Think Stephen King’s IT is all about a spooky clown named Pennywise? Think again. Sure, the terrifying clown with the questionable hair is part of it, but King’s masterpiece of horror has something much more sinister lurking beneath its pancake makeup surface. Something that’s a little bit more ... murky.

In this new video essay, the team at ScreenCrush breaks down the original 1990 IT miniseries to explore the depths of its real horror. Stephen King has talked about the impact the classic Universal film Creature From the Black Lagoon had on his budding mind as a child. Our video traces its influence into his work, and notes just how important water imagery has been throughout the long history of monster movies, before and after Creature From the Black Lagoon, and up to and including IT, both the television miniseries and the brand new film version opening in theaters this month from director Andy Muschietti.

This video was written and narrated by Kevin Maher, who hosts the Kevin Geeks Out screening series in New York. Check out more of Kevin’s work by following him on Twitter. We’ve got lots more videos and video essays coming in the future. In the meantime, don’t forget to subscribe to the ScreenCrush YouTube channel to catch all our future episodes. And you can watch more of ScreenCrush’s videos below, including Kevin’s previous video about the most traumatic moments in the history of PG movies created before the advent of the PG-13 rating.

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