Stephen King's IT: Everyone Who Died In Chapter 1 & 2

As one might imagine, the two movies based on Stephen King’s IT are full of blood and death, and there are a lot of characters who die in It. While it’s a decidedly morbid thought, death is the one thing that truly unites all people. Everyone dies eventually, but if one is lucky, that day comes at a very old age and with loved ones at their bedside. In the world of Stephen King, death often comes at the hands of a vampire, a demon, or a shape-shifting monster that takes the form of a clown named Pennywise.

Of all the fictional locales featured in King’s novels and short stories, Derry, Maine, is near the top of the list of places no one should ever want to visit. Anyone who crosses its borders is a potential Pennywise casualty. While the clown usually targets kids, he doesn’t always, as seen with Adrian Mellon. ITs malevolent influence over Derry is also strong enough to sometimes ruin or end lives simply by proxy.

It: Chapter 1

Georgie Denborough (Jackson Robert Scott)

Georgie Denborough, the little brother of Losers’ Club leader Bill Denborough, is easily IT‘s most famous murder in both the novel and its adaptations. Georgie is such an innocent little boy, and he doesn’t deserve the horrible fate of getting his arm torn off and eaten – the latter thankfully offscreen – by Derry’s resident monster.

In the movie, Georgie wants his big brother Bill to come out and play with him in the rain. He had made a small paper boat and wanted to see it float down the street in the standing water. However, Bill refuses to go out to play with his brother, and he sends Georgie out alone, where he finds Pennywise waiting for him. Seeing Pennywise’s giant teeth coming to kill the young boy was enough to really set this movie off in a disturbing direction, and it showed no one was safe.

Georgie’s death ended up being a signature scene for both Tim Curry in the 1990 miniseries and Bill Skarsgard in the movies, allowing the versatile actors to show off their take on Pennywise. Georgie’s death was pretty much the same in every version of the story, including King’s novel, the 1990 miniseries, and this first It movie. It also remains the most disturbing.

Betty Ripsom (Katie Lunman)

While Betty Ripsom’s death at IT’s hands isn’t seen onscreen, it’s made abundantly clear that she died, with the Losers first finding her shoe in the sewer and Pennywise using her form to terrify them later. From the looks of it, IT ripped poor Betty in half before eating her, which is indeed something Pennywise would do. Thankfully, her death is effectively avenged when the Losers’ Club finally kills IT for good, but if King’s other books are any indication, IT isn’t as dead as they hoped.

Oddly, Lunman actually appears as a different background character in IT Chapter Two, which some fans have noticed and been puzzled by. She is a character used mostly to show the rash of missing children in Derry, and she is never used as a character when she was living, in the books or the movies. However, her dad does hear her voice in the kitchen drains.

Patrick Hockstetter (Owen Teague)

While Georgie Denborough and Betty Ripsom were innocent IT victims, Patrick Hockstetter was the complete opposite. He was a sadistic pyromaniac eager to kill the Losers alongside the equally psychopathic Henry Bowers. When Patrick gets eaten by IT after the creature appears as a group of rotting zombies in the sewer, it’s just one source of evil getting snuffed out by an even bigger bad.

When he was only five, Patrick murders his baby brother Avery and is generally more dangerous than Henry himself.

Patrick is actually much worse in King’s book. When he was only five, Patrick murders his baby brother Avery and is generally more dangerous than Henry himself. His story in the book is that he feels he is the only real person and everything around him is “fake,” which makes hurting others have no meaning to him. Unfortunately, he is mostly wasted in the movies, getting killed off before really doing much damage.

In the book, he died while clearing out a refrigerator that he kept dead animals in (after Henry threatened to tell people about the hiding spot), and Pennywise leaped out of the fridge and killed Patrick. In the miniseries, his death is not shown.

Oscar “Butch” Bowers (Stuart Hughes)

There’s certainly no excuse for the heinous acts that merciless bully Henry Bowers commits in IT and IT Chapter Two – and like Patrick, he’s much worse in the book – but after meeting his father, Oscar “Butch” Bowers, one can’t help but understand his psychology just a tad bit more. Butch is a physically and emotionally abusive dad and also a cop, meaning Henry never really knows when he might be lurking around Derry, ready to witness anything untoward Henry does.

It’s arguable he didn’t deserve to be stabbed through the neck by his son at Pennywise’s urging, but at the same time, no one watching would ever be inclined to feel sorry for a man that despicable. In the book, he’s also a quite violent racist, a trait Henry shares. Butch never appears in the miniseries. Butch’s death in the book and the movie are played out the same way, with Henry killing his violent father with a knife while he sleeps.

