The Darkness Lurking Beneath IT:
By
D.Krone
Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 1138 page epic novel IT is undeniably a monster
hit. Some people might call it a new horror masterpiece. I certainly wouldn’t. However, I did find
the film highly entertaining. And while I’ve combed through lists and lists ad-nauseam regarding
references to the novel and easter eggs in the film (none of which noted that there are actual
easter eggs in the film) I realized a handful of things. Things that most people must have missed
or just weren’t talking about and they are more insidious than cute subtle winks to an immortal
cosmic space turtle.
This new movie is a circus of nods to the old film, the novel, films from the 70’s, 80’s, and also a few meta sensibilities are peppered in rather clever ways into the final film. But if this movie is a circus then let us address, for the purposes of this article, the bull elephant in the room.
Let’s dive into something I didn’t really pay any attention to until I saw it on a thread. Let’s talk about the Lolita complex of Beverly Marsh.
Some people were deeply disturbed by the sexualization of Beverly Marsh in this film and I honestly never really looked at it that way. The new film takes place in the 80’s and it’s a Stephen King story about the bridge between adulthood and childhood. IT is a coming-of-age tale and the spooky clown serves as a metaphor for childhood fears and trauma and overcoming them during the transition into becoming adults.
Richie Tozier in this new adaptation of IT refers to Beverly Marsh as Molly Ringwald. I don’t think that reference was chosen simply because of Mrs. Ringwald’s popularity in the 80’s, or even Lilis’s haircut, but the connection she has with the coming of age genre during that time. A lot of Molly Ringwald films deal with the awkwardness associated with budding into sexuality. Her character, Claire Standish, in The Breakfast Club, is being teased constantly about sex in a similar fashion to Beverly Marsh in IT, though Lillis is younger than Ringwald was back then.
The particular change to her characterization from the novel is something some readers took serious umbrage with. Both Beverly Marsh and sex are a large part of that novel. But novels are able to discuss touchy subject matter in much more open and nuanced ways than a film can. That infamous scene in the book (wisely not included in the film) notwithstanding the book still does feature a lot of disturbing sex stuff around the children. The leper in the novel offers young Eddie Kaspbrak a quarter for a blow job and then works his way down to a dime and as Eddie runs away he chases after him yelling “Comeback here, kid! I’ll blow you for free...” and Marsh's father asks to check her hymen to make sure it is not broken in the book. The book contains some truly disturbing moments regarding sex and isn’t for the faint of heart.
The entire through-line of the novel is about the loss of innocence and transition from childhood into adulthood, and that theme is a bit more problematic for a film to pull off in a limited run time.
Especially when the film transmuted into what, when I saw it, came across as a standard popcorn flick designed for maximum profits. In that regard, the film was a smash success. IT broke numerous records including one that was held by The Exorcist from all the way back in 1973.
This new movie is a circus of nods to the old film, the novel, films from the 70’s, 80’s, and also a few meta sensibilities are peppered in rather clever ways into the final film. But if this movie is a circus then let us address, for the purposes of this article, the bull elephant in the room.
Let’s dive into something I didn’t really pay any attention to until I saw it on a thread. Let’s talk about the Lolita complex of Beverly Marsh.
Some people were deeply disturbed by the sexualization of Beverly Marsh in this film and I honestly never really looked at it that way. The new film takes place in the 80’s and it’s a Stephen King story about the bridge between adulthood and childhood. IT is a coming-of-age tale and the spooky clown serves as a metaphor for childhood fears and trauma and overcoming them during the transition into becoming adults.
Richie Tozier in this new adaptation of IT refers to Beverly Marsh as Molly Ringwald. I don’t think that reference was chosen simply because of Mrs. Ringwald’s popularity in the 80’s, or even Lilis’s haircut, but the connection she has with the coming of age genre during that time. A lot of Molly Ringwald films deal with the awkwardness associated with budding into sexuality. Her character, Claire Standish, in The Breakfast Club, is being teased constantly about sex in a similar fashion to Beverly Marsh in IT, though Lillis is younger than Ringwald was back then.
