Stephen King’s It is a behemoth of a novel and is far too large to squeeze into one film. To get around this little conundrum, the filmmakers of the 2017 adaptation by splitting the novel into two films, It: Chapter One and It: Chapter Two.
It was a smart move by the filmmakers. They get two bites of the box office cherry while also avoiding the pressure of figuring out what material to cut out and what to leave in.
This allowed the filmmakers to adapt basically everything from the novel across the two films. Having said that, they did cut one notable sequence and it was for the best because it’s something that would’ve traumatised you.
The novel is split into two time periods, one when the characters are kids and one when they’re adults. The kid timeline is depicted in It: Chapter One and ends with the Losers’ Club defeating Pennywise in the sewers of Derry before managing to escape and swearing a blood oath to come back to the town should the clown ever return.
In the novel, this segment unfolds a bit differently. The Losers’ Club defeat Pennywise but get lost in the sewers, which causes the group to fracture under the stress. Beverly, the only female member, comes up with a solution to restore unity to the group: have sex with each of the boys.
Yeah.
King doesn’t skimp out on the details either as he gets nice and deep into this cooked, underaged orgy: “Mike comes to her, then Richie, and the act is repeated. Now she feels some pleasure, dim heat in her childish unmatured sex, and she closes her eyes as Stan comes to her and she thinks of the birds.“
Beverly’s ridiculous plan ultimately works as when the orgy is over, one of the boys remembers where they had made a wrong turn in the sewers and they manage to escape.
As for why King included the orgy scene in It, he said it had nothing to do with sex and was more about the connection between childhood and adulthood.
“Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood. It’s another version of the glass tunnel that connects the children’s library and the adult library. Times have changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues.”
It’s perhaps no surprise the filmmakers for It: Chapter One decided to cut this scene. There’s enough scary stuff going on in the film already and making everyone sick with an orgy featuring children might’ve just been a step too far.
But hey, we all learned something here: Next time you get lost in the sewers somewhere with your friends, get your orgy on because apparently what you need to remember where you need to go.