A Story That Crawled Out of Pages Into Our Fears.
It was the absence of hope that motivated Stephen King to come up with the novel It. Muschietti’s 2017 film captured that same fear in the story of a sleepy town terrorized by Penny the clown. Besides the jump scares and balloons, the film’s central ache came from the embodiment of the “Losers’ Club” by the young actors. Each member of the club had their own battles, victories, and transitions which attest to why their performances were so visceral and authentic.
Walking Through the Plot Like a Memory of Fear.
Set in Derry, Maine, the movie centers on a pack of rejected kids uniting after hearing of multiple cases of missing children. Bill, a young boy with a persistent stutter and a disheartened spirit, constantly relives the sorrow that follows losing his younger sibling Georgie. Georgie was lost on a dull and cloudy day after rushing to catch a paper boat, which is the pivotal moment in the movie that makes it horrifying.
With him are his friends: Richie acts the fool though he is a raging bundle of nerves. Beverly is the only female survivor of this group and is an abused child. Eddie the scaredy cat wannabe is stifled by a smothering mother. Mike has deep rooted trauma from the wounds of racism. Stan is a doubting skeptic with serious theological issues. Ben is the quiet compassionate new boy who loves to hear stories.
These kids and their complicated stories fuel the lore of the beast who stalks their town and takes the shape of a baby clown monster: Pennywise. Pennywise has the distinct taste of laced terror. And he erupts from his dormant state for an all you can eat and terror buffet every 27 years. Coincidentally, the boys are all terrified of something. Oh, boy. 27 years of the kids is the half eaten.
The little boys and their magic became the backbone of the film, even with the red and white clown balloons every gallivanting child carried.
Jaeden Martel plays the part of Bill and he has one of the most popular supporting roles, the one and only Georgie. Jaeden was a growing child and his name was buried under the other A and B list famous Hollywood people. The roles Jaeden was taking on before this one were all very minor. He was right in the middle trying to satisfy people in the industry who believed there was a leading lady in him. He managed to pull off quiet billie’s character and hard working lean.
Sophia Lillis as Beverly: Beverly’s story was an important commentary on the issues of abuse and the shame surrounding it. Trauma is difficult to represent and she mentally processed and empathized at the age of 15 on interviews where she described Beverly as strong and fearless as she defended herself against Pennywise and survived her father’s abuse.
Finn Wolfhard as Richie: Known for Stranger Things, Finn was typecast as the offscreen wit and sarcastic lad. His relentless desperation for joy as a way to cope with the treacherous life in Hollywood is what inspired his takeaway as Richie’s character, where it was more of a “survival instinct” than an actual scripted line, even in the face of dread.
Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie: Anxiety for Jack was a private. He fully underwent what Eddie was an unwell boy in his world. Jack’s life experience complemented the feeling of uncertainty and constant caution the character depicted. Jack’s performance was even more powerful due to the fact that he eventually had conversations on the stigma of mental health.”
Family-Like Bonds Formed While on Set
While unlike the actual scenes filmed during the movie… ‘It’ was more on the lighter side minus the presence of Pennywise. The director wanted the children’s scare reactions to be real, so he kept Skarsgård (Pennywise) away from the kids during rehearsals. According to Jaeden Martell, he knew he was acting in some scenes, but was more afraid of the actual Skarsgård, and his horrifying facial distortions.
However, the cast strayed away from the eerie sets, spent time together, and developed bonds similar to the ones in the Loser’s Club. During shoots, they skate boarded, played video games, and engaged in playful antics. They developed such an exceptional camaraderie during shooting, that it was reflected in their performance. The actors spent the majority of the time off camera actualizing the quote, “there is strength in unity.”
The Impact it had on Society
The release of the IT movie was a huge milestone in the horrow movie genre. In India, Stephen King’s fans admired the original novels and were “cult” followers of the movie. The movie was a hit among teenagers of the the generation. They connected to the movie and how it captured childhood fear, no matter the odds. For the global audience, Pennywise turned into a definition of a Halloween icon, red balloons lost their innocence and became sinister, and global social media was flooded with “Pennywise” memes.
The emotional core, however, was what lingered the most. For many people, personal encounters with demons such as bullying, trauma, or the grieving process was represented with the Losers’ Club. Viewers, and especially children, could see authentic pieces of themselves in the struggles faced by Bill, Beverly, and Eddie.
The Impact It Carried Forward
It did not merely become a box-office success; it also told a narrative that brought back to the public’s mind the reason as to why horror cinema connected to it at a human level. In the case of the young actors a star for each of them was born to what has been a growing success to date, while for the viewers it brought back the memory that the fears that lingered in your mind as a child do not just vanish. They can be confronted.
The combination of fears that are on screen and the struggles of life gave the motion picture a depth that was much more meaningful than the terror it inflicted. And perhaps that is the reason that, even today, a drifting red balloon in the sky is more than a horror motif; it is emblematic to how we all, at a certain point in our lives, were Losers for whom, in the case of this cinematographically gifted world, we managed to fight back.
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