Tuesday, July 18, 2017

The IT Spot: Rereading part 23

We've finally reached the point where Mike meets the rest of the loser's club: The Apocolyptic Rock Fight.

SPOILERS


The fight is superficially similar to the mini-series footage, but as with everything, it lacks a lot of the finesse. The segment ping-pongs between the established 6 losers talking about killing IT, then transitioning to normal kid stuff: going to the dump to blow up bottles, etc. The other half of the story is Mike Hanlon going to a band rehearsal and nearly getting caught by Henry Bowers and his gang: now expanded to include a preppy kid from the right side of the tracks and a guy named Moose.

As seen here.

After Henry tries to kill Mike with an M-80, and tells Mike that he killed the proto-loser's dog, Mike finds the other losers, who fight off the boys with rocks. Neither side gets away unbloodied, but Henry actually is the worst off: broken nose, rock bruises, cuts, and the back of his shirt blown off by another M-80. Not that you can feel bad: he was literally going to kill Mike.

That's something that's not paid enough/any attention in the adaptation: the horror that comes from having truly murderous children in the mix. Kids that can, and do kill. Granted, IT's evil enhances that, but even without IT, they'd still be crazy and evil. Just maybe not killers. Maybe. And we haven't even gotten to Patrick Hockstetter, the literal psychopath.

But we will.

In any case, the bond between the losers, the Ka-Tet is sealed as they invite Mike to join them in setting off some firecrackers. Even then, they know there's completion: it 'clicks' that they have all arrived.

SAFE

Next time we investigate some more goings on of both the adult and kid losers, trying to come to terms with what they did, and what needs to be done.

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