What The It Movies Look Like Before Special Effects
In 2017, director Andy Muschietti helmed "It Chapter One," adapted from the first half of Stephen King's massive horror tome, which had previously only been seen as a 1990 television miniseries starring Tim Curry as the terrifying Pennywise the Clown. Somewhat to the surprise of production company Warner Bros., it was not just a hit, but a huge box office phenomenon that blew financial projections out of the water. Although "It Chapter Two," released in 2019, couldn't match the critical or box office success of the first film, the franchise is nonetheless regarded as one of the most creatively ambitious adaptations of King's horror novels.
On the surface, "It" doesn't seem like it would need a tremendous amount of special effects work. The wildly unnerving story revolves around an evil clown murdering children in suburban Maine, which might require some extensive makeup but little else. That is, however, before you begin to grapple with the insidious supernatural element of "It," which features otherworldly set pieces hard to accomplish on screen without the help of a little CGI. While we recommend not looking into the Deadlights, you're more than welcome to take a look at what some of the most monumental scenes of "It" looked like before visual effects were implemented.
The Loser's Club de-aged
Let's address the elephant in the room right off the bat. A natural consequence of casting a bunch of pre-teens for a film coming out in 2017 is that, when you bring them back to reprise their roles two years later, they're going to have aged significantly. That's exactly what happened with the young cast of "It Chapter One," creating a complicated situation, because unlike many sequels featuring child actors, the scenes in "It Chapter Two" were not meant to be happening a year or two later but concurrent with the events of the first film, making their growth even more glaringly obvious. As you can see in the image above, flashback scenes were shot with the now teenage actors, who would then be digitally de-aged to more closely resemble their younger selves.
"Richie underwent the most dramatic change and there were several issues with him, so finding the right balance of being faithful to what he looks like and being faithful to his performance was important," said Sarah Marika, visual effects supervisor for Lola VFX, in an interview with IndieWire. In order to make the actors convincingly look years younger, they underwent a 2D mapping process that analyzed each of the individual characters, to make sure that they were addressing everything from height and weight to skin texture and facial changes. Although the end results vary, it was an undeniably massive undertaking that stretched the limitations of the burgeoning field of de-aging technology.
Mini-Pennywise
Exactly how do you defeat an age-old manifestation of evil that seems fated to reappear every few decades to feed, over and over and over again? Well, in the case of Pennywise the Clown, the answer is ... you bully it a bunch? In "It Chapter Two," the adult versions of the kids from the Losers Club face off against Pennywise once again, meeting him in his underground lair and taunting him to the point that he physically begins to helplessly shrink into nothing, since he's no longer able to feed off their fear. But Bill Skarsgard is about 6' 4". So how do they make him into a tiny version of Pennywise?
First, they hired a child to dress up as Pennywise to play the version of the character that is actively shrinking and backing away from the Losers. To depict the part where his back is against the wall (literally and figuratively), Skarsgard is lowered into a cave of sorts, so that only his head is exposed, after which they affixed a dummy body to lie in front of his neck, giving the appearance of a shrunken and defeated Pennywise, ripe to have his heart plucked out. This version of the character, according to the behind-the-scenes featurette "Pennywise Lives Again," was lovingly dubbed "Pancake Head" by the cast and crew.
Pennywise's maniacal laughter
For most of the "It" films, the ghastly appearance of Pennywise is achieved with little more than makeup and prosthetics (albeit a lot of makeup and prosthetics). But for the scenes when Pennywise turns into the spidery version of himself, the filmmakers needed some extra CGI help to make the effect look realistic. Motion capture to the rescue! In addition to a physical motion-capture performance that saw Bill Skarsgard act with long sticks and tennis balls to replicate the spider legs, the special effects team had to take extensive scans of his face so that they could transform it into a computer-generated version of Pennywise.
Although he looks a bit silly with dots all over his face, the effect was apparently terrifying in person. "Pennywise is ever present and just exploded out of me, " Skarsgard explained in the featurette "The Summer of It Chapter Two," "There's something about me doing Pennywise — like, full-on Pennywise — without makeup on that's almost even more disturbing than Pennywise himself because it's just so weird to see a normal person doing that."
Pennywise floating through the sky
There's a lot of floating in "It," from a lot of different characters — and of course, one of the most memorable lines from the film is Pennywise ominously telling Bill's ill-fated brother Georgie, "We all float down here. You'll float too," before pulling him into the sewers to his death. Pennywise gets in on the action, not just in the water but floating through the air, as we see in this scene from "It Chapter Two." It takes place in a quiet Derry park, when Pennywise creepily descends from the sky while holding a bunch of balloons. To make this scene as unnerving as possible, the filmmakers relied on a mix of practical and computer effects.
Bill Skarsgard was attached to a rig and several wires to safely lower him to the ground — doing this part of the scene without CGI allowed him to physically embody the malevolent clown as much as possible. The only CGI involved here, presumably, is to remove the wires protecting him from falling, making it look as though the balloons were actually carrying him to the ground.
