What actually happens
A paper boat and a very bad storm drain
Heavy rain is pouring down on Derry, Maine, one spring day in 1960, and George Denbrough is out in the street with a paper sailboat made by his older brother Bill, who stutters. It floats into a storm drain, and Georgie finds Pennywise the Dancing Clown waiting inside. Pennywise coaxes him into reaching in for the boat, then tears off his arm and leaves him to bleed to death. This is the worst scene in the story and it comes at the very start, so it is over before anything else happens. A few months later Bill and Eddie Kaspbrak, who has asthma, become friends with the new kid, Ben Hanscom. Beverly Marsh, whose father abuses her, joins them, and so do Richie Tozier and Stan Uris.
Reading this instead of watching it is the correct decision. Scaredy Cat makes that decision automatic, for free.
Seven outcasts and a clown who has noticed
Ben falls for Beverly and sends her a poem without a name on it, but she assumes Bill wrote it and starts liking him instead. The group is bullied at school, by the creek and everywhere else by Henry Bowers and his gang. Each of them has a frightening encounter with Pennywise. In July Mike Hanlon joins after Bowers' gang chases him, and the kids drive the gang off with rocks and start calling themselves the Losers Club. Mike's scrapbook on the history of Derry shows them that Pennywise, whom they call It, is an ancient creature that wakes about every thirty years to hunt and feed.
Armed with a slingshot and an inhaler
Bill realizes that It killed Georgie and leads the Losers into the sewers to kill it. Stan gets separated and runs into Bowers and Belch Huggins. It has already killed Victor Criss, and now it kills Belch too, which leaves Henry traumatized with his hair gone white. Stan finds the others in a big sewer chamber, where they join hands in a circle, and It breaks the circle by grabbing Stan. The kids use the creature's habit of working through their imaginations against it. Eddie pictures his inhaler full of battery acid and burns half of the clown's face, and Beverly's slingshot sends silver earrings into its head, which cracks it open. It flees down a drain, and the kids decide it is dead. They promise to come back if It does. Bowers, driven mad by the deadlights, confesses to the killings and is institutionalized.
Thirty years later, and nobody wants to go back
In May 1990, It kills Laurie Ann Winterbarger in her backyard, which means it has woken up again. Mike, who is the one who never left Derry, hears about missing children and calls the others to keep their promise. They have all become successful. Everyone comes back except Stan, who cannot face it and takes his own life. The rest learn of his death after they arrive, and Pennywise torments them. Bowers escapes the asylum with It's help to kill them. Bill's wife Audra comes to Derry and is taken by It, which hypnotizes her with its deadlights. Bowers stabs Mike but then fatally stabs himself when Eddie and Ben come to save Mike. Mike, now in the hospital, gives Bill the two silver earrings he found in the sewers ten years ago, and the five remaining Losers go back down, where Bill realizes It has Audra.
The clown is a spider and the spider is hungry
In the creature's lair they find Audra, catatonic and wrapped in webs, and see that It's real form is an enormous spider. Bill, Ben and Richie are hypnotized by its deadlights while Beverly looks for the earring she missed with. Eddie tries to repeat his childhood trick and is grabbed and fatally wounded. Beverly snaps her friends out of the trance, but it is too late for Eddie. The others go after the injured spider, rip out its heart and crush it, which kills it. They carry Eddie's body and Audra out of the sewers. Mike recovers in the hospital and explains that the Losers drift apart again as their memories of It and of each other fade, though his journal remains. Beverly and Ben marry and are expecting a child, and Richie lands a film role. Bill wakes Audra from her catatonia with a ride on Silver, his childhood bike.
The ending, explained
The five adult Losers kill the spider-like creature by tearing out its heart and crushing it. Eddie dies from the wound it gives him, and Stan has already died by his own hand. Audra is carried out of the sewers catatonic. Mike recovers in the hospital, and the Losers drift apart again, and what they remember of It and of one another slowly fades. Beverly and Ben marry and expect a child, Richie gets cast in a film, and Bill wakes Audra from her catatonia with a ride on Silver, his childhood bike.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether there is a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: There is no dog in this one.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is It scary?
It is a 5 out of 10 with medium dread. Most of the fear comes from Pennywise turning up around town and from a few jump scares, and it fades after about a night.
How does It end?
The adult Losers crush the heart of the spider-like creature and kill it, though Eddie dies in the fight. Stan had already taken his own life before the others returned to Derry.
Does the dog die in It?
There is no dog in It. The giant spider form of Pennywise dies at the end.
Is there a post-credits scene in It?
Nobody has confirmed whether It has a scene after the credits.
What is Pennywise in It?
In It, Pennywise the Dancing Clown is the disguise of an ancient creature that wakes about every thirty years to hunt and feed on children. Its true form is an enormous spider.
