Pennywise The Clown Character Analysis

There was a remake of the movie called “IT”, which was released this year. This movie is about a demon, named Pennywise, who is dressed as a clown. Pennywise feasts on children’s fear, meaning that he eats the children that are afraid. When you think of clowns, you

This open letter is directed at the directors of Horror films. This letter will discus the over used gimmicks and the lack of creativity on their part. It will be written in a conversational way with the use of pathos of how these movies are faulty with a touch of humor, and rhetorical questions to emphasize certain points of my discussion of this topic. I will also use ethos through my time as a film fanatic who is passionate on all that is film especially horror film which is my favorite film genre, and is the largest genre with so many subgenres within it that have the ability to use so much imagination. I have crafted this conversation to be directed towards the directors of horror films with the use of film lingo that is used for this genre, movie examples they should look at, and a deep analysis of what and how this problem cause movie of today to lack in appeal.

Stephen King wrote the short story “Why We Crave Horror Films” explaining why our mind gets so excited during horror movies. He continues to make the statement “the horror film has become the modern public lynching” (paragraph 6) showing that no matter what generation a person is in the excitement of gore will always exist. King proves this statement discussing emotions and psychiatric points in his work.

Clowns are draped all over social media and the news. People are using clown outfits just to get a popular video up on the internet. Clowns showing up by lampposts and chasing people around city streets. They send a mind crippling fear into people when they think of being in a situation with a killer clown. Imagine walking down what could be any street when you look down an old dirt road that you have passed a million times; You see it, it is what looks to be a blood thirsty clown waiting for a victim. Ironically it is most likely a guy who wants a funny video or just trying to get a good Halloween scare. A killer clown who is actually just a regular guy in a clown mask from Target... wait Target has missed out on huge clown mask sales due

King begins this article with the attention grabbing statement, “I think that we’re all mentally ill: those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better—and maybe not all that much better, after all.” (King, 2013, p 641) Even if his readers immediately disagree, he has accomplished capturing their attention. Next he describes a few crazy behaviors that are common to most people: talking to oneself; making faces when no one is looking; and giving in to irrational fears of snakes, the dark, tight places, and things lurking where we cannot see them. Most people can relate to these behaviors and can reason this is true. He then moves on to explain how we face these fears and give our emotions a break by watching a horror movie. He likens this to a roller coaster that is a mixture of fun and delicious terror as it takes its participants by surprise with a 360-degree loop or, “plows through a lake at the bottom of the drop.” (King, 2013, p 641) The next example pulls on the emotion inside his readers to measure up to the perfect standard of beauty. He says horror films tend to make people feel more normal because the comparison is so grotesque that the readers know, “we are still light-years away from true ugliness.” (King, 2013, p

Since it’s infancy at the beginning of the eighteenth century, horror has followed certain conventions that results in an awakening of the senses, evoking intense emotions of fear and terror in the audience. Horror feeds off triggering the primal fears embedded within all of humankind, creating a sense of menace that is the very substance of this genre. Furthermore, the central menace of a piece tends to enlighten the human mind to the world of the paranormal and the enigmatic, dark side of the unknown. The movie “Psycho” directed by Alfred Hitchcock is a perfect example. Infamous for its shower scene, but immortal for its contribution to the horror genre, “Psycho” was filmed with great tact, grace and art in regards to horror conventions.

Stephen King’s: IT, is a story which is set in the small town of Derry, Maine; it is illustrated as the most oministic place in the book where everyone in the town acts so strange when kids start to go missing strangely. It happens every 27 years, by a mysterious creature that lives beneath, of Derry, and starts to target seven unlikely group of characters that come together to defeat the mysterious beast so IT can never harm the town anymore, and 27 years later the seven friends get a disturbing phone call that tells them that IT has come back and they will need to finish off their promise. But the story itself is a coming of age, which is these characters learn what it is like in the real world when, even if your a kid you can’t really depend on the grown ups to help “Eddie discovered one of his childhood’s great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought” (King, 814). and if they are going to defeat the creature they will have to face their fears.

