It Chapter 1 & 2: Every Monster Explained & Ranked

2. Mrs Kersch

Everyone loves a creepy old lady. The character type has basically become one of modern horror's favourite tropes - pretty much ever since The Shining set the bar.

The impact is why we keep going back (because fragility in age reminds us of the terrifying reality of our own mortality, if you want to go into the psychology of it), and also why Mrs Kersch is so effective in It Chapter Two.

She appears in the sequence showing the Losers returning to their "lost day" to retrieve artefacts to use in the Ritual of CHUD and terrorises Beverly in a scene that was so good they couldn't help but spoil it in the trailers. Her weird, inhuman movements are gloriously unsettling and though she loses something when she's transformed into her full cartoonish evolution, the way she set sup Bev and the audience is just wonderful.

It's also nice seeing It play with the fake origin of Pennywise to set up something of a red herring because it adds to the immediate horror of the situation.