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Thanks to Andrés Muschietti’s take on Stephen King’s It, Pennywise has once again become a traumatizing pop culture phenomenon. 2017’s It wasn’t just a critically praised and conversation-dominating pop culture win. With all of its excellent cast of child actors and smart nods to nostalgia, it currently stands as the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time.
Pennywise, with his ability to transform into literally anyone’s worst fears, is certainly a nightmare of a villain. But do you know what’s creepier than finding out there’s one evil, manipulative, joy-sucking, otherworldly monster? Finding out there’s two. Welcome to Really Internet, a corner of the web that asks how can we make the shows and movies you love even more disturbing. Today we’re exploring the connection between two unlikely films — 2017’s It and 2009’s Coraline.
WHAT’S THE THEORY?
If you’re up-to-date on your Stephen King mythology, you already know that Pennywise isn’t a dancing clown at all. Instead, he’s an inter-dimensional monster that feeds on the fear of children who just happens to take the form of a clown on a regular basis. As the theory goes, Pennywise isn’t a lone horror. He’s part of a race of so-called emotional vampires and so is the main antagonist in Tim Burton’s Coraline.
WHY IT’S NOT THAT CRAZY
The primary idea behind this theory is actually cannon. Pennywise isn’t a lone terror but a creature that’s descended from and is connected to similar beings. As the Reddit user OrganicKermistry points out, there is another “It” that appears in King’s Dark Tower series. At one point, Roland encounters a creature known as Dandelo, who looks like a happy old man but secretly steals life from his victims by making them laugh.
Coraline’s stop-motion antagonist, Other Mother aka the Beldam, shares many of the same traits as Pennywise and Dandelo. All three take the form of harmless-looking hosts; they’re a mother, a clown, and an old man respectively. All three target children. But most importantly, all three feed off of some form of emotion from their young victims. As mentioned before, Dandelo steals people’s life force from laughter, Pennywise does this through fear, and Other Mother does this through love.
Another similarity stands in the way each monster is defeated. Every time a victim refuses to succumb to the monster’s charms, they are defeated. In It’s case that happens when the children decide to stop being afraid of Pennywise. With Coraline, this somewhat occurs when Coraline stops treating Other Mother / the Beldam with love and starts treating her as a foe. The true forms of all three are even similar. Whereas Dandelo’s real form is compared to an insect, Pennywise and Other Mother look more spider-like when their schemes are discovered.
WHY IT’S QUESTIONABLE
There are two major things working against this theory — Stephen King and Other Mother’s defeat. King, both in his work and in interviews, has been very clear that all of his stories are related. Expanding this already complicated universe to Tim Burton’s work, a creator that King creatively has had very little interaction with save for tonally similar projects, seems a bit excessive.
However, the main thing that may discredit the Pennywise and Other Mother theory to dedicated fans has to do with the Beldam’s defeat. Pennywise starts to weaken the second the children decide to stop fearing it. When Coraline realizes that Other Mother isn’t a better mother and decides to start fighting her, she doesn’t weaken. Instead, she changes her form to be taller and more sinister and challenges Coraline to a game. That’s not really a loss of power but more like a shift of power. That being said, it’s still pretty fun to imagine that Other Mother is Pennywise’s inter-dimensional sister. And Pennywise is dating the Babadook. It’s going to be a fun Thanksgiving for all.
