Although debate rages on over whether Pennywise or Randall Flagg is Stephen King’s most iconic villain, It: Welcome to Derry season 1 confirmed that Bill Skarsgard’s take on the killer clown is still the author’s most memorable monster when it comes onscreen potrayals. Not only did Skarsgard appear as Pennywise plenty of times, but the Eldritch entity also took on many new, monstrous forms throughout the first half of season 1. Thanks to Pennywise’s shape-shifting, It didn’t even show up in its most recognizable guise until halfway through season 1.
It: Welcome to Derry Season 2 Can Turn Pennywise Into Classic Movie Monsters
This ingenious move meant that viewers weren’t inured to the sight of the killer clown by the season 1 finale, but this also served the secondary function of allowing It: Welcome to Derry to introduce new nightmarish versions of Pennywise. The pilot had that terrifying vampiric baby monster, while the show’s sophomore outing had Ronnie dragged by the umbilical cord toward a terrifying zombified version of her late mother. However, in all of this inventive scariness, season 1 ignored one classic Pennywise guise that season 2 needs to explore.
Since Pennywise shows up approximately once every 27 years to feed on the inhabitants of the titular town, It: Welcome to Derry season 2 takes place in 1935. This means that Pennywise should could and absolutely should take the form of some of the iconic movie monsters from the era, an idea that is barely ever explored in any of the previous screen adaptations featuring King’s iconic monster. Although the ‘90s miniseries does briefly feature Pennywise taking on the form of a werewolf, there is much more for the show to explore from the Golden Age of monster movies.
It: Welcome To Derry’s 1935 Setting Could Not Be Better
In the source novel, Pennywise takes the form of the eponymous mummy from 1932’s The Mummy while chasing Bill, as well as appearing as the antagonists of the ‘50s monster movies I Was A Teenage Werewolf and I Was A Teenage Frankenstein. He also appears as Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, but these guises are barely ever seen in the miniseries and movie adaptations of the book.
Between 1925 and 1935, Universal released the classic monster movies The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Werewolf of London (1935). This list gives Pennywise a whole slew of new forms to take on in season 2, and the fact that all these movies were then-recent multiplex hits means that the show’s new heroes would be all too familiar with these monsters. Thus, one of It: Welcome To Derry season 2’s most exciting opportunities is the fortuitous timing of its period setting.