The particular change to her characterization from the novel is something some readers took serious umbrage with. Both Beverly Marsh and sex are a large part of that novel. But novels are able to discuss touchy subject matter in much more open and nuanced ways than a film can. That infamous scene in the book (wisely not included in the film) notwithstanding the book still does feature a lot of disturbing sex stuff around the children. The leper in the novel offers young Eddie Kaspbrak a quarter for a blow job and then works his way down to a dime and as Eddie runs away he chases after him yelling “Comeback here, kid! I’ll blow you for free...” and Marsh's father asks to check her hymen to make sure it is not broken in the book. The book contains some truly disturbing moments regarding sex and isn’t for the faint of heart.
The entire through-line of the novel is about the loss of innocence and transition from childhood into adulthood, and that theme is a bit more problematic for a film to pull off in a limited run time.
Especially when the film transmuted into what, when I saw it, came across as a standard popcorn flick designed for maximum profits. In that regard, the film was a smash success. IT broke numerous records including one that was held by The Exorcist from all the way back in 1973.
On initial viewing I didn’t take the way Beverly Marsh was portrayed in this film as fetishizing
the actress or the character but as a realistic portrayal of how kids behave and experience the
world at that age. It’s true that some girls who are sexually abused at a young age act out
sexually. I didn’t think Sophia Lillis portrayed her in any sort of gratuitous or exploitative
fashion. The kind of sexual teases she experiences and the abuses suggested by her father are
very real experiences lots people deal with. Scenes like the one with the middle-aged pharmacist
grossly flirting with her were, I thought, was being portrayed realistically.
Let me present to you an old joke (Paraphrased): “So the penis was out talking with his friends. (It’s an anthropomorphic penis joke and I don’t remember all of it.) And he said, “Yeah humans are really weird. When I get really excited they shove this plastic bag over my head and put me in a dark, smelly, moist room where I do pushups until I have to throw up”. I heard this joke when I was around 10 or 11 years old at a Summer Camp in a Catholic School. Tween age kids talk about penises and vaginas and for an R-rated film based on a book that explores the line between childhood and adulthood not to explore this might be a tad bit disingenuous but in film those lines are very tricky to avoid potentially crossing.
IT is not King’s only story to address the subject of childhood and sexuality. The movie Carrie (based on another Stephen King novel) opens up with naked high-school girls in the shower who tease young Carrie about her period fears by throwing tampons and loudly screaming "Plug it up, plug it up" at her and it is one of the most horrifying portraits of bullying in cinema history. Widely considered one of his best novels, Dolores Claiborne deals with the sexual abuse of a child as well and is tied to the trauma experienced by Jessie Burlingame in King’s other beloved novel (currently on Netflix) Gerald’s Game. The issues surrounding sexual abuse are important parts of those stories and King’s overall oeuvre. I’m not sure why this is such a common trope in King’s lore. I just know that it is and is no less prevalent in the novel IT.
I knew going into IT that the film would deal with this kind of thing in some way. I looked at the scene with the kids all swimming together in their underwear as a director trying to honestly portray that particular kind of childhood experience as best he could. However, there were a lot of people who felt he crossed a line.
Did he? Perhaps. Perhaps all of this could have been dealt with in a much more subtle way. The scene where she hid tampons behind her back seemed to perfectly sum up what she was struggling with and her father and the pharmacist were creepy enough without being too over the top in my eyes.
When I saw the swimming scene I thought to myself, “Yeah when I was 13 I used to swim in lakes in my underwear and even went to a Bible camp where I’d swim with girls and get super duper awkward.”
Let me present to you an old joke (Paraphrased): “So the penis was out talking with his friends. (It’s an anthropomorphic penis joke and I don’t remember all of it.) And he said, “Yeah humans are really weird. When I get really excited they shove this plastic bag over my head and put me in a dark, smelly, moist room where I do pushups until I have to throw up”. I heard this joke when I was around 10 or 11 years old at a Summer Camp in a Catholic School. Tween age kids talk about penises and vaginas and for an R-rated film based on a book that explores the line between childhood and adulthood not to explore this might be a tad bit disingenuous but in film those lines are very tricky to avoid potentially crossing.
