IT: Chapter Two
In 2016 Derry, Maine, Adrian Mellon and his boyfriend Don Hagarty are attacked by a group of homophobic youths. Mellon is then thrown from a bridge and killed by Pennywise while Don watches helplessly. Mike Hanlon overhears the incident on a police scanner and rushes to the scene. Upon realizing that “It” has resurfaced, he calls the other members of the Losers Club— Bill, Ben, Beverly, Richie, Eddie, and Stan—back to Derry. Most are amnesiac about their childhoods and disturbed by the calls, but agree to return. Stan, however, commits suicide after his call.
The Losers reunite at a local restaurant and slowly begin to recover their memories, but are terrified by disturbing visions and taunts caused by It. The group is then informed of Stan’s suicide. Richie and Eddie decide to leave while Mike reveals to Bill that he met with a Native American tribe who showed him a vision of It arriving to Earth from the stars, and informed him of the Ritual of Chüd—a way of destroying It once and for all. Bill and Mike convince Richie and Eddie to stay and finish what was started. Henry Bowers, having survived his apparent death, has been confined to a mental hospital, but with the help of It, he escapes.
For the ritual to work, each Loser must have an artifact from their past. Beverly goes to her old home and finds the love letter Ben wrote for her, though she still believes Bill wrote it. Bill goes to the storm drain where Georgie was killed and recovers his paper boat before meeting a boy named Dean, who tells Bill that he lives in Bill’s old house and often hears voices. Ben goes to the town’s high school and finds his old yearbook page, which Beverly was the only person to sign. Eddie goes to a pharmacy and recovers an inhaler. Richie goes to an abandoned arcade where he finds a game token. After escaping individual encounters with It, the Losers use a shower cap from their childhood clubhouse for Stan and Mike finds the rock that started their fight against the Bowers gang years prior. Bill realizes that It is going after Dean but is unable to save him from being devoured. Traumatized by his failure to save both Georgie and Dean, he returns to the Neibolt house to murder It. Bowers attacks and wounds Eddie and Mike, but is killed by Richie. The rest of the Losers depart for the Neibolt house to help Bill.
The group descends into a massive cavern beneath the sewers and complete the Ritual, but a giant, spider-like Pennywise appears, and pressures Mike into revealing to the Losers that the Natives who attempted the ritual in the past all perished. The Losers are then thrown into nightmarish scenarios that they all eventually escape from before arriving back in the cavern. Eddie saves Richie, who gets caught by Pennywise’s hypnotic “deadlights”, but is impaled by Pennywise. The Losers regroup and realize It can be killed if they stand up to him and make him feel smaller than he actually is; they surround and insult It over and over, making him physically shrink and weak until they are able to tear out his heart and crush it, killing him. Eddie dies from his injuries despite Richie’s attempts to save him.
The remaining Losers return to the quarry where they once swam together. Beverly, who has realized it was Ben who wrote the letter, shares a kiss with him, and the two start a romantic relationship. Richie returns to the bridge where he had once carved his initials and those of another person, now revealed to be Eddie. Mike decides to move out of Derry to start a new life. The Losers all receive posthumous letters from Stan, explaining that he believed he would’ve held them back, but knew they could defeat It if they were brave without him.
Classification: 15