Here's what you need to know; things are not as they appear in the quiet little town of Derry, beneath the quaint American exterior lies a long and morbid history and an even longer list of dead and missing children. Among the missing is Bill's little brother, Georgie, whose fate Bill tirelessly seeks to uncover, but he's about to realise that he should have just left it alone. Something evil hides beneath Derry, something that defies Bill and his friends' comprehension; a creature that can feed on their fear, one that has re-emerged from its slumber and is ready for another feeding. But it isn't invulnerable and the Losers Club do not intend to go down without a fight, vowing to put a stop to the killings and take Pennywise the Dancing Clown down for good.
It is infamous for its opening scene in which Georgie meets Pennywise, but one of my most vivid memories of seeing this film in the cinema is the shock me and my mates felt in this scene, because holy shit is it brutal. This scene's function in the film is very simple; it sets up Bill's conflict and introduces us to Pennywise, and it does both of those jobs very well. On a deeper level however, this scene has a much more psychological effect, establishing It to a film that doesn't fuck around by tearing apart our comforting preconceptions of horror. In the film's opening we meet Georgie, a harmless, innocent kid who's scared of going into the basement and sees a scary monster in the light reflecting off a pair of bulbs. But of course, the scary monster is just some bulbs, so there's nothing for Georgie to fear, he's safe. You would never expect him to be first victim because most horror films wouldn't have the balls to hurt such a good kid, then in swoops It with a scene that's dripping in dread and apprehension, almost as much as the drool dripping from Pennywise's mouth. It's a scene with an inevitable outcome, you're watching it in constant anticipation for the moment something snaps, all the while the dread builds and builds. The scene doesn't compromise the false sense of security around Georgie however, with Pennywise even changing his eye colour to blue to further lull Georgie, all while making him laugh and offering him a balloon. And then it happens, Pennywise grabs Georgie and rips his arm off with his teeth.
In this instance a very simple and clear message is conveyed; no one is safe, not even sweet, innocent little Georgie can get away from this threat, and the film shows it to you in all its glory, foregoing any effort to obscure the image of Georgie dragging himself across the road with blood pouring from his missing arm. And even though Georgie manages to get out of arm's reach of Pennywise, it doesn't matter because Pennywise grabs him anyway and drags him away into Derry's sewer system, because there is no getting away from Pennywise, it's a simple visual but it gets the point across. But the reason the film doesn't try to hide the brutality is simple, it's to shock you and to get it to stick in your mind, that way if Pennywise gets his hands on one of our heroes later in the film, it's not so clear if they're getting out of it or not, this scene plants that doubt in your head that these kids can die, rather violently too, which escalates the tension of several of the film's later scenes considerably. And Georgie's last word, "Billie," is to reinforce the guilt that Bill feels over Georgie's death by telling us how much Georgie trusted and relied upon his big brother, like many things in this film, it's kind of twisted. Speaking of twisted, the very next scene gives us a close up of a sheep getting shot with a bolt gun, just in case seeing a kid getting his arm ripped off wasn't gruesome enough for you. But there's something a bit more important to take away from this scene apart from the bolt gun itself, and that's the lecture Mike gets from his grandad.
This scene gives us a speech that's presented to us as if it's important, and though it might not seem that important, I think it is. Here's the speech; "there are two places you can be in this world, you can be out here like us," referring to the people "or you can be in there like them," referring to the sheep. "You waste time hemming and hawing and someone else is gonna make that choice for you, except you won't know it until you feel that bolt between your eyes." if you've already seen the film, you know this is foreshadowing for Mike's encounter with Henry towards the end of the film, but it's the speech's allusion to the sheep that I find interesting. It's effectively offering Mike a choice; he can be sheep, a mindless animal in a slaughterhouse, or he can a man in charge of his own fate, and in the context of a town that's the hunting ground of an immortal, shapeshifting apex predator, this little speech takes on a whole different meaning. Mike is given the choice to be passive like the rest of the town or to act, which is the option he takes of course, while the rest of the town stays blissfully ignorant as their kids are constantly disappearing, he takes that bolt gun he's afraid to use and goes to fight back. And to further emphasise this point, the film cuts from the sheep being released from their pen to kids being let out of school, an obvious parallel, and a comedically dark one at that.
