According the the Wiki set up to explain It and his powers, the red balloon is an illusion — one of many — that can be created to lure It's victims to their deaths.
"It" is adapted from a 1986 novel by Steven King that portrays a sewer-dwelling killer clown named Pennywise who stalks children and lures them with eerie red balloons. The novel was later created into a miniseries with the same name in 1990.
The red balloon is a symbol of Pennywise, who, based off King's 1986 novel, uses the balloons to lure in victims. King's Pennywise-inspired decor has certainly added an eerie feel around his neighborhood, as many prepare for the movie's release on September 8.
One of the most defining characteristics of Pennywise is that he carries a bunch of balloons (of various colors in the novel, red in the adaptations), which according to a fan theory are more than just an illusion to catch his victims.
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.
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.
A common interpretation of this phrase is that it refers to where the souls of IT's victims go after they die, as they wouldn't go to heaven nor hell, staying instead in the “deadlights”, which would be a sort of limbo, thus “floating” in that middle point for eternity.
IT, then, doesn't exactly live in the sewers but close to them, and Derry's sewer system came in handy to it as it allowed it to move freely all over town and terrorize its victims through it, as it did with Georgie and in some of the adaptations' most famous scenes, such as the shower scene in the miniseries and ...
Chuckles the Clown is a minor character in the 2010 Disney/Pixar animated film Toy Story 3. He is a stuffed clown toy voiced by the late Bud Luckey who also voiced Rick Dicker in The Incredibles.
While the story behind how Sienna's father came to possess the sword is unclear, it suggests either that he was trying to prepare himself for a fight with Art the Clown, or that Sienna's link with her father and Art resulted in this resurrection — which supports the theory that Art the Clown is Sienna's father.
It's then left to Eddie to attempt to save his friends, which he does by spraying Pennywise with his trusty inhaler - it works as a distraction, but IT bites Eddie's arm off and he bleeds out and dies.
The theory details that Pennywise - or, more technically, IT - is actually the Crimson King. According to the theory, they are not merely relatives or of the same species, they are one and the same character, with Pennywise being a physical manifestation of the Crimson King.
The Deadlights are the true form of Pennywise/IT. The Deadlights are orange writhing lights that exist in Todash Darkness. Pennywise uses the Deadlights to break a person's mind because one look at the Deadlights will make a person go insane due to it not being able to be comprehended by a human mind.
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.
Kersh tells Beverly she's the daughter of a carnival worker who happens to look just like Pennywise. As explained in Stephen King's IT, this man is Bob Gray — and IT, that pesky inter-dimensional force of evil, stole his likeness. For 85-year-old Gregson, the character of Mrs. Kersh was initially even more mystifying.
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 feasts on the flesh of humans simply because our fears are easy to manifest and they make us taste better. According to It, when humans got scared, "all the chemicals of fear flooded the body and salted the meat".
Image via Warner Bros. Finally, Pennywise is beaten into submission. He scurries away, utters the word "fear," and partially disintegrates before falling into the void. It's a powerful defeat of a powerful monster, and it's satisfaction enough were IT to remain a single film.
I believe it was because Pennywise likes his victims afraid and fearful. And while Georgie was laughing he wasn't really afraid and Pennywise needed to make him feel suspicious and scared again so he could eat him.
If you want to get technical, It is an alien, but It's origin goes well beyond that. It is actually an ancient cosmic deity. A god of destruction, not just of our world, but of multiple worlds and even multiple universes.
What does Pennywise look like when he's not a clown?
In the 1990 mini-series, It's true form was a mottled brown alien with a fearsome face, not to mention two humanoid front arms complete with fingers and claws to grasp its enemies.
The deadlights in Stephen King's universe are very difficult to describe given their trans-dimensional nature, but the characters who have gotten a glimpse at them describe them as a mass of swirling, destructive orange lights.
