a demonic convertible on it, a reference to Christine, one of Stephen King's other evil creations.
  • Out-of-universe, but the Kissing Bridge, with its iconic barn-like roof, is "played" by the same bridge that features in another cinematic Cosmic Horror Story: John Carpenter's 1995 In the Mouth of Madness; there, it's the portal to the Eldritch Location of Hobb's End—a Lovecraft Country town not unlike Derry itself.
  • Henry Bowers' blue Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am has the make and model as Charles Brady's blue Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am from Sleepwalkers, another Stephen King film from the early 1990s.
  • At the end, the kids fade away one by one after their blood oath, like Chris does at the end of Stand by Me.
  • Beverly being compared to Lois Lane at the pharmacy by Mr. Keene could be a reference to actress Annette O'Toole, who played Beverly Marsh in the miniseries as well as Lana Lang in Superman III and Martha Kent in Smallville.
    • Also, not technically a shout-out, but Beverly’s new child actress Sophia Lillis played the younger version of Amy Adams’ character Camille in Sharp Objects, who also played Lois Lane in Man of Steel. The fact that Sophia bears a striking resemblance to Amy Adams really helps.
• Sir Swearsalot: Richie, who drops a lot of s-bombs and f-bombs throughout the film, including referring to Ben as "this motherfucker" at one point.
• Slasher Smile: Pennywise sports a wicked, evil grin that flashes some sharp front teeth most of the time and gets taken up to eleven when all the teeth come out. Judith, the woman in the painting that IT uses to scare Stan, also gets one off when she emerges.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The kids on the Missing posters (including one Eddie Corcoran) that the Losers come across; they're all dead by this point and had no interaction with the protagonists, but each poster is just carelessly taped over another. It's seeing this that convinces the Losers that most adults won't even notice if Pennywise gets them, let alone be able to help them.
• The Smurfette Principle: There's only one female member of the Losers' Club, Beverly Marsh.
• Spanner in the Works: The members of the Losers Club are the only people in history to have ever defeated IT, and they do so by sticking together as a group. Needless to say, Pennywise doesn't take it well.
• Spotting the Thread: "Georgie," when he and Bill meet in IT's lair, does not know ships are referred to as feminine despite Bill telling him before his abduction. And of course, missing an arm without treating the wound makes Georgie's survival even more unlikely.
• Subverted Kids' Show: It probably only seems this way in the kids' heads due to the influence of IT, but a cheery woman's voice on the television is heard off-screen extolling the virtues of "playing with your friends in the sewer" while Bev tries to sneak past her dad the first time, and we see a bit of the show later when Henry kills his father while the host and guests speak directly to him and encourage him to do it. "KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM ALL!"
• Suddenly Shouting: When Bill meets Georgie in the basement, the latter repeats a Madness Mantra and ends with "YOU'LL FLOAT TOO!"
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Before one of the visits into the house on Neibolt Street, Richie grabs a glass bottle and smashes it against the railing to try and invoke the movie trick of making a makeshift knife from a broken bottle. After doing it, though, all Richie is left with is the neck of the bottle that he was holding on to, the all-too-common result of trying to get an improvised knife.
• Surreal Horror: The scene where Pennywise just starts doing a random jig, giving a Death Glare all the way through.
• Sworn Brothers: All seven members bond as Brothers and Sister by cutting their hands with a broken beer bottle, vowing that if Pennywise ever returns, so will they to fight it.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Henry's murder of his father. The man almost shot him just to terrify him into tears, beat him for losing his switchblade and over the years made it abundantly clear how he never thought it was his responsibility to be there for him when he's in any trouble.
• Take Me Instead: After capturing Bill, Pennywise offers to spare the kids if they give Bill up and leave. Bill accepts this fate and asks his friends to save themselves and run.
• Tank-Top Tomboy: Beverly is a tomboy who sports a tank top when she isn't wearing a dress.
• The Stinger: As if the Last Note Nightmare during the credits music wasn't scary enough, they also end with Pennywise's laugh.
• Three-Point Landing: After Richie finds a maggot-ridden doll in his likeness inside a coffin in the clown room, he closes it. Pennywise then busts out of the coffin, and lands before Richie in this manner.
• Title 1: The true title of the movie is It: Chapter One.
