It's coming for you...
Seeing how an equally effective version of this page would simply say that every frame in itself is terrifying, we feel the need to elaborate more.
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
It follows.
- For starters, just hear the concept of the film which is enough alone to fill one with dread:
- A curse, transferred from having sex, will cause you to become the new target of an unknown entity. This entity, which can look like virtually any person (and changes on the fly), will follow you at a walking pace. The entity, "it", can only walk, but it always knows where you are and is coming for you, at all times. If the entity reaches you, it will brutally murder you and will revert back to following the person who had passed it to you. The only way to get rid of the entity is to have sex and pass it on, but you will always be marked for death. Those cursed are doomed to either die a violent death or to be living in constant dread of the entity's eventual arrival. And even if you pass it on, it's always out there, working its way back to you...
- We find out in the opening scene what it actually does to you when it catches you. The movie is almost devoid of gore, sans one image, but good god, does that image leave an impact.
- The director also confirmed that the creature can find a way through any obstacle. NOWHERE is safe.
- It's telling that director David Robert Mitchell based this off a nightmare he had as a child about someone following him at all times.
- Anyone who has had a violent stalker can tell you just how terrifying it is to know that someone is following you, is completely fixated on you, and is intent on killing you.
- "It" is essentially a supernatural STD, and those can be scary enough in reality. This film gives shape and form to a terror that is very real. That in itself is nightmarish enough.
- The copious amounts of panning shots meant to evoke the film's Retraux sensibilities gets to the point where a 720 degree pan in a school hallway is rendered terrifying.
- Not sure if this is in relation to Retraux so much as it's a deliberately disorientating effect, and gives the impression that the characters are stuck in a "loop" that they can never escape from.
- Disasterpeace's score, which is so effective and well-implemented that it's hard to believe he also composed Fez.
- Special mention to the film's main score "Heels
" - if panic could be made into a song, this is what it would sound like.
- Special mention to the film's main score "Heels
- "It". "It" can take the form of strangers, friends and even family members and it will. Not. STOP until it kills you.
- Adding to that, the film leaves you looking in the background for any signs of "It".
- The freakishly disturbing forms that "It" will take while following Jay. From a distance, you think it could be anybody and might not be It at all. Until It gets closer and you see that, unless It appears as someone familiar or unassuming, It always looks like someone who just died. Naked, roughed up people who look like they might have just walked out of a morgue, or people who might have died in their beds. The worst is the form it assumes when Jay finds it in her kitchen: a brutalized young woman (heavily implied to be a rape-murder victim) with torn clothes, missing teeth, teary eyes, and urine running openly down her legs. It even looks like its own victims occasionally.
- The fact that there is no backstory as to how "It" came to be nor how long it’s been around makes it more terrifying. "It" simply exists as a sort of anonymous terror.
- Jay’s implied Dark and Troubled Past. Through photos and context clues, we find out that outside of Kelly, she’s not particularly close to anyone in her family. Fittingly the last form "It" takes is that of her father, and judging by the method of attack, he was an Abusive Parent.
- The opening scene, featuring a victim of "It" running away, leaving her family confused. She eventually goes to a beach and says her goodbyes. The next day, her corpse is found with her shin snapped over her knee.
- Imagine that you're a parent and your child is acting extremely strange. They jump into your car and speed off to God knows where, leaving you worried sick. Eventually, they call you, crying and frightened and obviously very upset, only repeating over and over again that they love you before hanging up. The next day, their mutilated corpse is found abandoned on a beach with no clues as to who did it or why, and you never get any answers.
- After Jay and Hugh have sex, Hugh chloroforms Jay, straps her to a wheelchair, and tells her about "It". Hugh then leaves Jay on her lawn and she’s taken to the hospital.
- How does Hugh choose to introduce Jay to "It"? He lets "It" get dangerously close to them before running away.
- Jay’s first real interaction with "It" comes in the form of an elderly hospital patient, highlighting how "It" can change forms.