Reginald “Belch” Huggins (Jake Sim)

When one is named Reginald and fancies themselves a bully and not the one being bullied, it makes perfect sense that Mr. Huggins decided to go by the “Belch” nickname. Belch, while certainly culpable for his own actions, generally follows Henry’s lead. He doesn’t get much to do in the 2017 IT movie and actually gets killed off in a deleted scene.

Considering that Belch never appears again in either movie, it seems clear that his death at Henry’s hands is intended to be canon.

In the normal cut, he just kind of vanishes from the movie, but in the deleted scene, he’s shown having been killed by Henry around the time he killed his dad under IT’s influence. Considering that Belch never appears again in either movie, it seems clear that his death at Henry’s hands is intended to be canon. In the book, Pennywise takes the form of Frankenstein’s monster when he tries to protect Henry, but the monster peels off the left side of his face down to the skull, leaving him dead.

Victor “Vic” Criss (Logan Thompson)

Victor “Vic” Criss, the other main member of Henry Bowers’ gang of bullies, also doesn’t get much to do in IT 2017, and ends up dying in the same way as Belch. That same deleted scene described above also sees Henry, with the knife gifted to him by IT, slaughtering Victor in a rather gory fashion. It’s a bit baffling as to why this short scene was cut, outside just wanting to chop the film’s length down a small amount.

Henry killing his abusive father is one thing, but murdering his friends is a different story and really sells just how IT’s influence has corrupted him. The scene makes Henry seem much more dangerous overall and should have been retained in the final cut. However, in the book, Vic dies differently. Henry doesn’t kill his friend in the book, but he does lead Vic to his death in the sewers. It is there that Pennywise shows up as the Frankenstein monster and decapitates the teen.

It: Chapter 2

Adrian Mellon (Xavier Dolan)

While the 1990 IT miniseries didn’t touch it, IT Chapter Two opted to adapt one of the most harrowing sequences in the book, involving the homophobic hate crime perpetrated against Adrian Mellon and – to a lesser extent – his partner Don Hagarty. A gang of thugs first beats the two, and then Adrian is tossed off a bridge. After he lands in the water and washes ashore, Pennywise eats him.

It’s a very hard scene to watch, but many would argue the brutality involved was necessary to truly convey the horror of what happened.

It’s made much clearer in the book, but the attack on Adrian is spurred on by IT’s malevolent influence over Derry, which amplifies the worst qualities in many of the town’s residents. It’s a very hard scene to watch, but many would argue the brutality involved was necessary to truly convey the horror of what happened. This remains one of the most infamous moments in the two movies and shows the horrors that minorities, and especially the LGBTQ+ community, face in these small-town environments.

Stan Uris (Wyatt Oleff & Andy Bean)

The first member of the Losers’ Club to meet their demise, Stan is driven to suicide by his memories of facing off with Pennywise as a child. At least, that’s how it’s explained in the book. IT Chapter Two makes the regrettable choice to have Stan make the deliberate, thought-out, in-advance decision to die by suicide, feeling that he would be a burden during the adult Losers’ battle with IT.

It’s a plot turn that’s been criticized by many people, and deservedly so, as making suicide the responsible choice in Stan’s mind, instead of just having fear drive him over the edge, completely changes the dynamic of his character and, by extension, all the adult Losers concerning him. The Losers had made a blood oath to return to fight Pennywise, and when Stan realized he couldn’t do it, he chose death, and all that the movie showed was his note that explained his fear as the reason.

Victoria “Vicky” Fuller (Ryan Kiera Armstrong)

The saddest death in IT Chapter Two belongs to a little girl named Victoria “Vicky” Fuller. She is watching a local baseball game with her mother before being lured away by Pennywise’s voice. At first, she has the logical reaction of being scared by Pennywise, until the monster clown pulls on her heartstrings by saying he has no friends due to how he looks, which resonates with Vicky, as she has a large birthmark on her face.

This scene is another that is hard to watch and terrifying since this little girl is a pure, innocent victim, much like Georgie in the first movie.

While it’s an oddly touching scene due to her compassion, Pennywise ends it by doing what he does and eating the child. This scene is another that is hard to watch and terrifying since this little girl is a pure, innocent victim, much like Georgie in the first movie. She is also a completely original character and was added to the movie to create another innocent child’s death, while she does not appear in the Stephen King novel at all.

