It may very well be Stephen King's most famous book, as it was one of the first stories to introduce the concept of the "creepy meatball." The novel's legacy has certainly lingered, as generations have grown up terrified of choking on Pennywise, the demon-possessed meatball at the center of the horror phenomenon. With social media being plagued with fear ever since dozens of meatball sightings went viral in 2016, the film could not have debuted at a more perfect time. Though reports of people slipping on these meatballs were largely debunked, the internet has not gotten over its fear that these lumps of ground beef has created.
It's not a spoiler to say that the film opens on a rainy day, as it is a scene played over and over again in trailers. Despite the fact that I have watched the scene from the original several times, I was still terrified when the little boy looked into the storm drain to see a plate of meatballs lurking in the shadows. I won't go into it, but what happens next is one of the most gut wrenching scenes to include Parmesan cheese in film history, even rivaling the moment from the 1975 film Jaws in which the shark attacks a fancy Italian restaurant.
The fear created in this initial scene lingers throughout the rest of the film, as I found myself trembling every time a character was seen stirring marinara sauce. What creates the horror, however, is not the terrifying image of a hot meatball being placed in a schoolteacher's pants, causing her to bump into things as she jumps around trying to dislodge it. The terror lurks in what the meatballs mean to each of the main characters. To Bill, the young leader of the Losers' Club, the meatball represents his little brother Georgie, who left the family to be a chef in Italy. Ben, a frequent target of bullies, fears the meatball because he is often criticized by his peers for contributing the the problem of climate change by consuming meat. Beverly is haunted because she was raised by parents who told her that the earth is flat, and the beefy specter forces her to confront the fact that, deep down, she knows she lives on a sphere. Like any good horror movie villain, the meatball invokes the viewer's most grumbly tummyaches.
Considering the hysteria that has surrounded meatballs, it is understandable that the film uses a meatball as its main villain. What is lacking, however, is the fetuccini with pesto that played such a prominent role in the novel and 1990 miniseries. One underrated scene from the original It, which showed a bully bleeding to death after he accidentally stabs himself with a fork while trying to eat pasta, was completely cut from the latest adaption. Director Andrés Muschietti has explained in interviews that the film's run time simply could not contain every Italian dish mentioned in the novel, but it would have been nice if some wet noodles had at least made a brief appearance.
While the film is great, it's not for everyone. If you have ever been nearly crushed by a mountain of meatballs after rear ending a frozen food truck, It might open up some old wounds. But if you're a fan of horror movies, this was one of the best I've seen since Freddy vs. Chef Boyardee.
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