Like kids tend to do, the various members of the Losers club are scared of stuff, and some of them, mainly Stan, Ben and Richie, have very simple, childish fears. Richie is scared of clowns, Ben is scared by his findings while digging into the town's history, and Stan is scared of his dad's very creepy Modigiliani-esque painting. These may seem childish to us but that's entirely the point, they are childish fears because these are kids, and we all had these silly fears when we were younger, I for example was scared of the dark, still not a big fan of it to be honest, and that easily explains why the Doctor Who episode Silence in the Library scared me so much as a kid. As for the rest of the Losers club, their fears are a bit more complicated, each stemming from a trauma in their lives; Bill for example is scared of accepting that Georgie is dead, Eddie is scared of germs, a result of his mum's borderline oppressive sheltering of him, Mike is scared by his parents' death in a fire, and Beverly is scared of her sexually abusive dad, and these fears are brilliantly explored through the kids' encounters with Pennywise. Each kid must learn to overcome their fear throughout the film, whether it's something silly like a creepy painting or something massively fucked up like their sexually abusive dad. But before we jump the gun and go to the scary scenes, a friend of mine made an observation one time while we were watching the film and I don't think it's coincidental. All of the kids' parents that we see are arseholes. Bill's dad snaps at him for his refusal to accept Georgie's death, Eddie's mum is over-protective, Beverly's dad is a depraved creep. 
This isn't accidental, it's to make the kids vulnerable; in making the parents arseholes, it takes away the safety net that parents are supposed to provide, leaving the kids with no one to turn to but each other and forcing them to take control of their own fates and fight for themselves, rather than joining the rest of the sheep in the slaughterhouse. A recurring concept in the film is control and agency, which is obvious in the case of Beverly, but still very present in other characters like Bill, Eddie and Mike. But it's obvious in Beverly as soon as she gets home after helping the Losers steal supplies from the pharmacy. Her dad's presence in this scene is unsettling, as is Beverly's completely submissive nature around him. The film's heavy implication of their abusive relationship is probably the darkest this film gets, and it makes the bathroom scene later in the film one of my favourite scenes, but we'll get to that. Less skin-crawly is things like Eddie not being able to leave the house without kissing his mum, which, like Beverly and her dad, implies a lack of agency and control, though obviously to a smaller and less perverted degree. Then the Losers club go to the quarry and the tone completely shifts; whereas the previous scene gave us Beverly alone, scared and angry, this scene gives us a bunch of kids having fun in a quarry, a pleasant, well lit, colourful quarry. In contrast to the previous scene, where she was scared and weak, Beverly now joins the losers in their underwear and throws herself into the quarry without a care in the world. The film doesn't return to the quarry, which is odd because it's clearly set up as a place of safety for the Losers club, but the function of this scene is to enforce the group's friendship, which naturally becomes important in their fight against Pennywise.
Also important is the turtle, which a recurring motif throughout the film, it's a reference to Maturin, a turtle god from Stephen King's books and an enemy of Pennywise, which this film uses as a signifier of safety. Ok, now let's talk scares, because each kid in this film has their moment of being terrified by Pennywise and while the pattern is usually the same, the scares themselves can be pretty creative. Mike for example gets a door being pounded on by charred hands as smoke billows out from behind the door, this is actually one of the film's more subtle scares and obviously plays on Mike's fear of the fire that killed his parents. Others are less subtle; Stan gets scared by a manifestation of his dad's creepy painting, Eddie gets chased down by a Leper, and Ben has a run in with a headless boy that he saw in a history book, but then there are the things that Pennywise shows to Beverly and Bill, which are the standouts. Let's start with Bill, who is lured into Georgie's room and finds a lego turtle, before dropping and breaking it when he sees Georgie run down into the basement. Remember the turtle from the quarry and how it was used to make the quarry safe, in this scene, the turtle being in Georgie's room implies that Georgie's room has become a sort of refuge for Bill, one that is broken by the breaking of the turtle, before he goes into the basement and sees the thing he is most afraid of. In the basement, he finds Georgie chanting "you'll float too" while his face rots and decays, the implication being that Bill can't accept that Georgie is dead, hence It showing him his brother as a rotting corpse.
