IT: Chapter 2 (2019)

It Chapter Two is a 2019 American supernatural horror film directed by Andy Muschietti, returning from the first film, with a screenplay by Gary Dauberman. The second installment of the It film series, it is the second of a two-part adaptation of the 1986 novel of the same name by Stephen King, primarily covering the second half of the book. It stars Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, and Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Set in 2016, 27 years after the events of the first film, the second film centers on the Losers Club and their relationships as they reunite to destroy It once and for all.

Plot:

Twenty-seven years after its initial defeat, Pennywise returns to Derry, Maine in 2016, and kills a man named Adrian Mellon by biting his heart off after he and his boyfriend are brutally assaulted by homophobic youths after visiting a local canal festival.

Mike Hanlon, the only member of the Losers Club who remained in Derry, calls the other members, Bill Denbrough, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, and Stanley Uris to honor the promise they made 27 years earlier to kill Pennywise if he came back. All of them return to Derry except for Stanley, who kills himself out of fear of the creature. At a Chinese restaurant, Mike refreshes the Losers' memories before Pennywise itself reveals the news of Stanley's suicide to them. Richie and Eddie decide to leave until Beverly reveals that she has had psychic visions of their deaths if they fail to kill Pennywise. Meanwhile, It kills a young girl named Victoria at a baseball game after luring her into a trap. At the Derry Library, Mike shows Bill, via a drug-induced vision, that the Native American "Ritual of Chüd" can stop It for good.

Mike explains that the ritual requires items from their past to be sacrificed. The members' searches for these past items involve traumatizing encounters with It, mostly in the form of Pennywise; Pennywise confronts Richie and tells him that he knows about his hidden homosexuality. It attacks Beverly in her childhood home, and Eddie is attacked by The Leper in a medicine shop's basement. Henry Bowers, who was arrested for killing his father, is freed from a mental hospital by It. Bowers also searches for the Losers and viciously attacks Eddie at the Losers' hotel, and then Mike at the library; Henry nearly kills Mike, but Richie kills him before he has the chance. The Losers rejoin Bill—who just failed to save a young boy named Dean from being eaten by It—at the Neibolt House, and talk him out of facing It alone.

After three individual encounters with It, the group descend into a cavern beneath the sewers, where they perform the ritual. The ritual traps the Deadlights, It's true form, in a sealing jar, but a giant red balloon emerges from the jar, and explodes, revealing It as a spider with Pennywise's head. The creature pressures Mike into revealing that It killed the Natives originally performing the ritual because their fears overtook them, a fact Mike had hidden from the Losers. It attacks the Losers and places Bill, Ben, and Beverly in individual traps, which they escape once Bill releases his guilt over being indirectly responsible for the death of his younger brother Georgie, and when Beverly realizes Ben was the one who wrote a love letter to her when they originally encountered It, 27 years ago. Mike stands up to the creature, only to almost get eaten, but Richie manages to distract It, getting caught in It's Deadlights in the process. Eddie saves him, but is fatally impaled in the chest. Eddie explains how he made It feel small earlier, which inspires them to bully It, insulting and calling It various names which causes It to literally shrink in size. Mike rips out It's heart, which he and the Losers crush with their bare hands, finally killing It. The Losers are forced to leave Eddie, who died from his injuries, while It's cavern implodes, destroying the Neibolt House.

The remaining Losers return to their old swimming area and wash off from their confrontation with It, and join hands to comfort Richie as he mourns for Eddie. It's demise has also caused the scars on their hands to disappear. After the Losers part ways, Ben and Beverly get married, Richie returns to the kissing bridge where he had once carved his and Eddie's initials, Mike decides to move out of Derry and start a new life, and Bill begins writing his new story before receiving a call from Mike as he leaves Derry, learning that Stanley sent them all posthumous letters. The letters reveal that Stanley was too scared to face It, and that his suicide was intended to strengthen his friends against It. He asks the remaining Losers to "live life to the fullest potential."

Cast:

Jessica Chastain as Beverly "Bev" Marsh: The only female member of the Losers Club, who was abused physically and sexually by her father and bullied at school over false rumors of promiscuity. Beverly has become a successful fashion designer in New York City while enduring an abusive marriage to Tom Rogan.

Sophia Lillis as Young Beverly Marsh

James McAvoy as William "Bill" Denbrough: The resourcefully determined former leader of the Losers Club who hunted down and killed It in the summer of 1989. (Bill was primarily motivated by vengeance, because It killed and ate his younger brother, Georgie.) He swore that he and the other Losers would return to Derry if It resurfaced. As an adult, Bill is a successful mystery novelist in Los Angeles whose works are often criticized for having the same lame endings.

Jaeden Martell as Young Bill Denbrough

Bill Hader as Richard "Richie" Tozier: Bill's bespectacled best friend and fellow member of the Losers Club, whose loud mouth and foul language often get him into trouble, who also has secret romantic feelings for Eddie. As an adult, Richie becomes a successful stand-up comic in Chicago.

