10 Horror Movies Where The Monster Is Revealed Almost Immediately
5. It (2017)
We all know the scene: sweet little Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott), decked in wellies and a yellow raincoat, sails his paper boat in the gutters of Derry as the skies open upon him. He loses his boat down a storm drain, and there, waiting in the dark, is the monstrous, grinning, white-skinned clown Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård), promising cotton candy and popcorn if Georgie will only reach in to get his boat back...
The power of this opening from Andy Muschietti's It (adapted from Stephen King's mammoth tome) lies not only in the distinctiveness of the visuals, but also in the fact that the monster quite literally introduces himself before, you know, biting off a six-year-old's arm. And Muschietti holds nothing back - all the blood, all the terror, all the screaming and all the many sharp rows of teeth.
Far from diminishing Pennywise's presence through the film's first act, as he menaces Derry from the shadows, the first scene heightens it. We know for certain from the outset that there are no limits, no horrors to which the rest of the film isn't willing to extend.