Stephen King’s “It” is getting a two-part film reboot, and the first installment looks terrifying.
Slated for a Sept. 8 release date, the film is set to follow a band of seven childhood friends, known as the Losers’ Club, in Derry, Maine, who are terrorized by a shape-shifting creature that is referred to as It.
It commonly takes the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, a role played by Tim Curry in the 1990 “It” miniseries.
This film is set to take place in 1989, a key distinction from parts of the novel and original miniseries that were set in the late 1950s.
Trailer breakdown
Garnering over 20 million views on YouTube in its first five days after release, the trailer for the new Warner Bros. Pictures film begins by teasing one of the original miniseries’ most iconic scenes.
The character Georgie Denbrough (played by Jackson Robert Scott) is given a paper boat made by his older brother Bill (played by Jaeden Liberher.)
Georgie then ventures outside to play with his boat alone, losing it after accidentally running face first into a construction beam. The boat then ventures down a storm drain, whereupon Georgie is given a face-to-face encounter with Pennywise (played by Bill Skarsgård.)
“People die or disappear at six times the national average, and that is just grown-ups. Kids are worse. Way, way worse,” the audience hears one of the children say.
Later on in the trailer, the Losers are gathered in a room surrounding a slide projector where they identify It lives in the sewers beneath Derry. Then, the slides start changing themselves to reveal a glace at Pennywise dressed as a woman holding hands with Georgie.
The music gets louder and viewers see a sequence of shots with words in between asking them what they are afraid of.
We then see Georgie talking to Bill in the same yellow raincoat that he first interacted with Pennywise, telling his brother if he joins him that he will float too.
“You’ll float too. You’ll float too,” viewers hear Georgie repeat. After a few repetitions of the phrase by Georgie and music getting progressively louder, we see Skarsgard’s Pennywise poke its head out of water and run at Bill.
Lastly, a very quick frame of Pennywise can be seen before the trailer announces the release date.
Homages
In the novel and original miniseries, It resurrects itself approximately every 27 years for a several-month-long killing spree on Derry. It is fitting to note the reboot is coming 27 years after the original miniseries aired in 1990.
Balloons are also a huge part of It’s persona when around children. Throughout the trailer, several instances of red balloons occur, indicating Pennywise’s presence.
Hopes
“It” should not be portrayed in the way conventional horror films are.
Simply put, modern films such as the 2009 reboot of “Friday the 13th” focus on a group of individuals who are picked off one by one until finally someone escapes the killer with the main intent of the film being to terrify viewers.
“It” isn’t that kind of story. Rather, the story follows a group of young kids who are forced to stand together to triumph evil in their lives, more similarly to popular young adult novels, with the exception that the evil is a mind-reading clown which will stop at nothing to kill its prey.
It, as portrayed by Curry, is the rarity of a villain that is able to scare viewers in normal aspects of their everyday lives, not only when alone at night.
This trend should continue with Skarsgard’s rendition of the villain, with the new movies not taking too many liberties in straying from King’s novel’s guidelines. Some exemptions are fine, obviously, including the notable change in the film’s time period.
All in all, the film looks to be one which audiences will praise at the box office, pending a redeeming and not recyclable reboot.