Stephen King’s ‘It’ Trailer Has Arrived, Worrisome For Wrong Reasons

Stephen King‘s haunting 1986 novel It has been adapted to film, and its trailer just landed.

Directed by Andres Muschietti, the movie is based on the first half of the horror novel, with a second movie planned in the future. Unlike the novel, which takes place in the 1950’s, the film takes place in the 1980’s. It follows a group of young outcasts who encounter a shapeshifting evil that feeds on fear, and has claimed innumerable lives over the ages.

Stephen King’s ‘It’ Trailer Is Here

The original novel dealt with resonant themes such as the power of memory and childhood trauma, and won the British Fantasy Award in 1987. It became the best-selling book in the United States in 1986.

Other than the time period, the film’s content appears to be relatively faithful to its source material. The overall feel of the trailer, however, is jarringly different from the novel’s tone. The trailer seems to convey a conventional tone, with cliched snapshots of a looming clown, which is entirely different from the famously unconventional horror novel.

So perhaps the most disturbing element to the trailer is not the menacing presence of “it,” but the trite and overdone tone it conveys. Fans of the horror novel can only hope that the trailer is not representative of the big-screen adaption as a whole.

The ominous movie will hit theaters on September 8. Check out the unsettling trailer below.