Pennywise the dancing clown made its first reappearance in the 2017 reboot of “It” and has come back to haunt the town of Derry and the Losers Club in “It Chapter Two.” The movie was released on Sept. 6 and contains the original cast, including Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise.

The original kids from the 2017 movie return years later to their hometown to face Pennywise after a chain of murders occur. A small part of the movie shows the lives the Losers Club have made for themselves after leaving Derry, Maine. It was interesting to see how their pasts affect their future, like how Beverly’s past experiences with abuse from her father led her to a relationship with an abusive husband. 

As most page-to-screen movie adaptations are, there are similarities and differences to it. Both versions are pretty lengthy. The movie is almost three hours long, while the novel is a whopping 1,153 pages long. 

A three-hour film still couldn’t fit all the details of the novel, which was expected. I was glad that some parts of the novel were left out, like the giant turtle that created the universe and helps the

kids defeat Pennywise, but it’s disappointing they didn’t include the story arc of Beverly and Bill’s spouses. Granted, compared to the other storylines it isn’t necessary, but I think the movie didn’t humanize the spouses as much as the novel did. 

In the novel, the characters slowly forget about the trauma Pennywise inflicted upon them the farther they moved away from Derry. I thought it was a lazy way to quickly jump to the adult aspects of their lives, especially since the book is lengthy. Watching the movie, I realized the part of their lives where they forgot Pennywise was needed for their characters to develop without one another. 

Because I’ve read the novel, it wasn’t a surprise to me when a certain character dies in the movie, but shock and emotional factor were still high. After Mike Hanon, played by Isaiah Mustafa calls the other characters in the film to tell them about Pennywise’s return, Stanley Uris commits suicide, Pennywise’s use of their dead friend was probably one of the more frightening scenes in the movie. 

Many of the themes addressed within the movie like abuse and sexuality are relevant today, and I enjoyed how the movie elaborated on these themes more than the novel. It made the movie feel more modern instead of the time period the book was written in 1986. Eddie Kaspbrack was emotionally abused by his mother, and the town of Derry has deep rooted homophobia and it connects with Richie Tozier’s battles with his sexuality. 

A main appeal of the of the first movie was the charming and charismatic child actors, and the casting for their older counterparts are equally as perfect. Bill Hader was exactly who I imagined as Richie in Stephen King’s novel. His pessimistic and crude humor brings a strange lightheartedness to the morbid film. Bill Skarsgard continues to use his terrifying gestures and facial expressions to play Pennywise. 

The storyline and the characters are definitely the reason the franchise and the novel have done so well. The movie isn’t scary, minus a few jump scares, but I wouldn’t watch it for the horror, I would watch it for the charismatic cast and to see how the first movie’s coming of age themes develop into a darker and more adult film.