And not just a corpse, but a corpse being controlled by Pennywise, literally controlled like a puppet, which calls back to the film's themes of control and agency, as well as somewhat blatantly suggesting that It is a puppeteer, as in the apathy and malaise of Derry is the fault of It and that his influence is even more insidious than scaring kids. Beverly's scare is easily the most graphic in the film, which is an accomplishment when you think about it. Earlier in the film, Beverly furiously cuts her hair in the mirror, with the prior scene establishing her Dad's abusive tendencies and his particular liking of her hair. Also earlier in the film we see her in the pharmacy looking at Tampax and on returning home and reluctantly showing her dad the Tampax, he asks "are you still my little girl." All of these factors play into what Beverly sees in the bathroom, first with the hair coming alive and pinning her to the sink; a manifestation of her fear of her dad and his constricting effect on her life, then with the sink erupting in blood, drenching her and covering every inch of the room. And it is a cartoonish amount of blood too, makes the same scene from the miniseries look like a booboo. With everything the film has previously established about Beverly, the implication of the blood is obvious and absolutely disgusting, but more crucially, it plays on Beverly's fear of the lack of agency in her life and her looming sexual maturity. In a sharp contrast to the extreme nature of this scene and its obvious implications, we then get the Losers working together to clean the blood away, the implication being the strength that Beverly and the rest of the Losers find in each other, an ability to work together and overcome what they're afraid of, which obviously becomes crucial in the finale.
Another thing that becomes crucial in the finale is the scene where they win a rock fight with Bowers and his boys. In addition to it being Mike's induction into the Losers club, it's a scene that demonstrates their strength; as individuals, Bowers is an insurmountable threat, but together, they can beat him, which draws a parallel between Bowers and Pennywise who, like Bowers, is reduced to nothing more than a bully. And like Bowers used to be, Pennywise seems insurmountable in the scene where he comes out of the wall at them, just by how physically massive he is and by his ability to bend reality around the losers. This is clearly a show of might; It knows that they've found where it lives and jumps out of the wall at them as a warning not to get involved, but far from being intimidated, Bill sets out to attack It where it lives, with the Losers reluctantly giving chase. I've also always thought that the way Derry's sewer network is arranged on the map was deliberate too; with the tunnels branching out underneath the town like a spider's limbs with the wellhouse, It's lair at its centre. Depicting Derry as the limbs or possibly the web with Pennywise's lair at the centre would make sense in the context of Derry being It's hunting ground, and the Losers being It's prey. Continuing the film's themes of agency and control, the rhyme that Bill repeats throughout the film, "He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts," comes from a novel called Donovan's Brain. This is interesting because in that novel, that rhyme is used to resist the subliminal coercion of the titular brain, how coincidental then that he'd be repeating that phrase, given that the town of Derry is repeatedly suggested to be in a state of apathy and ignorance, like the layout of the sewers and Pennywise puppeteering Georgie, it's as if the film is suggesting that Pennywise has control over the town itself, which amplifies the Losers' lack of outside support, they fight together or die alone and Derry isn't going to care either way.