As a child, I vividly remembering watching the movie, “It”. I remember this insignificant event clearly for one reason. It kept me up for days because I was so terrified by the film. “It” was originally a horror novel written by Steven King but was also released into a movie. Every great horror movie has a villain or monster and the monster in “It” goes by the name pennywise the clown. Pennywise the Clown induces fear in me and millions of others because his traits closely resemble those of Cohen’s seven thesis which define what make a monster.

Further, King goes on to state that when we watch a horror movie, “we are daring the nightmare,” meaning we are almost begging to be scared. King also states there are multiple reasons for this, but one of the main points is “to show that we can, that we are not afraid.” He then appeals to the audience experiences by making his paper more relatable and comical when he compares horror movies to roller coasters. King states, they are both usually liked by the young, but once their age reaches to the forties or fifties, “one’s appetite for double twists or 360-degree loops may be considerably depleted.” Additionally, King uses his clever collage of comparisons to explain one of the horror genre’s many intentions are to show us right from wrong. Which might also provide some of us with “psychic relief,” throwing ourselves in a place where intensive questioning is unnecessary, giving people a small break from their complicated daily life.

Throughout cinema, there has always been space in our hearts for the gore and intrigue that come from horror films. Though they come with different plots, there remains “the monster”, the character that brings along disgust, horror, suspense, and even sympathy. In Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), our monster is Norman Bates, the boy next door. This was one of the first times in American cinema that the killer was brought home, paving the way for the future of horror movies. According to Robin Wood in “An Introduction to the America Horror Film” (183-208), Bates follows the formula of the Monster being a human psychotic. This is conveyed through his normal façade portrayed with his introduction, the audience’s ambivalence, the use of

Horror films are movies that aim to elicit a strong physiological reaction in the viewer, such as raised heartbeat and fear. Three horror films by the names of Psycho, Scream and The Messengers will be analysed and compared to an episode of the popular children’s show Shaun the Sheep. Five elements will be addressed in this analysis, those being camera techniques, Mise-en-scene, Editing, Lighting and Sound.

Calling The Babadook “true horror” is subjective; though to a certain extent true. It utilizes an extensive list of terrifying tropes, whilst also shaping them into images that are fresh. A key aspect of the movie is the attention to color and its effect on the viewer. With a grey tone to the colors, the movie makes use of an atmospheric suffusion of solemnity. Subsequently, The Babadook removes the “pure” or “light” from objects and people alike, resulting in the “dark side” pervading most scenes. An illustration of this is a children’s book Amelia reads to her son; the shadows are deeper and darker when paired next to the muted palette. By taking the color and, by extension, even the life out of the movie as a whole, the audience is left with decayed mise-en-scene. What remains is the grim “evil” of the world. With regard to the assertion that film creates true horror, the cinematographic choice too mute the tone of the entire production is the foundation causing the intrinsic anxiety. For that reason, it can be argued The Babadook creates “true horror.”

Stephan King is easily one of the most well-known writers in the horror genre. Often regarded as “The Master of Horror,” King’s impact on the horror genre is remarkable, and he has written both books and screenplays. Many of his works have been turned into movies, further increasing his popularity. Most people at least vaguely know who Stephen King is, but not many know his real story. In today’s time Stephen King entrances audiences and his classic books are converted into screenplays for movies.

Imagine this, a demented man dressed like a clown escapes prison only to shoot a woman in the stomach and rape her. Now imagine that he kidnaps her father, strips him naked, and torture him physically as well as mentally by showing him the pictures of his daughter slowly dying while being rapped. You might be asking what horror movie this is from? It is actually from a wildly popular comic book called “The Killing Joke”. Although appearing to be childish, comic books show many adult themes such as violence, gore, and pornography, thereby making them unsuitable for children.

Based on Stephen King’s horror novel of the same name, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining features hallways filled with butchered daughters, and their guts and blood splashed down the hall. Horror and realism fuel Kubrick’s notoriously disturbing films and The Shining stands clear-cut amongst them. Although in the case of this movie, Kubrick shifts emphasis from visual horror to psychological fear and instills mounting dread from the sequence of disturbing events. Kubrick states, “one of the things that horror stories can do is show us the archetypes of the unconscious; we can see the dark side without having to confront it directly.” Never falling flat, The Shining provides a psychological horror masterpiece complete with brilliant acting, tight camera angles, haunting score, and unanswered questions.