CinemaCon 2019: We’ve Seen The Terrifying First Footage From IT: CHAPTER TWO
Earlier today, director Andy Muschietti took to the CinemaCon stage in Las Vegas, NV to unveil the very first footage from this September's It: Chapter Two. Joined onstage by two complete Losers' Clubs - the younger version and their adult counterparts, including an exceedingly charming Bill Hader - Muschietti stressed that we were among the very first people in the world to get a look at what he's cooked up for this highly-anticipated sequel, and what we saw did not disappoint.
The footage began with several minutes' worth of one of It: Chapter Two's major set pieces: adult Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain) going back to visit her childhood home in Derry, Maine. Upon knocking on what used to be her own front door, Beverly finds herself face to face with a kindly old woman who regretfully breaks the news that Beverly's father has died. She then welcomes Beverly into the house, offering her a cup of tea. While she heads off to the kitchen to prepare said refreshments, Beverly goes into her old bedroom, pulls aside a baseboard, and retrieves the poem Ben Hanscom sent her in It: Chapter One. In the background, we see the old woman moving erratically in a doorway at the end of the hall.
Ruh-roh.
Beverly joins the old woman in the living room, and from there things get decidedly weird: the old woman says, "People who die in Derry never really die" (or something to that effect) and then sits, motionless, staring into space for a full ten seconds before rejoining the conversation as if nothing's happened. Beverly's clearly put off by the woman, but before she can react the old lady tells her she's headed back into the kitchen for some cookies. As Beverly continues exploring the living room, we see the old woman capering across a doorway in the background, now fully nude. To say that this sequence was unsettling really would not be doing it justice.
With that sequence out of the way, the footage transitioned into something more closely resembling a teaser trailer: shots of the adult Losers arriving back in Derry, walking down its streets; the adult Losers' Club meeting a Chinese restaurant that'll be familiar to any of Stephen King's Constant Readers; someone flailing around in what appeared to be thousands of gallons of blood; a quick glimpse of Pennywise soaring up and over a large crowd, a bundle of balloons in hand; a look at an ominous carnival, what appeared to be a basement, and - last, but certainly not least - Pennywise himself, striking a match in the dark and showing his face to some unfortunate victim.
From top to bottom, the footage we saw was scary as shit and of a piece with Muschietti's It: Chapter One. If you liked what you saw in that film (and, judging by those still-insane box office numbers, a whole lot of you did), you're probably gonna be very excited about what the It: Chapter Two trailer is selling.
Oh, and by the way: you shouldn't be waiting much longer to see this teaser (or some version of it) yourselves: word 'round the campfire is that the It: Chapter Two teaser will be along any day now. Stay tuned for that, along with further reports from the frontlines of CinemaCon 2019, as further developments occur.
