In both the book and the films, It is an ancient alien creature, older than civilization, and in King's novel, older than our universe. It feasts on the flesh of humans simply because our fears are easy to manifest and they make us taste better.
He scares them and then kills them. This process seems to capture them in some fashion, presumably in his deadlights, which are closer to his true form. It seems like he doesn't enjoy killing those who aren't afraid of him, or perhaps he only has power over those who are afraid of him.
Though there are some IT characters just as scary as Pennywise, the film's main villain proves to be its deadliest, with a kill count that actually reaches into the tens of thousands. Reddit user u/angelholme estimates that Pennywise actually took the lives of between 12,117 and 18,011 people.
Their fears are often simpler, more direct, and easier for Pennywise to exploit. The main reason Pennywise targets children instead of adults is their fears are easier to exploit and their belief in the supernatural is stronger and easier convinced .
As the other posters mentioned, IT does seem to thrive in an environment of fear and bad feelings, so it is possible that IT was toying with them like a cat would with a mouse to elicit these feelings, figuring it could finish them off later. Killing them right away would ruin the narrative and there would be no book.
While it's unclear if it was ever shot, a deleted scene from the IT 2017 script saw Pennywise actually eat a baby in front of its mother. There are lots of disturbing scenes in Stephen King's original IT novel. Anyone who's read that gargantuan tome can readily attest to that fact.
Stephen King's IT introduced readers to a one-of-a-kind creature that can take any form, the most common one being Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and as menacing as it is, this creature has one big enemy it's truly scared of: Maturin, the turtle.
They reach the conclusion that Pennywise has all of the adults under some sort of spell that prohibits them from seeing him. The adults of Derry are shown to be villainous in their own right as well. The adults of Derry are shown to be true villains of the story in the same way as Pennywise.
Pennywise had targeted Georgie when the boy was too young to know any better or fight back. In the clown's most contemptible murders, Pennywise did not rely on visions or fears to lure Georgie in; instead, Pennywise exploited Georgie's trust and turned it into a fatal weakness.
Throughout Stephen King's It, Pennywise is referred to as a male, but author Stephen King pulled a fast one on readers in the It book ending by revealing the creature's true form was a pregnant spider, implying that it is, in fact, biologically female.
The Child's Play franchise is known for its brutal, high kill counts. Racking up the kills together from all seven movies, Chucky has killed a total of 67 people.
While playing Pennywise in IT and IT Chapter Two, Bill Skarsgard wears a set of prosthetic teeth, for times when the dancing clown really needs to show off his razor-sharp chompers. The problem is, these teeth caused Skarsgard to drool, and not just a little. The teeth caused full-on torrents of slobber from the actor.
Pennywise was always evil - or, more accurately, he never really existed. He was just a creation of IT to lure in children so they could be terrified and then eaten. Or so that IT could create chaos, incite riots and spread fear.
Twenty-seven years after their first showdown with the murderous clown, the now-grown members of the Losers' Club converged on Derry to defeat Pennywise forever. In their final battle, the Losers' Club was able to kill Pennywise by reducing him to a child-like form as they overcame their fears.
But, the film makes clear, It (sometimes written as “IT”) isn't just a clown. Oh no. As detailed in King's novel, he's an ancient, cosmic being, described in the novel as an “Eater of Worlds”, who is able to adopt a variety of nasty guises.
Answer and Explanation: No, Stephen King's It is not based on a true story. King had the idea for It when looking at an old wooden walking bridge in 1978 near his home in Boulder, Colorado.
Pennywise offers Georgie his boat back, but when Georgie attempts to reach out to it, Pennywise grabs Georgie's arm and bites it off, leaving Georgie to bleed to death in the rain.
A neighbor witnesses his disappearance, but the fact his body is never found gives Bill hope Georgie somehow survived. Pennywise prays on this in the film, using that hope to lure Bill in the finale. Bill later finds the tatters of Georgie's coat and finally accepts his brother is gone.
“It” didn't bite off Georgie's arm, It tore the arm off at the shoulder trying to yank him in to the sewer though the small opening. Pennywise wanted to get all of Georgie since he had him by the hand as he'd reached for a balloon, but couldn't quite get him through the sewer grate, and ended up ripping the arm away.
IT arrived on Earth through an event similar to an asteroid impact, landing in what would later become Derry, Maine. Once there, IT adopted its usual pattern of hibernation that lasted between 27 and 30 years, awakening to kill and eat and then going back to sleep.
IT is a shape-shifting creature known as a Glamour who is billions of years old. Although it lived on planet Earth for many years, Pennywise originated in a void/dimension outside the regions of space known as the Macroverse.
It describes that it prefers to kill and devour children, not by nature, rather because children's fears are easier to interpret in a physical form and thus children are easier to fill with terror, which It says is akin to marinating the meat.
In the novel, It's origins are nebulous. He took the form of a clown most frequently, Mr. Bob Gray or Pennywise, but his true form is an ancient eldritch entity from another universe who landed in the town that would become Derry by way of an asteroid and first awoke in 1715.
It's possible that there really was a human version of Pennywise the Dancing Clown who lived in Derry and became possessed by the other-worldly entity, carrying out violence in the same way that Henry Bowers did.
Throughout the book, It is generally referred to as male, usually appearing as Pennywise. The Losers come to believe It may be female after seeing it in the form of a monstrous giant spider that lays eggs.
