The film is creepy right from the beginning when little seven year old Georgie chases a paper boat, just made for him by his older stuttering brother Bill, up a flooding street in a down pour. Georgie is wearing a yellow rain coat when the paper boat goes down a storm drain. Georgie, clearly upset reaches for the boat and is met by the creepiest fucking clown you ever want to see, let alone one under the street in the sewer shrouded in darkness. This clown, with bright blue eyes, powdered skin and red crazy hair, dips into the light as he introduces himself as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Oh my god, clean my shorts.
IT is about the painful reality of growing up in our state of society. It's about dimming any light on hope and accepting the fact, childhood is but an early and often forgettable blip in the reality of adulthood. Children in society are almost seen as these premature wastes of space. They are often seen as useless and not ready to be taken seriously.
Beverly, the only girl in their little gang, joins them while the investigate what's happening in their little town. They do this while trying to avoid the older gangs who's only drive is to punish the younger kids, quite literally torture them. Along with their investigation, they discover that many children have died or have gone missing in their little town over the years, they all start seeing more visions of ghoulish dead people, red balloons and that nightmarish goddamn clown, Pennywise.
Beverly is the unfortunate one to have the most disgusting adult around her, her father, who is a piece of shit. She even seems more alone then the boys. She's been accused of sleeping around with many of the boys at their school so all the girls think she's a slut and has thus been ostracized by everyone. These rumors are ways that cruel kids often play on each other as they grow in to their own. The problem with that scenario is the adults around them aren't the greatest role models. IT has trapped these kids from ever wanting to grow up. It has truncated the possibility of any kind of peaceful transition from teenager to adult without losing so much along the way. Beverly cuts her long red hair off to give her a feeling of control over her perverted, menacing father, but that control isn't real. The maleficent clown is getting to all of them, priming them to kill by marooning them in their own nightmares. Beverly's bathroom sink explodes with blood and hair which her loser father doesn't see when he enters the bathroom, he just shames her and leaves. Bill sees his little 'undead' brother Georgie along with the hair-raising Pennywise. Eddie sees a gruesome zombie-like corpse after him before he saw Pennywise with red balloons. Ben saw a headless charred carcass coming toward him in the library basement, Stanley saw a deformed woman in a painting come to life and chase him. All these kids are being hunted by 'it' knowing at this point that this isn't 'it''s first time in Derry. Every 27 years he appears, hunts and kills children and disappears into some form of hibernation after a year only to return again 27 years later. Ideas do this as well, they appear in cycles, resting for a bit and then appearing again.
Those poor terrified kids are on their own without anyone around to help them but each other. They are being isolated by Pennywise, 'it''s trapping it's prey, but why? In the story it was said to be an evil presents way back when the first settlers of Derry all went missing.
Henry is the teenage bully that torments the Loser's Club with so much hatred. This kid is a mean little shit but we later see that like father, like son. Henry's father is a Derry police officer and is also a bully. Pennywise attaches onto Henry's fear and makes him stab his angry father in the neck bleeding him to death. Henry is one of the only cases in the film where we see the horrible influence a parent can have on their child. Beverly is never like her lonely sick father. She frees herself from his possessive entrapping ways. But Henry is too far gone and he is, quite frankly, a lot dumber than the bright and emotionally strong Beverly. In the end they face their fears, form a tight friendship and defeat the clown.....for now. The Loser's Club all get together and make a blood oath, after Beverly tells them of a vision she had about fighting the clown again but this time as adults, that they must return to Derry in 27 years if that dreaded Pennywise comes back for more children. Like the children in The Goonies, Super 8 and Stranger Things, they found that working together unified them as Pennywise, One-eyed Willy, the Alien or the Demogorgon attempted so desperately, through fear, to divide and concur them all.
What is up with alluring clowns in the tormentor role in so many peoples nightmares? All knowledge has a price and suffering is a requirement for growth. These kids had to grow up and learn about this place they're in. They have to learn that suffering isn't something that is wrong, in fact it is a part of our survival mechanism. We need to fear and suffer in order to gain the strength to survive. As odd as welcoming suffering sounds, it is liberating in the end because you come to realize, like the Loser's Club did when defeating the demonic Pennywise, is that most all the fear and then the suffering are in your head.
Currently in our society there is this growing movement to eliminate personal pain and bubble wrap everyone and everything in padded rooms, with painted flowers and rainbows on the walls. This movement wants to eliminate anything offensive throughout the culture by controlling what people can and cannot say. I'm not so sure what the end game this movement thinks is going to happen but I would argue, and certainly advise, to pick up a psychology book. If we sterilize the whole system we open ourselves up to a vulnerable position. We need to scrap our knees and elbows to help strengthen our immune system. We need shitty food so we can, on occasion, enjoy the good stuff. We need to fall so we learn to gain the backbone to stand up. We need to feel fear so we can teach ourselves to fight it. We must understand that fear is apart of being human as much as we might want it gone. Fear helps us avoid threats to our existence, whether it is a real threat or a perceived one, it allows us to recognize this threat, feel anxiety over it and then act in a way to avoid. This process is hardwired in each and every one of us, and is unavoidable.
IT was a scary film that carried a huge message along with it. This world isn't about our beliefs, they are opinions that you are refusing to reconsider. You are not going to get handed anything worth holding on to. This film leaves us with the fact that you are going to have to fight, claw and hold on to what you want. Bubble-wrapped-baby-adults are in an illusion of safety and security brought to you by our friends at the highest levels of office and their corporate sponsors. That's what the shape-shifting Pennywise tried to do, make them all feel weak, so he could divide them. The number one problem facing us all is division. We are all so horribly branched off fighting our little battles among ourselves, while all the real wealth is being absorbed by the real monsters residing at the tops of skyscrapers and 50 room mansions.
Solitude is fine in doses but as a species we need each other so we don't fall back and too deeply into ourselves. We need connections and sounding boards with the people in our lives. We need to understand our strengths so our weaknesses can dissolve away. If we continue down this path of unbridled narcissism and socio-smugness, we will not have to wait 27 years for the horror show to start up again, we may not make it that far.
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'"
- Eleanor Roosevelt
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