Adult Bill gets dragged
In "It Chapter Two," there's a lot of time spent in Pennywise's underground lair, as the re-assembled, now-adult Losers attempt to bring the malevolent clown down once and for all, so that they don't have to go through all this again in another few decades. They don't exactly have an easy time facing off against him, as evinced by the treatment of Bill (James McAvoy) in the above scene, where he is dragged along the grimy floor.
While you can physically drag someone without the use of special effects, there are a few adjustments made here to smooth out the process, protect the actor, and make the shot look as good as possible. Rather than being physically dragged by someone, McAvoy is attached to a hook and harness to distribute the force of the yanking done off-screen. He's also laid on top of a special pad to ensure a smooth ride and control the speed at which he's being flung across the floor, which will later be removed in post-production.
Pennywise floating in underground lair
We've seen Pennywise float in water and in the sky, so why not add floating in his underground lair to his repertoire? In the first "It" film, we were treated to the particularly grim sight of the bodies of hundreds of stolen children floating limply, unnaturally, as part of Pennywise's disturbing trophy collection. In "It Chapter Two," we return to the same location, where the adult Losers have to relive their traumatic experiences from decades earlier as they once again face off against Pennywise.
This time, Pennywise himself is getting in on the floating action, as we see the familiar wires holding Bill Skarsgard (and by the looks of it, other cast members) aloft in the air, emphasizing — as though we could forget — the otherworldly, supernatural qualities of the character. These underground sequences are a little heavier on the CGI as well — in addition to the practical effects of the harness system, it's shot against a full wall green screen standing in for the cavernous lair that would be a little difficult and likely cost prohibitive to build on a soundstage.
Beverly attacked by her own hair
Beverly Marsh (played by Sophia Lillis) is really put through the wringer over the course of "It." Not only is she abused by her father and tormented by Pennywise, but she has the dubious honor of being the only girl in the Losers Club (to say nothing of the frankly disturbing way she's expected to bond the group together in the original novel, which luckily didn't make it to the film version). In one of the first film's most gruesome scenes, Beverly is leaning over her bathroom sink when, while investigating a clog, she inadvertently pulls long, disgusting strands of bloody hair, which proceed to wrap themselves around her face, arms, and legs, before belching out gallons of blood that cover the entire room.
Interestingly, this set piece was accomplished primarily with practical effects. For the shots when she is engulfed in malicious hair, crew members methodically wrapped individual clumps of hair around each of her limbs, before the sink actually shot fake blood out of it, coating Lillis in the process. "The bathroom scene had to be really intense," Andy Muschetti explained in the featurette "The Summer of It Chapter One." "There's an added element which I think makes the scene more tense, which is the element of the hair. Beverly's hair is basically a reflection of her acting against the abuse, her hair is something that her father is fixated on, and it sort of represents the abuse in the film."
Pennywise attacking Bill
As true crime and countless seasons of "Criminal Minds" have taught us, serial killers love to keep little souvenirs from their victims. And Pennywise is apparently no different, if the frankly hoarder-like mountain of kids' clothes and other personal effects in his lair are any indication. It's here that Pennywise has a confrontation with Bill (Jaeden Martell), one that can only be accomplished, again, with a combination of special and practical effects (via Rodeo FX).
They're both attached to wired harnesses to give their little tiff an aerial element, and although the mountain of junk is physically present on set rather than being CGI-ed in later, the scene does have a green screen backdrop. This was filled in during post-production to add visual depth to the underground location, creating otherworldly texture that would be hard to accomplish without a little bit of computer magic. Although the finished scene is incredibly dark and gloomy, you can also see how much light has to be pumped in on set even to create dank, atmospheric subterranean spaces.
Adult Beverly almost drowned in blood
Pennywise didn't go easy on Beverly as a child, so it's only to be expected that he'd go just as hard on her as an adult. When Beverly (Jessica Chastain) returns to Derry as an adult, she is treated to yet another bloody nightmare. This time, she's in the bathroom, just about the most vulnerable place you can be in public, when blood begins to pump into her stall without warning.
This set piece was another opportunity for the crew to showcase their formidable practical effects team. Although the set appears to be just a regular bathroom stall, it's actually a small pool, allowing the filmmakers to fill it full of fake blood while still keeping their horrific mess relatively self-contained. Chastain is basically resigned to float in the goopy concoction as the pool fills up, although she does have a grab bar that she can hold onto, as we see in the picture, to help her tread water.
Credit where credit's due, Chastain was incredibly game for this scene, as she discussed in "The Summer of It Chapter Two." "When I first got the script, and it had Beverly in that bathroom stall, and the stall was filling with blood, I was like, 'That's super cool.'" Because first of all, it's terrifying and visually shocking, but then also, I like the symbolism of it, this idea of what does it mean for her to become a woman, especially in her house, where she's being abused by her father. I loved the idea of Beverly being swallowed up by blood."