- While having her friends look after her, Jay hears glass shatter. When she goes to investigate, the footage slows down, then cuts to "It" in the form of a woman who seemed to be either breaking water or pissing herself.
- While hiding in her room, someone knocks at the door. Paul and Kelly assume defensive positions, until it turns out to be simply Yara. Until "It" comes up from behind Yara, in the form of a freakishly tall man with no eyes. It's considered to be one of the scariest moments in the entire film, and for good reason.
- Even worse, the form "It" takes in the kitchen is just so wrong and bizarre in so many little ways - a woman who looks like she's suffered physical and psychological trauma, maybe even, as some have theorised, sexual assault - she's missing some of her front teeth, one of her breasts is hanging out, she's wearing a single sock while the other foot is bare, and she appears to be urinating.
- The beach scene:
- What starts as a painfully awkward, albeit quiet afternoon on the beach soon changes as "It" comes down the path as Yara.
- At first it doesn't seem like anything is particularly wrong. It's only when the camera establishes who's who (the real Yara is the one in the water) that the music starts picking up.
- Jay being completely oblivious to "It" coming up behind her. She's the only one who can see "It," and she's not looking for "It." Her friend all look right "It," but can't see "It" coming up slowly to kill her. It's only when "It" grabs Jay's hair that anyone realizes something is wrong, and they didn't really believe what was after Jay until that moment, either.
- The fact that "It" can throw people means that it could kill everyone in proximity to the victim.
- After hiding in the shed after shooting It!Yara in the head, the camera zooms in on a hole in the front door, and out pops "It" as a Creepy Child.
- Greg’s death:
- After having sex with Jay so that the curse can pass on to him, three days pass and Greg says that nothing’s happened to him. Later that night, Jay sees It!Greg smash real Greg’s window and break into his house. Jay runs to try and save Greg and gets to the hallway where his room is. "It" is already at Greg's door and has assumed the form of a middle-aged woman. Greg opens the door, where upon "It" lunges after him.
- Made even squickier by Greg’s last words when he opens the door:
Greg: What the fuck, Mom?!- A single shot really drives home the malice and cruelty of It, when Jay runs into the house and tries to warn Greg not to open the door, It stops knocking for a moment, turns to look at Jay, and just silently stares daggers at her before going back to knocking, making it clear that she's next.
- The fact that the movie never specifies exactly how It kills. Although we see it dry humping Greg through his pants, gripping his hand, and expelling a great deal of fluid over his jeans, Jay simply sees It pounce on him...and by the time she's made it down the hallway, he's already gone.
- After Jay and Paul's heart to heart, they settle on a way to kill It. After Jay and her friends pile into their car, Jay looks up to see It standing on the roof of her house. One has to wonder what would have happened if they had been late in coming up with their plan.
- A more mundane horror: Jay is seen after Greg's death stripping and swimming out to meet some random guys on a boat, presumably to have sex with one or all of them simply to buy herself some time; her weeping in the car afterwards shows how traumatic it's becoming just to survive.
- The Final Battle with "It" at the pool:
- After "It" gets shot in the head, the camera follows Jay as she watches the pool slowly fill with blood. The music just keeps building up and up during this shot, becoming unbearably loud as it gets to the pool. This was much louder in theaters.
- And after it's all over and Jay is walking down the street with Paul, you can see a guy in the background slowly walking towards them. The film's writer has openly said in an interview that the main characters' plan to kill It is "the worst plan in the world" and that it would not have worked even if it had worked out without a cinch. So even though the film itself leaves it ambiguous as to whether the one behind them is "It" or a random guy, they are definitely fucked.
- Sleep. Every moment you spend resting in one spot is the creature getting one step closer to you, and unless you've put at least 8 hours worth of walking distance between you and It, you probably won't live through the night.
- Arguably the most terrifying thing about It is during the pool scene, where the heroes try to lure It into a trap, the creature wanders into the room, looks around... and reasons out what they're doing. The film also throws just enough hints our way that the creature consciously likes to play with and torment its victims.
- Then there's the ending. They think they've killed It... but can they ever really be sure?
