IT made an estimated $123 million this weekend, setting a record for highest debut ever for a horror movie. Based on Stephen King’s uber-creepy (and even more demented) novel of the same name, IT refers to the fearsome evil embodied by Pennywise the Dancing Clown, who has preyed on the children of Derry, Maine, for seemingly hundreds of years.
It’s not a promising setup to unlock spiritual messages, I suppose. But you’d be surprised. Even though IT doesn’t talk much about God explicitly, there’s certainly some underlying spirituality worth talking about. IT screenwriter Gary Dauberman acknowledged as much when I talked with him.
“Even if there’s a demonic presence, I’m always going, ‘if there’s a demonic presence, that means that somewhere out there there’s good.’” He said. “And a lot of times in these movies, the good comes from within.”
So what does that good look like? And just what sort of terrifying evil is it facing? Click and find out … if you dare.
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