If you grew up with the 1990 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's It, brace yourself: the
2017 film version pulls all the gore and insanity straight from the pages of Stephen King's
blood-soaked 1986 novel.
The movie follows the seven kids in the Losers' Club as they try to thwart an evil, clown-shaped
nightmare in the small town of Derry, Maine.
Let's take a trip down into the sewers to look at all the Easter eggs you missed in
It.
Warning: Some spoilers ahead.
Also, clowns.
Lots of clowns.
The Pennywise doll
During the Losers' Club's first visit to the run-down house at 29 Neibolt Street, Bill,
Eddie, and Richie get separated, and Richie finds himself locked in literally the worst
place ever—a room full of clown dolls.
But look closely, because they aren't just any terrifying clown dolls.
Just to the left of the spot where Pennywise pops out stands a figure who may look familiar:
Pennywise from the 1990 miniseries, as portrayed by Tim Curry.
Werewolf hands
In both the book and the miniseries, Richie's main fear is werewolves, a fear he gets after
watching I Was A Teenage Werewolf at the local theater.
So naturally, that's the shape the evil fear-sucking clown usually takes when it appears for him.
And while there aren't any werewolves howling at the Derry moon in the 2017 It, audiences
do get a quick glimpse of that lupophobia during the encounter at 29 Neibolt Street.
While the monster advances on Eddie, Bill, Richie, and Beverly, you can see werewolf
claws start to rip through its clown gloves.
It's just a quick moment, but it shows the filmmakers were thinking of the fans even
as they were deciding to pretty much forget about CG'ing a big goofy werewolf.
Tracker Brothers
From Eddie's Airwolf t-shirt to the bully Belch Huggins' Anthrax tee, the kids' outfits
are all about the sweet nostalgia of childhood in the late '80s.
Which is why one shirt in particular stands out.
When Eddie, Richie, Stan, and Bill go looking for Georgie in the drainage pipe in the Barrens
early in the movie, Bill's wearing a green shirt with a nondescript round logo in the
center.
If you look closely, though, you can see that the logo says Tracker Brothers.
In the novel, Tracker Brothers is a company in Derry, and their factory is where grown-up
Eddie first meets Pennywise when he gets back to Derry.
Christine
Bill isn't the only It character who boasts a cottony Easter egg in this movie—one of
Eddie's shirts also hearkens back to King's other works, with a design of an angry car
with what appears to be a chrome V on the front.
If that sounds familiar, you've probably read Christine, King's 1983 novel about a killer
car—or seen the film adaptation.
Interestingly enough, Christine also makes an appearance in the It novel—or at least,
a red and white 1958 Plymouth Fury being driven by a corpse shows up.
But what else could that be?
Freese's Department Store
Was every Easter egg in this movie printed on a t-shirt?
We also see Richie wearing a shirt proudly advertising
Freese's.
You've probably never shopped there, and for good reason—Freese's was a departme nt store
in Bangor, Maine that operated from 1892 to 1985.
So why would Richie wear a shirt from a defunct store that operated in a completely different
town?
Well, Bangor just happens to be Stephen King's longtime home.
A nod to the creator of It?
Yeah, we can definitely believe that.
Silver
The movie doesn't pay any special attention to the kids' bikes, and for the most part,
the audience won't either.
But fans of the story may have noticed one bike in particular that plays a big part in
the original novel: Bill's silver Schwinn, which happens to have the word "Silver" printed
on the frame.
In the book, that bike actually saves two lives—once in the '50s, when Bill uses it
to save Eddie from an asthma attack, and once in the '80s, when grown-up Bill drives down
the middle of traffic on a busy street to jolt his wife out of catalepsy.
Although none of that happened in the movie, the small detail of putting a name on Bill's
beloved bike probably wasn't lost on fans.
The Bradley Gang
The filmmakers stuck a ton of tiny details into the background of It, but one of the
best was the mural of the Bradley Gang shootout—you get a few glimpses of it on the brick wall
when Mike Hanlon hallucinates the burning hands reaching through the door.
In the book, the Bradley Gang was a group of outlaws who were killed by the Derry townsfolk
in 1929, which was the last time Pennywise was awake before the Losers' Club confronts
him.
It's an excellent nod to the source material for anyone paying attention, although most
people were probably pretty distracted by the charred hands clawing at the door frame.
Deadlights
In the novel, Pennywise is an ancient cosmic being that came into our universe because
humans have good imaginations, and all that imagination and fear makes its food taste
good.
He's not really a clown, but clowns are scary and good at luring children, so he kind of
sticks with it.
What he really is is something called deadlights, which are energy thingies that usually look
like undulating orange orbs.
This guy saw them, and he went crazy.
The movie doesn't mention the deadlights at all, because, well...
"I've never said that name out loud before, it sounds stupid.
Call them whatever you want."
But there is one quick glimpse of the deadlights.
After Pennywise kidnaps Beverly and takes her to his sewer lair, Beverly looks down
his throat to see three orange lights swirling around each other.
A moment later, she's comatose and floating in the air.
It's a giant WTF moment for anyone new to the story, but diehard fans gave a silent
cheer.
Whether or not the cosmic side of Pennywise is explored more deeply in part two is uncertain
as of this video, but the quick cameo of Pennywise's true form in the first part certainly make
for a satisfying Easter egg.
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