• Toilet Horror: Expands on the bathroom scene from the book: the titular monster manifests Prehensile Hair from the sink drain to grab Beverly, then sprays a fountain of High-Pressure Blood that covers her and the room. Subsequently played for Black Comedy when her friends come over and matter-of-factly help her clean up all the mess.
• Too Annoyed to Be Afraid: In the climax, Pennywise/It attempts to frighten the Losers' Club into submission with a mixture of his usual tricks and a bit of hostage-taking... but after everything that Pennywise has done over the course of the film, the kids are too pissed-off to be scared of him. With the monster unable to feed on their fear, the team gangs up on him and beats the living shit out of him with any weapon they can get their hands on, countering every single attempt at a menacing shape with another beatdown. After trying and failing to defeat Beverly by turning into her abusive father - and getting speared through the throat for it - Pennywise is forced to retreat into the sewers until the next film.
  Ritchie: WELCOME TO THE LOSERS' CLUB, ASSHOLE!
• Town with a Dark Secret: As shown in the trailer, Derry is a hub of strange disappearances and violent, mysterious killings. And something very nasty living in the sewers...
• Troll: IT's main hobby is regularly terrifying its victims, emotionally "fattening them up" as he feeds on their fears just as much as their flesh.
• Truer to the Text:
  • Pennywise's costume is this with relation to the version from the television movie — instead of being multicolored like in the previous adaptation, it's almost entirely silver and white, as it is in the book. His hair and makeup also make him much more similar to Bozo and Clarabell, Georgie's two points of reference for famous clowns to compare Pennywise to in the book, which took place in the 1950's.
  • The original script actually deviated from the source material in various ways, as detailed in the Trivia section. The revisions done by Muschietti's recommendation was not only closer to the book, but it integrated more scenes from the novel into the film.
• Uncanny Valley: Invoked deliberately; Pennywise only resembles a clown (or a human being, period) in the most basic way, with his appearance and behavior marking him as something thoroughly other. In particular, his eyes often deviate, giving him an unsettling wide stare.^note This was originally going to be done in post with CGI, but Skarsgård revealed he could do it himself when Muschetti discussed the idea, and proceeded to work it into his performance.
• Underwear Swimsuit: At one point, The Losers swim in their underwear at the quarry. No explanation is given however why they resort to this instead of wearing swimsuits.
• Villainous Face Hold: Pennywise prepares to eat Eddie, and holds his face still so Eddie can't look away whilst Pennywise imitates his crying. As a being that feeds off fear, it's clear Pennywise is doing this to scare him more.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: IT tends to take the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, but does assume other shapes like lepers or even dead loved ones.
• Wham Shot:invoked With the marketing having deliberately hidden any mention of a second film featuring an adult timeline that would imply Pennywise's return, this film makes sure to exploit the Sequel Hook as a deliberate shock for those unfamiliar with the novel. The ending title card "IT" seems to linger for just a Beat too long, and then two extra words appear: "Chapter One".
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Henry Bowers disappears from the film after Mike knocks him down the well into the sewers. He survives in the next film, in accordance with the plot of the book.
  • Victor and Belch also disappear from the film after Henry gets his switchblade back. Henry later drives Belch's car to the house on Neibolt street. It's possible that Henry killed Victor and Belch, or at least cowed them into giving him the car. A deleted scene shows that Henry did slash their throats as well.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Richie accuses Bill putting everyone else in danger simply because he can't accept that his brother is dead.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • IT invokes this as its primary method of attack, assuming the shape of whatever its victims are most scared of.
  • Ironically, given his own jokester personality, Richie Tozier's fear is revealed to be clowns, changed from Eye Scream in the original novel. Too bad for him that Pennywise is all too happy to take advantage of this. However, It: Chapter Two implies that Richie lied about being afraid of clowns because his real greatest fear is being outed as gay.
• Would Hurt a Child: ITs preferred source of food is children.
• Xenafication: Beverly is brave and the best shot with Bill's slingshot in the novel, but she's still just a vulnerable, scared kid like the other Losers. This version of Beverly is an outright Action Girl tougher than the boys who loses all fear of IT...ironically leading to IT targeting her specifically and turning her into a Damsel in Distress.
• Your Mom: Happens more than once as part of the back-and-forths between Richie and the other Losers.
• Zerg Rush: How the Losers gain the advantage against Pennywise. While he's busy trying to kill one of them, the others would go in for the attack. Bev specifically says they hurt him because they were together.

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"See you around."