This film captures a very specific time and place – late 1988 followed by the summer of 1989 – and, like ‘Stand by Me’, follows a group of young children on the cusp of adolescence dealing with trauma, bullying and abuse, all of which become embodied in Pennywise, the ancient, satanic clown who terrorises the town of Derry, Maine every thirty years or so. The children confront heightened versions of their worst fears, but what ultimately defines them is solidarity. They are the geeks, the misfits, the kids laughed at and bullied at school, yet together they become a formidable force.

Unlike the 1990 television miniseries, which intercut the children’s story with their reunion as adults twenty-seven years later, this film functions very much as a first chapter, leading into Chapter Two. And whereas the earlier adaptation was set in the late 1950s, this version relocates the story firmly in the late 1980s, giving it a different but equally potent nostalgia. Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise is a menacing, buck-toothed, shape-shifting presence – sinister and unpredictable – but what truly works is the attention to detail and the sense of a community already in peril. The adults, whether parents or authorities, are largely absent or complicit, turning a blind eye to cruelty, allowing evil to flourish because no one wants to admit the town itself is corrupted.

There’s an odyssey quality to the narrative as the children journey through woods and sewers to confront a primordial monster, echoing Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. The film explores generational trauma – bullies passing cruelty down through families – and asks whether evil can ever truly be defeated or merely suppressed, only to resurface decades later, much like trauma itself.

The self-named Losers’ Club is really the film’s emotional core. In many ways the story could almost function without Pennywise; he simply gives a face and a name to what the children are already confronting. The real horror lies in the everyday monsters surrounding them – bullying, racism, neglect and abuse – which make the supernatural threat resonate more deeply.

Watching it transported me back to that period of school life, to what it felt like to be slightly outside the mainstream, a misfit trying to find belonging. Even without living in Derry, Maine, the characters felt instantly recognisable – some of them uncomfortably familiar. The nostalgic textures differ from the 1990 version, yet achieve the same emotional impact for a new generation. Ultimately, this is a rite-of-passage story about children standing on the threshold between childhood and adulthood.

The ending, set deep in the underground lair where It resides, feels slightly less satisfying than what precedes it, but the lasting power of the film comes not from the supernatural terror but from the very human ones – the bullying, prejudice and emotional scars that shape the lives of these young characters.