John Koontz (John Connon)

In all versions of IT, after Henry Bowers gets falsely blamed for all of IT’s child murders, and he’s sent to spend the rest of his life at the Juniper Hill mental asylum. That is until IT shows up to help him escape, planning to use Henry as an additional line of defense against the returning Losers’ Club. In IT Chapter Two, IT uses the form of Patrick Hockstetter’s corpse to get Henry’s attention, while in the miniseries, it’s Belch, and in the book, it’s Victor.

On the way out, Henry murders an asylum guard named John Koontz, who the book establishes as an abusive monster. He slices his throat, but IT turns into a giant Doberman dog in the book to capitalize on Koontz’s fear of dogs. In a nice touch, this Koontz is seen watching a dog video shortly before his death, a small Easter egg to people who remember the scene from the King novel.

Dean The Skateboard Kid (Luke Roessler)

In an IT Chapter Two scene mostly taken from the book, Bill runs into Dean, a boy riding a skateboard through Derry, and learns that Dean has been hearing voices from the sewer. While Dean’s equivalent survives Stephen King’s novel, he most definitely doesn’t survive the movie, trapped inside a funhouse hall of mirrors with Pennywise, who makes a meal out of him in a bloody, upsetting fashion.

To make matters worse, Bill, who had been trying to save Dean, was forced to watch the kid die after being scared by Pennywise. Dean’s death serves as the catalyst for the Losers’ Club to take the fight back to IT as a united front. In the book, Dean has no name, but he is a 10-year-old boy, and he survives to the end and actually is there with Bill when they decide that the evil haunting Derry has ended. He never appears in the miniseries and, in the movie, is just another innocent victim.

Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton & Teach Grant)

Henry Bowers remains the main human antagonist of IT, just as he was in the book and 1990 miniseries. However, his racism from those two is played down considerably in the movies (his father was a massive racist, and it bled onto Henry). Just as before, Henry escapes Juniper Hill with the help of IT, then heads back to Derry to kill the Losers. In IT Chapter Two, he slashes up Eddie’s face, then later almost kills Mike before Richie impales him in the back of the head with an axe.

While seeing Henry die is no cause for tears, it’s worth remembering that the primary reason he ended up so wild and violent is the harsh “discipline” dished out toward him by his father, Butch, and later the corrupting influence of Pennywise. It is also interesting to note that Henry was one of the primary antagonists in the book and miniseries. In the movie, he is mostly only used minimally, as it keeps more of a focus on Pennywise and mostly shortchanged.

In the Stephen King novel, Richie doesn’t kill Henry, but Eddie does instead. Also, the weapon Eddie uses isn’t an axe. In the book, Eddie uses a broken bottle to stab and kill Henry to save Mike from the attacking killer. In the miniseries, Henry is attacking the Losers and accidentally stabs himself in the chest and dies.

Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer & James Ransone)

The second and final member of the Losers’ Club to die, Eddie Kaspbrak may have long since realized his asthma medicine was nothing more than a “gazebo,” but that doesn’t save him from IT’s wrath. The friendship between Richie and Eddie is made particularly memorable in IT Chapter Two, especially after the ending reveals that Richie had hidden romantic feelings toward his friend.

That makes it all the sadder when Pennywise’s spider hybrid form stabs through Eddie’s chest with its long, sharp legs. Eddie gets a good line on the way out, and his dying is true to the book, but some fans wish director Andy Muschietti had opted to let Eddie live, even if it deviated from the text. While the death is sad and tragic in the movie, at least Eddie was able to help his friends destroy Pennywise before he succumbed to his injuries and died, giving him mostly a hero’s death.

Pennywise/IT (Bill Skarsgard)

The deaths in IT and IT Chapter Two wouldn’t be complete without the demise of the titular villain, who spends most of his time in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Granted, how the Losers’ Club kills him in this version is strange, as they talk IT to death. This is an odd way to defeat an ancient inter-dimensional monster who can manipulate reality at will and take any form it desires. However, the entire explanation is they had to eliminate their fear, and they mock IT until it loses all its power and withers into nothingness.

In the book, It takes the form of a giant spider when it attacks the Losers Club, which is one of the more derided parts of the book. In that tale, the Losers Club uses the Ritual of Chüd to weaken Pennywise. After this, the monster kills Eddie and races into hiding while the Losers Club destroys all the creature’s eggs. Finally, Bill cuts into IT’s body and destroys his heart, similar to the movie, but without the “losing fear” moment. In the miniseries, the end comes in a major fight where they beat IT to submission to get to its heart.