Do we like them?

Do we like Pennywise?

A character from It (1986)

Our score: 0 out of 10. Absolutely not. He's a child-hunting nightmare in a clown suit, and no amount of balloons and charm makes him worth backing.

Pennywise is the best-known face of "It", the title monster of Stephen King's 1986 horror novel. It is an ancient cosmic evil that lives beneath the town of Derry, Maine, and preys on the town's children about every 27 years. Its powers include shapeshifting, manipulating reality, and going unnoticed by adults. Most of the time It appears as Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

The clown is the perfect lure. Most small children love a clown, and the people of Derry seem to accept a stray circus performer in their town. The book opens with a child reaching for a paper boat in a storm drain and meeting a friendly face in the dark. That sets the tone for everything Pennywise does: he is warm, playful and cruel. The story is then carried by the Losers Club, a group of outcast kids who realise what is hunting them.

Pennywise has no tragic motive, no code, and no soft side that the story asks you to feel sorry for. He is a predator who has found an endless supply of frightened kids, and he enjoys the hunt. He has been played on screen by Tim Curry in the 1990 miniseries and by Bill Skarsgård in the 2017 and 2019 films and the HBO prequel series. The score is 0 because he is the one character in the story you can be sure you should never back.