Stephen Kings IT

Stephen King's IT: The Greatest Horror Work of All Time?

Stephen King, we can all agree, is one of the best, most famous and most successful (mutually dependent) authors of all time. Even if you've never had one of his 70+ books in your hands, you're guaranteed to know quite a few of his stories and characters. Which is partly because King has not only made book history, but film history as well. The Shining. Misery. The Shawshank Redemption. Carrie. The Green Mile. All these and other stories, which by no means belong only to the horror genre, are by King. But one story, or rather one character, overshadows them all: Pennywise the Clown.

To make one thing clear right away, despite our pennywise lurid (höhö) headline: We wouldn't call King's classic IT his best work. Which is almost logical, the book was published in 1986. A lot has happened since then, Stephen King has also moved on. Nevertheless, IT is and remains his most popular work. You can see that just by looking at the many adaptations. In 1990 there was the famous miniseries starring Tim Curry, in 1998 an Indian series called Woh. In 2017 and 2019 respectively, the two-part remake came out with Bill Skarsgård as the horror clown and HBO has been working on a prequel series for some time. What is it that makes IT so timeless?

What is it that makes IT so good?

By edition, Stephen King's IT comes in at just under 1,200 pages. It is an epic, indeed monumental, work. IT spans 27 years, follows nine important characters, jumps back and forth between two timelines and deals with a whole range of themes that still characterise Stephen King today: Childhood trauma, evil behind the idyllic US small-town façade, trust and sacrifice. Just to name a few. Which is mainly to say this: There is no one reason for IT's enduring popularity. It is the mix of all these elements and more that make the book relevant to this day.

What is it about?

What is the story actually about? Well, in a nutshell: IT is a demonic, cosmic being of unknown origin that haunts the people of the small town of Derry every 27 years. Its favourite victims are children, whom IT scares as much as possible with its shape-shifting abilities before the actual murder. "You all taste so much better when you're scared." The book tells how the famous Losers Club, consisting of William "Bill" Denbrough, Benjamin "Ben" Hanscom, Beverly "Bev" Marsh, Richard "Richie" Tozier, Edward "Eddie" Kaspbrak, Michael "Mike" Hanlon and Stanley "Stan" Uris, confront and eventually hunt down this terrifying creature. Twice.

(TL;DR: IT is about an alien life form that doesn't really get along with the inhabitants of a small town on Earth.)

Although there are so many characters, let's also mention the second antagonist Henry Bowers here, King gives all his characters room to shine. We build up an intimate relationship with the kids and adults respectively, who all have their own problems. One of the major themes of the book and the films is the loss of childhood innocence. Grady Hendrix of Tor once wrote: "Some doors only open in one direction. There may be an exit from childhood [into the adult world], but there is no way back that will turn adults into children again." Christopher Lehman-Haupt of the New York Times, on the other hand, speaks of "the evil that haunts America from time to time. In the form of crime, racist and religious bigotry, economic hardship, labour strife and industrial pollution." As I said, there's a lot in it.

Why a clown, anyway?

Clowns are scary. We know that. You know it too. Stephen King did his bit with Pennywise to ensure that no one in their right mind enjoys clowns today. It wasn't always that way. Actually, we know clowns as entertainers from the circus. As stars of birthday parties. Characters who don't take themselves seriously and give us joy. It's this contrast that makes Pennywise - whose clown persona is just one of many "costumes" - so damn creepy. A clown is supposed to make children laugh. But when he instead rips a child's arms off (sorry, Georgie) and then drags them into the sewers (doubly sorry, Georgie), it shocks. The unspeakable horror of this act coupled with Pennywise's almost radiantly colourful appearance creates a disturbing dissonance.

This also applies to the clown look in general, which raises some questions. What's behind the unnaturally white skin? What the hell is going on with the hair? Why do clowns smile so creepy all the time? Pennywise seems human, yes. But not quite. All these features like the skin, the hair or the laugh, which should be so familiar to us, slip into the absurd and disturb us. We instinctively know: something is not right. As with many other famous figures of the Frankenstein's monster, Dracula or simply zombies brand. They all have just enough human traits for us to discover a small part of ourselves in them. Even if they are obviously gruesome creatures who tick quite differently from us.

Scarily good merchandise

We never thought that a theme like Stephen King's IT would become one of the most popular categories at Elbenwald. But at the latest since the 2017 remake, it has become clear how many fans the story has. Since then, new stuff has been trickling into our IT shop that revolves almost exclusively around the horror clown - and has gone down so well with Stephen King enthusiasts! This is probably also due to the ingenious design of horror clown Pennywise, whereby we mean both the Bill Skarsgård and Tim Curry versions. Pennywise as a collector figure? Got it. Pennywise as a creepy lamp? Logical. Pennywise as a To Go mug? Of course. Just like Pennywise-T-shirts, -hoodies, -jackets or whatever other Pennywise merchandise is available. And who wouldn't want to wear or put in their room the image of a horror clown or a cosmic creature resembling a terrifying spider of enormous proportions? Exactly!