The Losers' assault on Neibolt goes about as well as you'd think; with Richie's nerve breaking only seconds after they enter the house, and It eventually managing to separate them and nearly kill Eddie. This is another one of my favourite scenes in the film for the obvious reason; the Losers go in with every intention to fight Pennywise and end up fleeing the house in terror after Pennywise kicks their arses. This scene plays out like horror movie 101, with them hearing a funny noise and slowly walking towards it before the scare happens, but at least they're not adults who should know better, and for a villain's who's game is to scare the shit out them before he kills them, turning the house into a haunted house attraction makes a lot of sense. That and the scene where Pennywise crawls out of the fridge and tries to eat Eddie is just amazing; the way he flips from goofy clown to sadistic monster, and his taunting of Bill before lunging at them, this is one of the film's most intense sequences and I love it. But before he can kill any of them, the rest of the Losers show up and Beverly stabs him in the face, forcing him to retreat. As Beverly says in the next scene, they were able to hurt it because they were together, but that's all they could do because even as a group, they were still afraid, which gave Pennywise a chance to escape. As Beverly also says in the next scene, Pennywise wants to divide them for the precise reason that they were able to hurt it as a group, because they're weak on their own, but even if they give each other strength against Pennywise, there's no guarantee that Pennywise won't fuck them up again the next time, despite Bill's optimism, and the Losers ultimately fracture out of fear.
The film picks back up a while later, with the Losers club still split from the assault on Neibolt. And we are treated to a scene where Henry is shown to be a "paper man." Earlier in the film, one of his gang, Patrick, is mauled by Pennywise after a run in with his greatest fear; a pack of zombies, which is a fear in the vain of Stan's fear of a painting or Richie's fear of clowns, it's easy. Henry meanwhile is the big bad of the school, so it's interesting to find that his greatest fear is his dad, who he cowers before after being caught playing with his gun, and is powerless to stop as he humiliates him in front of his gang. Similar to Beverly's fear of her dad, this is a bit less simple than a painting or a zombie, but unlike Beverly, Henry has allowed his fear of his dad to turn him into a violent bully, someone who seeks to humiliate and overpower others because at home, he's the one with no power. But for some reason, rather than killing him, Pennywise effectively recruits him by giving him back his knife and having him kill his dad in an incredibly bloody scene, before tasking him with "[killing] them all." To be honest, I don't know why Pennywise does this, but I can hazard a guess. The Losers, or at least Bill and Richie, are able to resist It's attempts to scare them, and they were all able to hurt it, but while Pennywise's smoke and mirrors is just that; smoke and mirrors that are only dangerous if you believe them to be, a man with a knife is not smoke and mirrors, and with this happening just before It takes Beverly, one would assume that Beverly was bait and the plan was for Henry to finish them off. This gives credence to Bill later saying that Pennywise is scared of them, because it sees them as a threat.
Oh yeah, It takes Beverly, snatches her from her home after she smacks her dad in the head with the top of the toilet in what my brother, who's a big fan of horror, don't you know, says is the only scary scene in the film. It's not scary because of Beverly's dad trying to rape her though, no, it's the bit where she turns around and Pennywise is right behind her, because my brother is an absolute normie when it comes to horror, though to his credit, he thought last years' Halloween sucked and so did I, I digress. This scene does parallel the previous scene however; albeit that Henry stabbed his dad in the neck, all Beverly did was give him a really, really bad headache. But what both of these scenes have in common is obvious, two of the film's characters overcoming what they're afraid of, only in different ways; Henry solves his problem with murder, Beverly solves her problem by standing up to him, which escalates into him getting grabby grabby, her then kicking him in the face, him then kicking in the bathroom door, and her smashing the lid of the toilet tank on his face. In addition to being very satisfying to watch, I mean, that hit was brutal, it reduces her dad who was previously a domineering, oppressive presence to a weak, powerless, wounded man. And while Pennywise might be the scariest thing in the world to Eddie or Richie or Stan, it probably isn't to Beverly, and in taking that power over her away from her dad, she's effectively taken Pennywise's power over her away too. To a lesser extent, we also see this in Eddie as he escapes from his mother to save Beverly, standing up to her just as Beverly did to her dad.
