15 Stephen King stories ranked from heartwarming to horrifying

15. It

To tell the truth, I’m a little annoyed by the “scary clown” aesthetic at this point. Between a bunch of weirdos menacing drivers on country roads and every other friend whining about how they don’t like the circus anymore, I’m over it. Don’t call me a clown apologist, but surely they aren’t all bad.

Except for Pennywise. At the time that It was published in 1986, the idea of clown as monster was still relatively fresh. And King himself, being a master of horror fiction and all, took the concept to new, terrifying heights.

It is another one of those monster King tomes, clocking in at 1,138 pages. It’s a sprawling epic focusing largely on the lives of the members of “The Losers’ Club,” seven young outcasts living in Derry, Maine. Life is bad enough for these kids, who are at turns abused, bullied, and ignored by the kids and adults around them. Things become much, much worse, however, with the arrival of Pennywise.

To be fair, “Pennywise” is only one facet of It, which is itself an ancient and unknowable evil that has decided to situate itself around Derry. Every three decades, It awakens from its slumber and goes on a kind of feeding spree. Fear apparently makes people extra tasty, and so It uses its shapeshifting powers to inspire terror in victims shortly before they are consumed.

The Losers’ Club defeats It during the 1950s, but only temporarily; they are obliged to return to Derry in the 1980s in order to deal the coup de gras to their shapeshifting, mind-bending, cosmically evil enemy.

Next: 20 scariest female horror villains

Though Pennywise and other versions of It are plenty terrifying, what’s worse is the everyday evil of the humans involved. Children deal evil to other children, and adults, at best, do not see the pain of their own offspring. Combined with the far-reaching horror of Pennywise, this commonplace cruelty and indifference is enough to make It one of King’s most chilling works.