If you're afraid of clowns, you may want to click away now. The new It trailer is out, and it's just as glorious and terrifying as you feared it would be. Filmmakers promised us a faithful adaption of the books, and — for better or worse — it appears they have delivered.
Widely regarded as one of Stephen King's scariest novels, It first imposed coulrophobia on an unsuspecting public back in 1986. The story centers on a group of seven preteen outcasts — known as the Losers Club — growing up in Derry, Maine in the late 1950s. Derry isn't an ordinary small town, but the home of It: an interdimensional monster that awakens every 27 years or so to feed on humans. The monster uses fear to "salt the meat," and the string of murders It causes every three decades is so terrible that the town simply forgets they ever happened. Although It can take the form of anything a person fears, It often feeds on children, and uses the persona of Pennywise the Dancing Clown to lure them in.
In 1957, Georgie Denbrough, kid brother to the Losers Club's de facto leader, Bill, becomes the first victim of It's latest cycle. Bill and the others begin to investigate, but they're all already targets in It's sights. Over the course of a few short months, It appears to them as Pennywise, a giant bird, an animated statue, a chorus of drowned children, a leper, and a teenage werewolf — stoking fear in anticipation of It's feast.
The Losers Club manages to defeat It, but they agree to come back together if the monster ever returns to Derry. It does, and Mike — the only club member to remain in Derry and remember what happened to the town and his friends — calls the others to summon them home to Maine for one final showdown with the evil entity in 1984.
It was originally adapted into a 1990 miniseries, which starred Tim Curry in his second-most iconic role (after Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show) as Pennywise. The new Warner Bros. adaptation stars Bill Skarsgård (Hemlock Grove) as Pennywise, in a notably darker imagining of the character. Other standout castings include Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) as Richie Tozier, Nicholas Hamilton (Captain Fantastic) as Henry Bowers, and Javier Botet (Mama) as "the Leper."
Andrés Muschietti's new It film will be split into two parts. The first installment, which hits theaters this fall, concerns the Losers Club's battle against It in the 1950s. The second part will pick up three decades later, when Mike calls the adult members back to finish It once and for all.
Watch the new It trailer above, and start making plans to see the Stephen King adaptation 30 years in the making when It premieres on Sep. 14.
