'It: Chapter Two' is full of blood-curdling twists as Pennywise the Clown haunts Losers' Club again
Hold your breath! Pennywise the Dancing Clown might just pop his head back up from the sewer with his red balloon. Based on Stephen King's book of the same name, 'It: Chapter Two' is all set to terrify viewers with a spooky saga.
For those of you, who can't wait to watch new twists and turns in the second installment, the author has a message: "Don't want to wait for Part 2 of IT, the movie? You can always read IT, the book. Just sayin'." After all, it's hard to lose sight of spoilers if you've already read King's 1,100-page 1986 bestseller, isn't it?
Moving 27 years forward from where 'It' winded up, the supernatural horror film brings back members of the Losers' Club as adult actors to their hometown of Derry, Maine. The misfit kids, who appear in flashbacks, fought off the evil shape-shifting clown but he seems to be back again. In the novel, the two age groups were juxtaposed and pieced together. However, the movie has segregated the two-time frames in different parts. Director Andy Muschietti said: “If we’re telling the story of adults, we are going to have flashbacks that take us back to the ‘80s and inform the story in the present day… The children will still be a very big part of the action.”
Since 'It' went a little off-track from the plot of the novel, the sequel could also deviate from its original storyline and that's where the fun lies, even for hard-core Stephen King readers. In a teaser-trailer that was dropped a few months ago, there are hints of how the evil clown re-enters the club members' lives.
Bloody bath
Jessica Chastain essays the older version of Beverly Marsh. She returns back to the town after a devastating call. Marsh was the only female member of the club, who was not only abused physically and sexually by her father but also bullied at school over false promiscuity rumors. When she rings the bell to her house, an old woman opens the door and offers her refreshments. At the end of the eerie 2.55-minute clip, Marsh fathoms that she is sharing the house with not the old woman but the sinister clown instead.
Appearing on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' on February 2019, the actress warned about a blood-curdling scene in the film. Calling it the scene that contains "the largest amount of blood ever spilled in a horror-movie", she confessed, "The next day, I was like, pulling blood out of my eyeballs."
Mystery house
As the final trailer debuted on July 17 at San Diego Comic-Con 2019, it opened the doors to a world of madhouse horrors, dreadful sewers and blood buckets. In a special spoiler screening, audiences were bewitched into the supernatural world with two other clips. While one traced the journey of Losers' Club members from kids to adults, the other video peeps into a mysterious house seen at the end of the 2017 film. Muschietti revealed that the house only comes into the view of those seven members.
The character Stan Uris (played by Andy Bean) will have a reduced screen role. In the book, he commits suicide when asked to return to the town again. Shedding light on the twist, Muschietti explains, "There is something in the future for him, taking his own life, that finds its seed in this film. He is the one who doesn’t want to accept what’s going on. And being the one who didn’t want to participate he gets the worst part.”
Dark and deadly
In a big disclosure, Muschietti confirmed that the movie might digress from the storyline in the novel. Mike Hanlon (played by young actor Chosen Jacobs) is the only character that stays back in the town of Derry to become a librarian. However, the filmmaker seems to have chalked out a different plan for the film. “My idea of Mike in the second movie is quite darker from the book,” the filmmaker told Entertainment Weekly, adding, “I want to make his character the one pivotal character who brings them all together, but staying in Derry took a toll with him. I want him to be a junkie actually. A librarian junkie. When the second movie starts, he’s a wreck.”
Isaiah Mustafa, the actor, who plays Mike's older version, told CNET: "[The film is] still about that friendship those kids in chapter one developed and how they really became each other's best friends to fight this evil. Don't get me wrong, it's horrifying, but it's still touching."
Mystic marvel
What other mystic elements from the book have made it to the final cut? Screenwriter Gary Dauberman told Cinema Blend that the bizarre Ritual of Chüd will be an integral part of the film. Wondering what it is? A psychic battle, where Pennywise the Clown will force each member of the Losers' Club to overlap their tongues, bite it down and exchange jokes until there is a squeal of laughter from the other group.
At the ConanCon panel, James McAvoy, who essays Bill Denbrough's character, spoke about a spine-chilling scene shot in the hall of mirrors and said it was "like a nightmare ... absolutely horrific with no fun". Bill Hader, who plays Richie Toziersaid, marveled at Bill Skarsgård's talent to play the Dancing Clown, saying he was "born to play Pennywise". "He's superimposing in the costume. He's a super nice guy but then when they say 'Action,' it's like a whole other being." The "eye trick" Pennywise does where one eye is looking straight and the other goes off to the side is not computer-generated; it's just something Skarsgård is able to do naturally.
Summing up the ending, Daubman told Slash: "The ending I think will satisfy the audience and maybe break their hearts a little bit."
'It: Chapter Two' is set to be released in on September 6, 2019, by Warner Bros Pictures.