IT is not King’s only story to address the subject of childhood and sexuality. The movie Carrie (based on another Stephen King novel) opens up with naked high-school girls in the shower who tease young Carrie about her period fears by throwing tampons and loudly screaming "Plug it up, plug it up" at her and it is one of the most horrifying portraits of bullying in cinema history. Widely considered one of his best novels, Dolores Claiborne deals with the sexual abuse of a child as well and is tied to the trauma experienced by Jessie Burlingame in King’s other beloved novel (currently on Netflix) Gerald’s Game. The issues surrounding sexual abuse are important parts of those stories and King’s overall oeuvre. I’m not sure why this is such a common trope in King’s lore. I just know that it is and is no less prevalent in the novel IT.
I knew going into IT that the film would deal with this kind of thing in some way. I looked at the scene with the kids all swimming together in their underwear as a director trying to honestly portray that particular kind of childhood experience as best he could. However, there were a lot of people who felt he crossed a line.
Did he? Perhaps. Perhaps all of this could have been dealt with in a much more subtle way. The scene where she hid tampons behind her back seemed to perfectly sum up what she was struggling with and her father and the pharmacist were creepy enough without being too over the top in my eyes.
When I saw the swimming scene I thought to myself, “Yeah when I was 13 I used to swim in lakes in my underwear and even went to a Bible camp where I’d swim with girls and get super duper awkward.”
Was the choice to have them in their underwear to sexualize them and not a representation of the
fact that some kids go swimming in their underwear? I saw it as the latter and I’m assuming
most of the theatre going audience saw it the same way too. However when I saw the early
photos released online of all the child actors in robes I got nervous and thought to myself, ‘They
are covered in robes, so they're probably in swimsuits or not very much clothing at all and
despite the context someone will still think ‘HEY REMEMBER THE GANGBANG IN THE
BOOK?’ and that's a real problem.
I’ll cite one one example in film history to try to make some kind of point that will become apparent how incredibly hard it is of a point I’m trying to make. I still think it’s important to try to make this point despite how linguistically rocky a road it is to make it. The classic film Taxi Driver features a young, future-Academy-Award-winner, Jodie Foster as a prostitute along with the line: "She's 12 and 1/2 years old. You ain't never had no pussy like that.” Even in the most aggressive and direct forms of the disturbing nature of youth and sex and sexual abuse has been portrayed in film. But Taxi Driver's tone and frame is a lot different than IT.
However if I were to write an article on the portrayal of youthful sexuality in the history of cinema than this article would be a book, and in my research I’m sure I’d uncover some things I wouldn’t want to find. But my point is that cinema has never been shy about the fears of women coming-of-age and the horrors of the male gaze manifested in the form of monsters.
Through the lens of film history and film language watching the film I never did feel that Andy Muschietti crossed any line here and I don’t really think that the millions of people that went and saw IT took out of those scenes anything more than a director trying to honestly portray a youthful experience. Muschietti grew up on 80's films. This felt like an 80's film. But I know there are members in the audience who were deeply disturbed by it, and yes they are allowed to be. They aren't seeing something that isn't there.
Sex is a subject coming-of-age films often deal with and that is what Stephen King's IT is, a coming-of-age story. It’s no surprise that the film attempts to tackle those themes somehow. Fiction, especially adult and R-rated fiction, should be able to deal with subjects that are hard for people to talk about. As long as no one is actually hurt I'll take a fictional story about almost anything. But here I need to dive much deeper into the darker parts of cinema and cinema history.
This is the horror world, but real monsters do exist here. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is a great, important film in horror history, but despite how good that piece of work is as a film, in 1977 Roman Polanski was charged with 5 offenses against a 13 year old girl and ended up fleeing the United States because of it.
Another real life monster is the director of Clownhouse, Victor Salva and like Polanski, Victor is a child molester (Roman was arrested and charged and Salva convicted. Roman left the country before his trial was finished.) and this past year the 3rd film in his incredibly popular Jeepers Creepers franchise was released and sat in Redbox alongside IT.
I’ll cite one one example in film history to try to make some kind of point that will become apparent how incredibly hard it is of a point I’m trying to make. I still think it’s important to try to make this point despite how linguistically rocky a road it is to make it. The classic film Taxi Driver features a young, future-Academy-Award-winner, Jodie Foster as a prostitute along with the line: "She's 12 and 1/2 years old. You ain't never had no pussy like that.” Even in the most aggressive and direct forms of the disturbing nature of youth and sex and sexual abuse has been portrayed in film. But Taxi Driver's tone and frame is a lot different than IT.
