Disclaimer! This article is based on the movies and shows about It.
Many people nowadays don’t think clowns are scary; they can be funny or kind of creepy at first, but then people look away and move on with their business, seeing the clown as something out of the ordinary but still boring. Now, imagine a clown who appears only once every 27 years in a town called Derry, and let’s say you live there during one of its cycles. Okay…now what? Let’s say you are walking around one day through the streets alone, and in the distance you see one of your biggest fears: a ghost, mummy, zombie, spider, or a bird—the possibilities are endless. It just stands there, looking with a menacing face, blue calm eyes switching to orange hungry eyes. You blink; It’s gone. Where is It? You turn around, and you see It, jumping out and scaring you. Frightened, you run away, trying to escape It, but then It reappears out of the bushes and catches you. You manage to slip out of It’s grasp as you turn around, looking to see if you are being chased. However, you see It switching forms, transforming from your biggest fear into a killer clown whose hunger feeds on teenagers and small children. It looks at you, laughing as your body shakes, not knowing what to do. But then, out of nowhere, It disappears, reappearing right behind you. You turn around to see the clown, and It says, “Time to float.” It opens its mouth, with millions of sharp teeth emerging, and It bites you in the shoulder. You scream in pain, but you are alone. It takes you down a sewer drain, into its lair, where more people your age have also been captured and eaten. Pennywise, the Dancing Clown, is the last thing you see on a circus wagon before you float as your heart gets ripped out and eaten by the menacing clown Pennywise.
Moving on from our imaginations, It is a demonic being who comes from a different planet in the form of bright orange lights called the Deadlights. At first, It had no true form, only transforming into different people’s biggest nightmares, feeding off of their fear, as that’s what It needs to keep its cycle going and return every 27 years. Its story is long, coming to Earth in the form of an asteroid in a deserted place that eventually became Derry. It was trying to eat more and more victims, but figured out that children were easier to scare, and at that time, in 1908, It saw potential. There was a circus man named Bob Gray who took on the role of Pennywise, the Dancing Clown, performing in front of a young audience to make them laugh, cheer, and all that good stuff. However, one day, It took the form of a young child who could not find his parents, taking Bob Gray into the woods, where he disappeared without a trace. And from that moment on, It decided to become Pennywise, taking more and more lives in the clown suit of an innocent, unfortunate man and living in the sewers to keep the bodies away from the public.
The name “It” is how the entity was usually referred to by its surviving victims, but the cosmic being’s true form is the Deadlights. Whenever this monster decided to paralyze one of its sufferers, It opened its mouth as the person saw the Deadlights, floating up into the air with blank white eyes, seeing nightmare upon nightmare of what the future holds.
The clown’s abilities are many, with It being able to look into people’s minds, alter physics and weather, warp the town of Derry, turn invisible, look different to each person in a group according to a person’s fear, control the minds of adults, shapeshift into whatever It wants with no limitations, immense strength, regeneration, rapid movement, and more god-like powers that are tied to fear.
Pennywise tests our ability to resist fear, as being scared is what It likes. It wants us to be scared; It wants us to run; It wants us to worry; It wants us as food. The clown seems entertaining at first, but once you see It’s true side and meaning, the clown can trap you with your own fears. Pennywise, the Dancing Clown—no, no, Pennywise, the killer and menacing clown, who eats teenagers for all its meals and keeps leftovers in a sewer where they all float, with their last look into their existence: a clown with thousands of sharp teeth eating them as breakfast.
P.S. I highly recommend watching the movies It and It Chapter 2 to see this horrifying clown in action. Also, recommend watching It: Welcome to Derry. And if you dare, try attempting to read Stephen King’s thousand-page novel, It.