This transitions us into the film's climax as the Losers come back together to save Beverly from It, after dealing with Henry with surprising ease, of course. I've kept the sequel out of this redux up until this point, but it's worth saying that after Henry turns bad(er) in this film, he only shows up once more, trying and failing to kill Mike, who then pushes him down the well. I'd hoped that Henry would return for the sequel, and he does, but they completely waste him in the sequel, and it makes me realise just how much they waste him in this film too. For a fearsome enemy of the heroes, a school bully turned blood-thirsty killer, he goes out really quickly in this film, so quickly in fact that he contributes nothing to the film's finale outside of Mike losing the ammo for the bolt gun, maybe, at a push. Looking at both films, I do think that Henry could have been handled better, maybe downplayed in this film and given a more important role in the sequel, as an alternative to him just being around and not really doing anything. That doesn't really matter though because now it's the Losers vs. Pennywise, it's the moment we've all been waiting for. With Beverly having physically overpowered her fear, it's now time for Bill to confront and overcome his fear, and Ben brings Beverly back from seeing the Deadlights by kissing her, which is cute, January Embers and all that. But that's somewhat insignificant in the shadow of Bill saying goodbye to Georgie. And not only does he say goodbye to him, he shoots him in the head with the bolt gun, overcoming both Pennywise's efforts to ensnare him and his own fear of accepting Georgie's death, because what better way to resolve the unresolved death of a loved one than to finish them off personally.
What follows is a brief confrontation where Pennywise easily overpowers the Losers and is able to take Bill, who tells them all to leave after Pennywise gives them the choice, which is a testament to Bill's character, being prepared to die to save his friends. But the Losers refuse Pennywise's offer, instead opting to stick together and beat the ever-loving piss out of him, and they really go to town on him, with baseball bats and pipes and chains, all while he's still trying and failing to scare them by assuming different forms on the fly. But they're not afraid anymore, even as Pennywise targets them individually with the things they fear most, and with the fear gone, Pennywise's power is gone, and the Losers subdue him with ease in one of most satisfying beatdowns in film history. With all of his strength robbed from him, he is reduced to nothing more than what he is, a bully. Here lies one of this film's greatest strengths too, its conclusion is actually conclusive; despite knowingly being the first half of the story, it remains a self-contained story with a satisfying conclusion, as Pennywise retreats back into hibernation and the Losers make their oath to come back in twenty-seven years and kill it for good if it comes back. Even without It Chapter Two to finish the story, It can be watched and enjoyed as a stand-alone film, a story of seven losers teaming up to fight back against a bully, a bully that also happens to be a shapeshifting, child eating monster.
Yet despite giving its characters and their story a satisfying and definitive conclusion, the film never answers the question of what It is, which you might think is an issue, but it really isn't. By the end of the film, we know what we need to know; It's a monster that been around for a long time and comes out every twenty-seven years to eat people, it hunts by taking on the form of what they most fear, and we know that it also likes to play with its food. But we also know that seven losers can beat it, and ultimately, It isn't a film about a monster, it's about those seven losers who find strength in each other, a strength they need and ultimately use to take on a monster, one that lends itself to some intense scenes of horror, but at its heart, It is a character movie about the Losers club, and as brilliant as Pennywise the Dancing Clown is as a villain, his downfall at the hands of seven plucky kids is what makes this film so memorable and lovable. And while I was doing what I did with my Godzilla redux from earlier in the year and basically writing this review from scratch, I was contemplating just where I stand on this film two years after the fact. I called this film a must watch two years ago, but my opinions on movies can change, and I briefly thought that my opinion on this one had changed too. But no, at the end of the day, I'm still smiling when I watch this film, it's still the warming film about friendship with an awesome villain that it was two years ago, and though I've seen this film some eight or nine times now, I could still watch it again.
