There’s no question that the most iconic representation of evil when it comes to Stephen King‘s IT is Pennywise the clown, but as director Andy Muschietti helped prove this weekend with his adaptation, evil takes many forms. When speaking with Ain’t It Cool News, the director revealed that, while the “It” entity is evil, the evil at the heart of the story is the death of childhood and belief of magic in its many forms.
“When you read IT as an adult you had a bit of new interpretation of the book,” the director revealed of his film’s inspiration. “That happened to me, too. When I read the book again there was a deeper message there that you only understand as an adult.”
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He continued, “Ultimately the story itself is a parable about the end of childhood and the death of the world of imagination and magic. Everything that lays beyond childhood, adulthood, is the killer of that world of belief and imagination. That’s why the adults are the extension of the evil.”
In the film, a group of kids bands together, dubbing themselves “The Losers’ Club,” to confront an evil entity that has been stalking the kids of Derry, ME. After a life-changing altercation, the friends reunite after 27 years when they realize their fight has merely just begun.
“That’s only an interpretation that an adult can understand because you are an adult and you feel that there was that world of belief in things that didn’t exist but you don’t have it anymore,” Muschietti confessed. “There comes a point in your growing up where that just disappears. That’s the dichotomy that Stephen King talks about. Adults represent the death of the world. That’s why Pennywise calls himself the eater of worlds; not because he eats planets in his own macroverse, but because he eats worlds of faith and the magic of childhood.”
The original novel intertwined the two timelines, with the Losers’ Club fighting It as both kids and adults, but Muschietti’s film focused solely on the kids’ first confrontation. The next installment is set to incorporate flashbacks into the adults’ narrative.
“That was an idea that I wanted to explore and it also helped to keep the tension alive when Pennywise was not present,” Muschietti points out. “Even if this is an underlying message or a subtext, I think people feel the palpable threat of the town itself and the adults feel like an extension of Pennywise or It.”
IT is currently in theaters.
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