However if I were to write an article on the portrayal of youthful sexuality in the history of cinema than this article would be a book, and in my research I’m sure I’d uncover some things I wouldn’t want to find. But my point is that cinema has never been shy about the fears of women coming-of-age and the horrors of the male gaze manifested in the form of monsters.
Through the lens of film history and film language watching the film I never did feel that Andy Muschietti crossed any line here and I don’t really think that the millions of people that went and saw IT took out of those scenes anything more than a director trying to honestly portray a youthful experience. Muschietti grew up on 80's films. This felt like an 80's film. But I know there are members in the audience who were deeply disturbed by it, and yes they are allowed to be. They aren't seeing something that isn't there.
Sex is a subject coming-of-age films often deal with and that is what Stephen King's IT is, a coming-of-age story. It’s no surprise that the film attempts to tackle those themes somehow. Fiction, especially adult and R-rated fiction, should be able to deal with subjects that are hard for people to talk about. As long as no one is actually hurt I'll take a fictional story about almost anything. But here I need to dive much deeper into the darker parts of cinema and cinema history.
This is the horror world, but real monsters do exist here. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is a great, important film in horror history, but despite how good that piece of work is as a film, in 1977 Roman Polanski was charged with 5 offenses against a 13 year old girl and ended up fleeing the United States because of it.
Another real life monster is the director of Clownhouse, Victor Salva and like Polanski, Victor is a child molester (Roman was arrested and charged and Salva convicted. Roman left the country before his trial was finished.) and this past year the 3rd film in his incredibly popular Jeepers Creepers franchise was released and sat in Redbox alongside IT.
Why is talking about Salva important while discussing the seemingly unrelated film IT? Because
of some very weird coincidences and not just that both films feature scary clowns.
2017's IT decided to move the timeframe of the story from the 1950's to the 1980's. Very specifically 1989 and not 1986, when the novel was published, or 1990, which would be 27 years prior to this film's release and the year of the release of the still very popular T.V. miniseries— but 1989 which is also the year Clownhouse was released and specifically June 1989 as a title card at the beginning of IT (2017) states.
IT rather than taking place mostly in the sewers, like the climax does in the novel and T.V. miniseries did, 2017's IT takes place mostly in a spooky house on Neibolt St that serves as Pennywise’s lair . . . a Clownhouse, if you will.
Is it worth also noting that Pennywise’s lip makeup seems to echo the the exaggerated shape of the eyebrow of the clown in Salva’s Clownhouse. Both lines seem to overlap. Is that too much a coincidence?
The design of the Neibolt house also seems to have a spire similar to the house in Clownhouse. And is it a coincidence too that this new Pennywise’s hairstyle seems to be incredibly similar the clown in Clownhouse of three distinct orange peaks, almost identical?
Maybe I’ve been in the entertainment industry so long that I just notice little details like this and understand that when it comes to subtext, makeup, art design (The posters on the walls.), costume design, and even individual word choices in a film everything it seems is mulled over to the highest degree. But I find it hard to believe that in a film this packed with subtle Easter Eggs and nods to other films, including an obscure nod to the film “Let’s Scare Jessica To Death”. Is any of that is really just a coincidence? Perhaps I’m wrong. This article is merely playing devil’s advocate in pointing out something insidious lying underneath the surface of what some have chalked up as a ‘popcorn horror’ film.
Derry, Maine might speak to the larger 'see something, say nothing' part of rape culture but was any of this intended? And is intent all that matters when speaking of this kind of art?
Perhaps it was not intended, but the fears at the back of our minds are still present whether we know it or not. And this was too frightening of a “coincidence” for me not to make a note of. Like Fox Mulder of the X-Files once said, "If coincidences are just coincidences why do they feel so contrived?”
