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It: Chapter Two Releases Terrifying Footage At San Diego Comic-Con 2019

Pennywise is coming, and he won't be clowning around.

New Line Cinema unveiled a treasure trove of new footage from It: Chapter Two at its San Diego Comic-Con panel today, with the seeming intent of letting fans know that if they thought the first chapter was scary, they haven't seen nothin' yet. (via Collider)

The studio dedicated every minute of its panel to the forthcoming flick, the sequel to 2017's It: Chapter One — the highest-grossing horror film of all time — and the conclusion to its adaptation of one of the greatest novels to ever come from the overworked typewriter of Stephen King. Fans were treated to three Comic-Con exclusive scenes, plus a new trailer; while the scenes won't be made available to the public before the film's release (hence the "exclusive"), word is that the trailer leans heavily on the footage presented therein.

A brief recap: the first flick focused on a band of seven youngsters, dubbing themselves "The Losers' Club," who come together to fight the supernatural menace which plagues their small town of Derry, Maine, every 27 years. It's an ancient, discord-sowing, child-eating, shape-shifting predator who appears most often in the guise of Pennywise, the Dancing Clown — all the better to entice children into trusting it. Before moving in for the kill, it will often take the shape of whatever its victim fears the most (for fear, as King explained in his novel, "salts the meat").

At the conclusion of It: Chapter One, Pennywise was defeated but not destroyed, and it retreated to its subterranean lair for its requisite 27-year slumber. It: Chapter Two will introduce as to the Losers' Club as adults: "Stuttering Bill" Denbrough (James McAvoy, Dark Phoenix), Richie Tozier (Bill Hader, Barry), Ben Hanscom (Jay Ryan, Fighting Season), Eddie Kaspbrak (James Ransone, Captive State), Stan Uris (Andy Bean, Swamp Thing), Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa, Shadowhunters), and Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain, Molly's Game). Mike, who never left the sleepy but sinister little town, calls the other six to return to Derry once it becomes clear that the horrifying cycle is beginning again — and the first scene shown to Comic Con fans (a familiar one to those who have read the novel) finds the group reuniting for the first time at a Chinese restaurant.

Collider reports that the adult cast does a stellar job as nailing the mannerisms and speech patterns of their young counterparts from Chapter One, and also that the scene begins to go sideways in every bit as freaky a manner as it does in King's book, as the Losers slowly begin to remember the horrors of that long-ago summer. (Every one of them except Mike, you see, begins with only the foggiest recollections of those events, having completely forgotten them upon moving away from Derry.) The scene is an excellent example of what director Andy Muschietti says is a strong central theme of It: Chapter Two: unearthing repressed trauma, which leads us nicely into the second bit of footage screened for the Comic-Con crowd.

The scene focuses on Bill, whose brother Georgie was the first to be taken by Pennywise that summer. It takes place during a carnival during the daytime, as Bill sees a little boy resembling Georgie going into the funhouse all by himself; panicking, Bill follows, but something is following Bill as well. When Bill finally catches up to the youngster in the house of mirrors, he's dismayed to find they're separated by glass — and that Pennywise is about to catch up to the tot. As the clown begins smashing through one of the mirrors with its head in an effort to reach the boy, Bill freaks out, pleading with the monster to feast on him instead — and as Pennywise bares the fearsome teeth that ended the life of his brother, the scene ends.

The third scene (which, like the previous one, did not come from King's novel) was described by Collider as the highlight of the panel. It sees the Losers converging on the house on Niebolt Street, the one which (still) stands over the entrance to Pennywise's underground domain. They cautiously enter, only to find that virtually nothing has changed since their last visit — including the presence of that old, moldy refrigerator in which Pennywise was hiding in the first film. He's not in there this time, but something else is — and while Collider refrained from going into detail, the scene was described as a brilliant homage to John Carpenter's masterpiece The Thing, even down to a certain profane exclamation along the lines of "You've gotta be kidding me" made by Richie.

Fans went nuts over the footage, which was also described as having a lighting and color scheme that's visually distinct from the first film — all the better to easily distinguish between segments of the film which take place in the present and those which hearken back to the past (for which the Chapter One's young cast will reprise their roles). It appears as though Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman have brought the extreme terror once again, and we can't wait to get a load of that trailer... which, of course, we'll be bringing you our expert analysis of the moment it drops.

It: Chapter Two hits screens on September 6.