I love Stephen King’s IT. I love the book, and I love the two-part TV movie. While I’ve only read the book in its entirety once (it’s just so ridiculously long), I’ve watched the movie countless times, beginning with the nights it first aired. I was hooked on it from the very beginning. Luckily I had recorded the initial airing on an old blank VHS, which would get worn out over the years until I finally got the DVD as I upgraded my collection to the newer format.

I love Tim Curry’s Pennywise, and as much as I’m looking forward to Cary Fukunaga’s theatrical adaptation, it’s very hard for me to envision anyone else in the role. The Curry Pennywise remains arguably the most nightmarish fictional clown ever to grace the screen (sorry, Twisty, but give me a break). It’s truly hard to imagine the movie without him, but in reality, there are a lot of creepy moments in IT that don’t involve a clown being on screen (there are even more such moments in the book, but that’s another story).

With that, let’s take some time to celebrate some of these moments, as it feels like Pennywise gets all the credit for making this movie what it is.

1. Georgie’s Photo

I think this is the scene that actually freaked me out the most when I watched the movie as a kid. Bill’s little brother Georgie has already been killed by IT, and Bill is in Georgie’s room looking at a photo album, feeling awful about what happened. He stops to look at a black and white photo of Georgie, which then winks at him to chilling effect. After that, Bill throws the album across the room, where its pages start rapidly turning by themselves, before landing back on the page with the Georgie photo, which starts bleeding all over the floor. This is all accompanied by a fantastic, dread-inducing score.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiAaT7zManM

2. Dead Kids in the Sink

Ah, the old “dead kids in the sink” gag. In another particularly creepy, clownless scene, Beverly hears the voice of Derry’s dead children coming from her bathroom sink talking about how they float, before a red balloon bubbles up from the drain, and bursts in a splatter of blood all over the bathroom and Beverly’s face. Her father comes in, and can’t see it.

3. Mrs. Kersh

Beverly Marsh visits her father’s home when she returns to Derry, only to find that it’s occupied by an old woman named Mrs. Kersh. Kersh tells Beverly she knew her father, and we see that Beverly misread the name on the doorbell (it said Kersh instead of Marsh, which she thought it said at first).

Mrs. Kersh invites Beverly in for some tea, and we soon realize that yes, it really did say Marsh on the doorbell, as Mrs. Kersh guzzles down her blood tea and turns into a frightening, decaying monster version of Beverly’s father. Obviously, it’s IT.

We do see IT in the Pennywise form, standing by the door as Beverly runs away, and turns around to look.

4. Skeleton in the Barrens

Ben is upset after being punished for fighting with his asshole cousin with whom he and his mother live. He gets on his bike, and rides down to the Barrens, where the kids play all the time. It’s a much scarier place when they’re alone. First, Ben sees his father standing out on the water in the creepy swamp. His father starts talking to him, and naturally starts talking about and holding balloons before completely turning into Pennywise. So yes, the clown is certainly a part of the scene, but it’s a swampy, slime-covered skeleton that reaches out of the water and grabs at Ben, talking about everybody floating down there.

5.  The Mummy

In this scene, Stan is out birdwatching, and hears a voice calling to him from an old creepy house. For some reason, he decides to go in, and is confronted by a pretty scary mummy walking down the stairs toward him. Technically it’s clown mummy, but it’s not the version of Pennywise we’re accustomed to by that point. Anyway, Stan gets the fuck out of dodge, conveniently meeting up with Bill, who rides him away like a bat out of hell on his bike Silver.

The part where the mummy is walking slowly down the stairs is pretty effective. I’m having a hard time finding an embeddable video of this one, but here’s a picture.

There are a lot of great scenes in IT. Many of them show Pennywise. Many of them don’t. Some of the IT-related scenes aren’t as scary as they are fun. Who doesn’t love Richie encountering a werewolf in the basement or watching balloons splatter blood all over people’s faces while Pennywise carries on like a madman? And let’s not forget about the old pharmacist Mr. Keene, who was always partial to licorice. There are many reasons IT remains a beloved classic, especially for a TV movie. I think it’s nice to remember that Tim Curry’s Pennywise, as wonderful as he was, is far from the only one.