With so many online lists of ‘easter eggs’ chomping at the bit to point out cute turtle references, or the fact that Pennywise’s eye, as well as a woman in the library, are staring awkwardly toward the audience, maybe this one just hit the head on the door too hard for me. But if IT didn’t want me to be thinking about children and sex, and if Muschietti & Co wanted me to forget about the tween gangbang in the novel maybe, just maybe, putting a song whose lyrics read ‘Six different ways go deep inside’ over a scene with 6 young boys and one young girl was a wrong choice of music.
But I’m not sure I can chalk all that up to a coincidence. I would love to think of this work of art without all that but even Honest Trailers felt the need to mention the child gangbang scene from the novel. In fact most articles it seems felt the urge to mention that scene and how it surprisingly wasn’t filmed . . . yet it most certainly was winked at and most certainly was referenced but done so in such a sneaky subtle way that most people would probably tell me that ‘I’m just seeing things’. And I would be left to feel much like the children of Derry do when their parents don’t listen.
2017's IT decided to move the timeframe of the story from the 1950's to the 1980's. Very specifically 1989 and not 1986, when the novel was published, or 1990, which would be 27 years prior to this film's release and the year of the release of the still very popular T.V. miniseries— but 1989 which is also the year Clownhouse was released and specifically June 1989 as a title card at the beginning of IT (2017) states.
IT rather than taking place mostly in the sewers, like the climax does in the novel and T.V. miniseries did, 2017's IT takes place mostly in a spooky house on Neibolt St that serves as Pennywise’s lair . . . a Clownhouse, if you will.
Is it worth also noting that Pennywise’s lip makeup seems to echo the the exaggerated shape of the eyebrow of the clown in Salva’s Clownhouse. Both lines seem to overlap. Is that too much a coincidence?
The design of the Neibolt house also seems to have a spire similar to the house in Clownhouse. And is it a coincidence too that this new Pennywise’s hairstyle seems to be incredibly similar the clown in Clownhouse of three distinct orange peaks, almost identical?
Maybe I’ve been in the entertainment industry so long that I just notice little details like this and understand that when it comes to subtext, makeup, art design (The posters on the walls.), costume design, and even individual word choices in a film everything it seems is mulled over to the highest degree. But I find it hard to believe that in a film this packed with subtle Easter Eggs and nods to other films, including an obscure nod to the film “Let’s Scare Jessica To Death”. Is any of that is really just a coincidence? Perhaps I’m wrong. This article is merely playing devil’s advocate in pointing out something insidious lying underneath the surface of what some have chalked up as a ‘popcorn horror’ film.
Derry, Maine might speak to the larger 'see something, say nothing' part of rape culture but was any of this intended? And is intent all that matters when speaking of this kind of art?
Perhaps it was not intended, but the fears at the back of our minds are still present whether we know it or not. And this was too frightening of a “coincidence” for me not to make a note of. Like Fox Mulder of the X-Files once said, "If coincidences are just coincidences why do they feel so contrived?”
With so many online lists of ‘easter eggs’ chomping at the bit to point out cute turtle references, or the fact that Pennywise’s eye, as well as a woman in the library, are staring awkwardly toward the audience, maybe this one just hit the head on the door too hard for me. But if IT didn’t want me to be thinking about children and sex, and if Muschietti & Co wanted me to forget about the tween gangbang in the novel maybe, just maybe, putting a song whose lyrics read ‘Six different ways go deep inside’ over a scene with 6 young boys and one young girl was a wrong choice of music.
But I’m not sure I can chalk all that up to a coincidence. I would love to think of this work of art without all that but even Honest Trailers felt the need to mention the child gangbang scene from the novel. In fact most articles it seems felt the urge to mention that scene and how it surprisingly wasn’t filmed . . . yet it most certainly was winked at and most certainly was referenced but done so in such a sneaky subtle way that most people would probably tell me that ‘I’m just seeing things’. And I would be left to feel much like the children of Derry do when their parents don’t listen.
Every time a child goes missing or something terrible happens in Derry, Maine, the town just
turns a blind eye and looks the other way. Maybe this haunted town is more like America and
Hollywood culture than we are really still ready to admit. Maybe society has this object
permanence issue, where if something bad doesn’t directly affect them it’s okay just to feel like it
really isn’t there. And maybe there is a part of me, and society, that is just waking up now.