And not just a corpse, but a corpse being controlled by Pennywise, literally controlled like a puppet, which calls back to the film's themes of control and agency, as well as somewhat blatantly suggesting that It is a puppeteer, as in the apathy and malaise of Derry is the fault of It and that his influence is even more insidious than scaring kids. Beverly's scare is easily the most graphic in the film, which is an accomplishment when you think about it. Earlier in the film, Beverly furiously cuts her hair in the mirror, with the prior scene establishing her Dad's abusive tendencies and his particular liking of her hair. Also earlier in the film we see her in the pharmacy looking at Tampax and on returning home and reluctantly showing her dad the Tampax, he asks "are you still my little girl." All of these factors play into what Beverly sees in the bathroom, first with the hair coming alive and pinning her to the sink; a manifestation of her fear of her dad and his constricting effect on her life, then with the sink erupting in blood, drenching her and covering every inch of the room. And it is a cartoonish amount of blood too, makes the same scene from the miniseries look like a booboo. With everything the film has previously established about Beverly, the implication of the blood is obvious and absolutely disgusting, but more crucially, it plays on Beverly's fear of the lack of agency in her life and her looming sexual maturity. In a sharp contrast to the extreme nature of this scene and its obvious implications, we then get the Losers working together to clean the blood away, the implication being the strength that Beverly and the rest of the Losers find in each other, an ability to work together and overcome what they're afraid of, which obviously becomes crucial in the finale.
Another thing that becomes crucial in the finale is the scene where they win a rock fight with Bowers and his boys. In addition to it being Mike's induction into the Losers club, it's a scene that demonstrates their strength; as individuals, Bowers is an insurmountable threat, but together, they can beat him, which draws a parallel between Bowers and Pennywise who, like Bowers, is reduced to nothing more than a bully. And like Bowers used to be, Pennywise seems insurmountable in the scene where he comes out of the wall at them, just by how physically massive he is and by his ability to bend reality around the losers. This is clearly a show of might; It knows that they've found where it lives and jumps out of the wall at them as a warning not to get involved, but far from being intimidated, Bill sets out to attack It where it lives, with the Losers reluctantly giving chase. I've also always thought that the way Derry's sewer network is arranged on the map was deliberate too; with the tunnels branching out underneath the town like a spider's limbs with the wellhouse, It's lair at its centre. Depicting Derry as the limbs or possibly the web with Pennywise's lair at the centre would make sense in the context of Derry being It's hunting ground, and the Losers being It's prey. Continuing the film's themes of agency and control, the rhyme that Bill repeats throughout the film, "He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts," comes from a novel called Donovan's Brain. This is interesting because in that novel, that rhyme is used to resist the subliminal coercion of the titular brain, how coincidental then that he'd be repeating that phrase, given that the town of Derry is repeatedly suggested to be in a state of apathy and ignorance, like the layout of the sewers and Pennywise puppeteering Georgie, it's as if the film is suggesting that Pennywise has control over the town itself, which amplifies the Losers' lack of outside support, they fight together or die alone and Derry isn't going to care either way.
The Losers' assault on Neibolt goes about as well as you'd think; with Richie's nerve breaking only seconds after they enter the house, and It eventually managing to separate them and nearly kill Eddie. This is another one of my favourite scenes in the film for the obvious reason; the Losers go in with every intention to fight Pennywise and end up fleeing the house in terror after Pennywise kicks their arses. This scene plays out like horror movie 101, with them hearing a funny noise and slowly walking towards it before the scare happens, but at least they're not adults who should know better, and for a villain's who's game is to scare the shit out them before he kills them, turning the house into a haunted house attraction makes a lot of sense. That and the scene where Pennywise crawls out of the fridge and tries to eat Eddie is just amazing; the way he flips from goofy clown to sadistic monster, and his taunting of Bill before lunging at them, this is one of the film's most intense sequences and I love it. But before he can kill any of them, the rest of the Losers show up and Beverly stabs him in the face, forcing him to retreat. As Beverly says in the next scene, they were able to hurt it because they were together, but that's all they could do because even as a group, they were still afraid, which gave Pennywise a chance to escape. As Beverly also says in the next scene, Pennywise wants to divide them for the precise reason that they were able to hurt it as a group, because they're weak on their own, but even if they give each other strength against Pennywise, there's no guarantee that Pennywise won't fuck them up again the next time, despite Bill's optimism, and the Losers ultimately fracture out of fear. 
