Written by Tom Moore
After months of anxiously awaiting the first trailer for the second chapter of the 2017 hit It, a teaser trailer has finally floated onto the internet and long-waiting fans can finally get our first look at the older versions of the Losers Club and the return of Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise.
The trailer mainly focuses on an older Betty (Jessica Chastain) revisiting her home in Derry and running into a suspicious old woman. There’s a lot of great callbacks to the first film with Betty finding the poem given to her by Ben and even some paintings on the walls that are a little reminiscent of some of the nightmarish creatures the Losers Club have faced before.
I really love how the interactions between Betty and the old lady seem normal at first, but we quickly see that that’s not the case and Pennywise’s presence is already looming. With her bone-cracking movements, creepily peering around corners, and slow reveal of dead chest skin, I had the same face that Betty did as the naked old woman, who’s clearly Pennywise, charged her.
The rest of the trailer is pretty much just a montage that shows us the rest of the Losers Club and some new tricks that Pennywise has up his sleeve with a bigger budget feel that I’m not sure I’m a fan of. There’s just something about seeing the likes of James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, and Bill Hader that’s a little more jarring and stranger than the Losers Club we saw in the original—especially with the trailer not giving much of them. They all look great and I’m sure they can recreate the magic that the original cast had, but I couldn’t help but begin to question whether or not there will be a noticeable difference.
Pennywise, though, is truly back in full force and it looks like Skarsgard is going to bring new terrors and fun lines to terrorize viewers. Seeing Pennywise’s antics in the trailer made me immediately think back to a line from Scream 2 that Randy Meeks says about horror sequels: “more blood, more gore – ‘carnage candy’, your core audience just expects it.” Add in some more balloons and that seems to be exactly what we’re getting. As the trailer ends, we are left with an image of Pennywise, with that amazingly bone-chilling laughing effect, saying hello to his next victim.
Even with this teaser, though, there are plenty of details left in the dark about what It: Chapter 2 has to offer, but that’s probably for the best. As we float our way to the film’s release on September 6th, just in time for my birthday, there are surely some surprises in store for and hopefully, it can be both a fitting end for the Losers Club and the perfect birthday present for me.