This is a dark fear that the novel reminded us of, and this new film does as well if maybe only for me and a few others. It seems that most people are talking about IT as standard 80’s style popcorn horror but when I came to see IT I saw something far deeper and more insidious onscreen. This film reminds us that children are abused, which the book did, but this film pulls that fear out of me and others in a much deeper way. I'm still unsure if that was the director's intent, but now that I am thinking about it I can't get that fear out of my head.
IT is that dark place deep inside us all that we don’t want to talk about or even admit is really there, like a ghost lurking in our subconscious. In fact, IT could just have easily changed the title to ID.
When news broke about Harvey Weinstein, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood for a long, long time, was anyone really surprised? Since the days of Fatty Arbuckle, we’ve ignored Hollywood’s dark recesses and the real monsters hidden in plain sight. Our silence enables them to creep around in the shadows without fear of reprisal. Film and film language, like all art, builds on its history and Hollywood’s history isn’t as pretty as the backdrops and lights we normally associate with it.
Alfred Hitchcock ruined a woman’s career because she didn’t want to sleep with him according to numerous accounts. He is also considered a genius, who portrayed his monsters as human. But maybe a part of his legacy should be that he was also part-monster. With recent news coming out about Harvey Weinstein and so many other industry people, perhaps the light of day is finally shining on these issues the way it needs to, and the problems most of us turn a blind eye to for the sake of our entertainment will hopefully be addressed. Only time will tell if we are now on the right track.
The glamours of Pennywise the Dancing, child eating, Clown lurking underneath the sewers of Derry, Maine manifest themselves in the greatest fears of those who encounter it. Maybe this film was just able to accomplish that with me sitting in a theatre with friends outside of the drama onscreen most would consider a fantasy. But I still can’t watch Rosemary’s Baby without thinking about Sharon Tate and what Roman Polanski became and I still can’t watch IT without thinking about Victor Salva. But maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t really there, just shadows on the wall, just coincidences. Maybe the film has that same kind of power that Pennywise has. But the fear, the fear that something deeper may be lurking in the film is still no less real to me.
This is a dark fear that the novel reminded us of, and this new film does as well if maybe only for me and a few others. It seems that most people are talking about IT as standard 80’s style popcorn horror but when I came to see IT I saw something far deeper and more insidious onscreen. This film reminds us that children are abused, which the book did, but this film pulls that fear out of me and others in a much deeper way. I'm still unsure if that was the director's intent, but now that I am thinking about it I can't get that fear out of my head.
IT is that dark place deep inside us all that we don’t want to talk about or even admit is really there, like a ghost lurking in our subconscious. In fact, IT could just have easily changed the title to ID.
When news broke about Harvey Weinstein, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood for a long, long time, was anyone really surprised? Since the days of Fatty Arbuckle, we’ve ignored Hollywood’s dark recesses and the real monsters hidden in plain sight. Our silence enables them to creep around in the shadows without fear of reprisal. Film and film language, like all art, builds on its history and Hollywood’s history isn’t as pretty as the backdrops and lights we normally associate with it.
Alfred Hitchcock ruined a woman’s career because she didn’t want to sleep with him according to numerous accounts. He is also considered a genius, who portrayed his monsters as human. But maybe a part of his legacy should be that he was also part-monster. With recent news coming out about Harvey Weinstein and so many other industry people, perhaps the light of day is finally shining on these issues the way it needs to, and the problems most of us turn a blind eye to for the sake of our entertainment will hopefully be addressed. Only time will tell if we are now on the right track.
The glamours of Pennywise the Dancing, child eating, Clown lurking underneath the sewers of Derry, Maine manifest themselves in the greatest fears of those who encounter it. Maybe this film was just able to accomplish that with me sitting in a theatre with friends outside of the drama onscreen most would consider a fantasy. But I still can’t watch Rosemary’s Baby without thinking about Sharon Tate and what Roman Polanski became and I still can’t watch IT without thinking about Victor Salva. But maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t really there, just shadows on the wall, just coincidences. Maybe the film has that same kind of power that Pennywise has. But the fear, the fear that something deeper may be lurking in the film is still no less real to me.
If Andy Muschietti’s IT didn’t creep you out, like it now does me, maybe you just weren’t
looking deep enough.
(Below is my initial response to the film.)
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