The film picks back up a while later, with the Losers club still split from the assault on Neibolt. And we are treated to a scene where Henry is shown to be a "paper man." Earlier in the film, one of his gang, Patrick, is mauled by Pennywise after a run in with his greatest fear; a pack of zombies, which is a fear in the vain of Stan's fear of a painting or Richie's fear of clowns, it's easy. Henry meanwhile is the big bad of the school, so it's interesting to find that his greatest fear is his dad, who he cowers before after being caught playing with his gun, and is powerless to stop as he humiliates him in front of his gang. Similar to Beverly's fear of her dad, this is a bit less simple than a painting or a zombie, but unlike Beverly, Henry has allowed his fear of his dad to turn him into a violent bully, someone who seeks to humiliate and overpower others because at home, he's the one with no power. But for some reason, rather than killing him, Pennywise effectively recruits him by giving him back his knife and having him kill his dad in an incredibly bloody scene, before tasking him with "[killing] them all." To be honest, I don't know why Pennywise does this, but I can hazard a guess. The Losers, or at least Bill and Richie, are able to resist It's attempts to scare them, and they were all able to hurt it, but while Pennywise's smoke and mirrors is just that; smoke and mirrors that are only dangerous if you believe them to be, a man with a knife is not smoke and mirrors, and with this happening just before It takes Beverly, one would assume that Beverly was bait and the plan was for Henry to finish them off. This gives credence to Bill later saying that Pennywise is scared of them, because it sees them as a threat. 
Oh yeah, It takes Beverly, snatches her from her home after she smacks her dad in the head with the top of the toilet in what my brother, who's a big fan of horror, don't you know, says is the only scary scene in the film. It's not scary because of Beverly's dad trying to rape her though, no, it's the bit where she turns around and Pennywise is right behind her, because my brother is an absolute normie when it comes to horror, though to his credit, he thought last years' Halloween sucked and so did I, I digress. This scene does parallel the previous scene however; albeit that Henry stabbed his dad in the neck, all Beverly did was give him a really, really bad headache. But what both of these scenes have in common is obvious, two of the film's characters overcoming what they're afraid of, only in different ways; Henry solves his problem with murder, Beverly solves her problem by standing up to him, which escalates into him getting grabby grabby, her then kicking him in the face, him then kicking in the bathroom door, and her smashing the lid of the toilet tank on his face. In addition to being very satisfying to watch, I mean, that hit was brutal, it reduces her dad who was previously a domineering, oppressive presence to a weak, powerless, wounded man. And while Pennywise might be the scariest thing in the world to Eddie or Richie or Stan, it probably isn't to Beverly, and in taking that power over her away from her dad, she's effectively taken Pennywise's power over her away too. To a lesser extent, we also see this in Eddie as he escapes from his mother to save Beverly, standing up to her just as Beverly did to her dad. 
