Ready to go back to Derry?
The first trailer for It: Chapter Two has arrived, and it looks like writer-director
Andy Muschietti might just pull it off again.
"Hello."
Though most of the clip is devoted to one scene, there are a few small but telling details
that you might have missed.
Spoilers ahead!
Meet Mrs. Kersh.
Most of the trailer finds Beverly Marsh returning to her father's old home.
The new resident seems like a nice enough old lady, doesn't she?
Meanwhile, Bev is heartened to discover the old "January embers" poem that Ben wrote for
her so many decades before.
But the atmosphere in the apartment grows eerier by the second, especially when Mrs.
Kersh's starts verbally tormenting Beverly:
"I was always daddy's little girl.
What about you?"
If you read Stephen King's massive novel It, you'll remember this moment as one of the
creepiest scenes in the book.
In the novel, Mrs. Kersh transforms into a yellow-toothed witch.
The trailer doesn't quite show us what she'll become in the movie, but we're already covering
our eyes.
Here's another detail from the trailer that really stands out: The Losers Club appears
to have thinned out.
Although the group still sees young Stanley Uris and Eddie Kaspbrak in a window reflection,
there are now only five of them standing as adults: Isaiah Mustafa's Mike Hanlon, Bill
Hader's Richie Tozier, James McAvoy's Bill Denbrough, Jessica Chastain's Beverly, and
Jay Ryan's Ben Hanscom.
If you read King's novel, you know that Stanley Uris never makes it back to Derry.
Eddie does join the group for the second battle against Pennywise, but his fate isn't as fortunate
as the rest.
However, in the book, Eddie's death takes place late in the action.
Perhaps the glimpse we see in the trailer is from the tail end of the film, after The
Losers Club's last stand with Pennywise.
Or maybe Eddie just dashed off to the pharmacy to pick up a new inhaler?
Time will tell.
The settings in the trailer for It: Chapter Two are entirely familiar.
Evidently, Derry hasn't put much money for renovations over the last 27 years.
One location seems to carry some major significance, though, and we're not talking about the sewer,
although there's bound to be plenty of action down there, too.
No, we're talking about this grassy hill.
As you may recall, it looks like the exact same spot the kids visited to make their blood
oath in the first film.
"S-swear if it isn't dead, if it ever comes back, we'll come back, too."
It's also the same spot that both Stan and Eddie seemed to confirm their fates by leaving
the group first, in the same order they die in.
Surprisingly, the exit order doesn't seem to be repeated in this trailer.
If you look closely, it's Richie Tozier who trails the group instead of Eddie.
You may want to avoid Chinese food for a while.
As we see in the trailer, the Losers Club heads over to the Jade of the Orient restaurant
for a reunion meal, just like in the book.
"This meeting of the Losers Club has officially begun."
The trailer only shows their arrival, but King fans, and anyone who saw the 1990 TV
miniseries, will remember just how unappetizing things get.
So many unspeakable horrors can fit into those teeny tiny fortune cookies.
Guess we'll have to wait and see what ghastly surprises IT has in store.
The trailer also calls back to a fixture of King's book and the 2017 adaptation: the giant
statue of Paul Bunyan in the town park.
It's there in the first film, when the Losers gather together to discuss Pennywise.
In the book, it becomes animated and taunts Richie.
It: Chapter Two brings the statue back into Richie's life, but we don't see it in motion
just yet.
Instead, Pennywise is seen floating above it, suspended by an inverted pyramid of balloons.
Even so, the Paul Bunyan statue's importance clearly hasn't been overlooked by the director.
King fans also know that the statue really exists in Bangor, Maine, and freaks out the
locals on a regular basis.
The first chapter of It thankfully didn't deal with the Ritual of Chüd or Maturin the
celestial turtle, but fans know that these otherworldly concepts will make it into Chapter
Two.
The trailer appears to confirm it: The Losers hit the sewers to track down Pennywise and
come upon a giant spiky object.
We see the gang holding hands and looking up at the ceiling, or, more likely, something
beyond the ceiling.
We never get a glimpse of the creature in the trailer, but we imagine, we hope, it'll
be more frightening than that thing we saw in the miniseries.
We know Muschietti plans to bring the inter-dimensional element of It to the big screen in Chapter
Two, and this is our first look at how that might happen.
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