Finn Wolfhard as Young Richie Tozier

Isaiah Mustafa as Michael "Mike" Hanlon: A member of the Losers Club who fought against It. As an adult, Mike is the only one to stay in Derry and becomes the town librarian. The only one who remembers everything that happened in the previous film, he summons the other Losers back to Derry when It resurfaces.

Chosen Jacobs as Young Mike Hanlon

Tristian Levi Cox and Torian Matthew Cox as 4-year-old Mike Hanlon

Jay Ryan as Benjamin "Ben" Hanscom: A member of the Losers Club who fought against It, was bullied as a child for being overweight and had a crush on Beverly. As an adult, he is an attractive and successful but lonely architect living in upstate New York and running his own company called Hanscom Architecture.

Jeremy Ray Taylor as Young Ben Hanscom

James Ransone as Edward "Eddie" Kaspbrak: A member of the Losers Club, a hypochondriac and victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. As an adult, Eddie is a successful risk analyst for an insurance firm in New York City and is married to Myra, who is very similar to his over-protective mother Sonia.

Jack Dylan Grazer as Young Eddie Kaspbrak

Andy Bean as Stanley "Stan" Uris: A pragmatic member of the Losers Club who aided in the battle against It in 1989. As an adult, he becomes a founding partner of a large accounting firm in Atlanta and is married to a woman named Patty Blum.

Wyatt Oleff as Young Stanley Uris

Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the Dancing Clown: An ancient predatory creature from another dimension brought to Earth millions of years ago by a meteorite. It awakens every 27 years to feed on the fear of children that it kills. Pennywise is It's favorite and primary guise, although It is shown to take many in order to instill fear into It's victims. It was overpowered and seriously wounded by the Losers Club in 1989, forcing It into premature hibernation. This defeat motivates it to rebuild its strength and kill the Losers once they return to Derry.

Other guises of It include Joan Gregson as Mrs. Kersh, an apparently sweet and gentle elderly woman, actually a monster, who lives in Beverly's childhood home; Javier Botet as Hobo, a leper who encountered Eddie at the 29 Neibolt Street house, and also as The Witch, the monstrous form of Mrs. Kersh; Jackson Robert Scott as Georgie Denbrough, Bill's late younger brother; and Owen Teague as Patrick Hockstetter, a young hoodlum who was eaten by Pennywise in the sewers in 1989. It also briefly appears without clown makeup, under the alias Bob Gray (also Skarsgård).

Additionally, Teach Grant portrays Henry Bowers,[4] who terrorized the Losers Club in the summer of 1989 before he was incarcerated for killing his father while under It's influence. Nicholas Hamilton reprises his role as the young Henry Bowers. Molly Atkinson reprises her role as Sonia, Eddie's Munchausen syndrome by proxy-stricken mother, and also plays Eddie's wife Myra, who is very similar to Sonia. Xavier Dolan and Taylor Frey appear as Adrian Mellon[5] and Don Hagarty, a gay couple who are attacked by a group of youths during a carnival before Mellon is killed by It, while Jake Weary appears as Webby, the leader of the youth gang who attacks Adrian and Don. Luke Roessler portrays Dean, a young boy who meets Bill near the storm drain where Georgie was killed in 1988, and is later killed by It at the Funland, while Ryan Kiera Armstrong appears as Victoria Fuller, a little girl with a large birthmark on her cheek, who is killed by It after he lures her to under the bleachers at a baseball game. Jess Weixler portrays Bill's wife Audra Denbrough (née Phillips) who stars in a Hollywood film adaptation of his novel, Will Beinbrink portrays Beverly's abusive husband Tom Rogan,[5] and Martha Girvin appears as Stanley's wife Patty. Stephen Bogaert, Jake Sim, Logan Thompson, Joe Bostick and Megan Charpentier reprise their roles from the first film as Beverly's abusive father Alvin Marsh, Henry's friends Reginald "Belch" Huggins and Victor "Vic" Criss, pharmacist Mr. Keene, and Keene's daughter Gretta, respectively. Juno Rinaldi portrays the adult Gretta. Katie Lunman reprises her role as Betty Ripsom in a vocal capacity, in addition to portraying a second character, Chris Unwin, one of Webby's friends who participates in assaulting Adrian and Don.

Stephen King cameos as a pawn shop owner, the film's director Andy Muschietti cameos as a customer at the pharmacy, and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich cameos as himself, the director of the film based on Bill's novel. Brandon Crane, who portrayed the young Ben in the 1990 television mini-series version, also makes a cameo appearance as a board member of Hanscom Architecture.[6] Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro was sought for a cameo as the janitor that Ben encounters when fleeing from Pennywise. Despite nearly securing del Toro, he was not included in the final film.[7] King's son and fellow author Joe Hill was originally envisioned to cameo as the younger version of the pawn shop owner in a flashback scene with young Bill and Beverly, but the scene was cut from the final draft of the screenplay.[8] Maturin the Turtle was reported to be in the film.[9] This did not happen, although a golden turtle statue can be seen in Ben's home and a smaller one can be seen in a classroom scene.[10]