This transitions us into the film's climax as the Losers come back together to save Beverly from It, after dealing with Henry with surprising ease, of course. I've kept the sequel out of this redux up until this point, but it's worth saying that after Henry turns bad(er) in this film, he only shows up once more, trying and failing to kill Mike, who then pushes him down the well. I'd hoped that Henry would return for the sequel, and he does, but they completely waste him in the sequel, and it makes me realise just how much they waste him in this film too. For a fearsome enemy of the heroes, a school bully turned blood-thirsty killer, he goes out really quickly in this film, so quickly in fact that he contributes nothing to the film's finale outside of Mike losing the ammo for the bolt gun, maybe, at a push. Looking at both films, I do think that Henry could have been handled better, maybe downplayed in this film and given a more important role in the sequel, as an alternative to him just being around and not really doing anything. That doesn't really matter though because now it's the Losers vs. Pennywise, it's the moment we've all been waiting for. With Beverly having physically overpowered her fear, it's now time for Bill to confront and overcome his fear, and Ben brings Beverly back from seeing the Deadlights by kissing her, which is cute, January Embers and all that. But that's somewhat insignificant in the shadow of Bill saying goodbye to Georgie. And not only does he say goodbye to him, he shoots him in the head with the bolt gun, overcoming both Pennywise's efforts to ensnare him and his own fear of accepting Georgie's death, because what better way to resolve the unresolved death of a loved one than to finish them off personally. 
What follows is a brief confrontation where Pennywise easily overpowers the Losers and is able to take Bill, who tells them all to leave after Pennywise gives them the choice, which is a testament to Bill's character, being prepared to die to save his friends. But the Losers refuse Pennywise's offer, instead opting to stick together and beat the ever-loving piss out of him, and they really go to town on him, with baseball bats and pipes and chains, all while he's still trying and failing to scare them by assuming different forms on the fly. But they're not afraid anymore, even as Pennywise targets them individually with the things they fear most, and with the fear gone, Pennywise's power is gone, and the Losers subdue him with ease in one of most satisfying beatdowns in film history. With all of his strength robbed from him, he is reduced to nothing more than what he is, a bully. Here lies one of this film's greatest strengths too, its conclusion is actually conclusive; despite knowingly being the first half of the story, it remains a self-contained story with a satisfying conclusion, as Pennywise retreats back into hibernation and the Losers make their oath to come back in twenty-seven years and kill it for good if it comes back. Even without It Chapter Two to finish the story, It can be watched and enjoyed as a stand-alone film, a story of seven losers teaming up to fight back against a bully, a bully that also happens to be a shapeshifting, child eating monster. 
Yet despite giving its characters and their story a satisfying and definitive conclusion, the film never answers the question of what It is, which you might think is an issue, but it really isn't. By the end of the film, we know what we need to know; It's a monster that been around for a long time and comes out every twenty-seven years to eat people, it hunts by taking on the form of what they most fear, and we know that it also likes to play with its food. But we also know that seven losers can beat it, and ultimately, It isn't a film about a monster, it's about those seven losers who find strength in each other, a strength they need and ultimately use to take on a monster, one that lends itself to some intense scenes of horror, but at its heart, It is a character movie about the Losers club, and as brilliant as Pennywise the Dancing Clown is as a villain, his downfall at the hands of seven plucky kids is what makes this film so memorable and lovable. And while I was doing what I did with my Godzilla redux from earlier in the year and basically writing this review from scratch, I was contemplating just where I stand on this film two years after the fact. I called this film a must watch two years ago, but my opinions on movies can change, and I briefly thought that my opinion on this one had changed too. But no, at the end of the day, I'm still smiling when I watch this film, it's still the warming film about friendship with an awesome villain that it was two years ago, and though I've seen this film some eight or nine times now, I could still watch it again.
Time to Float
So yeah, I still love It, even after two years and a sequel, this is still a fantastic film, one that will be remembered for its amazing villain in Pennywise the Dancing Clown, but I'd say more so for its lovable characters and heart-warming story of friendship and conquering evil, and who would have thought that a film about a child-murdering clown monster could ever be described as heart-warming, but here we, and I once again have to say that It is a must watch; there aren't many horror films like it as it is more so a drama than horror. It's a film that invests you in its characters and story and then throws them up against an evil monster, making for some genuinely intense scenes of horror, but more so, an intense satisfaction in seeing them ultimately win against a supernatural killer, the fact that pennywise is so good is icing on the cake more than anything else. It hasn't lost its magic for me, this is still a lighting in a bottle film, and it's still an absolute must watch.
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