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Every Stephen King Easter Egg You Missed In 'It Chapter Two'
Vote up the Stephen King references you missed in 'It Chapter Two.'
It Chapter Two director Andy Muschietti clearly knows his Stephen King: There are references to other King properties peppered throughout Muschietti's 2019 film. Some It Chapter Two Easter eggs are easy to spot; others, like the carpet pattern from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, are more obscure. And others still - like that turtle in that classroom when Ben goes back to his old school - might only catch the eye of the most devoted King fans.
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Dean's Skateboard Has A Familiar Pattern On It
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- Warner Bros.
One of the most visually striking elements of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is the carpet in the upstairs hallway of the Overlook Hotel - a pattern that has been referenced repeatedly in pop culture in the decades since. The David Hicks-designed pattern makes a subtle appearance in It Chapter Two: there's a faded version of it on the bottom of Dean's skateboard.
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Someone Doesn't Like Gretta Keene
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- Warner Bros.
When Beverly gets trapped in the bathroom stall, we see a bunch of graffiti covering the walls. One of the scribbles reads "Gretta Keene is a b*tch" - something Eddie Kaspbrak would probably agree with, since she's the one who wrote "Loser" on his cast.
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Young Ben From The 1990 Miniseries Makes A Cameo
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Actor Brandon Crane played the young version of Ben Hanscom in the 1990 It miniseries. In It Chapter Two, Crane makes a cameo as a client arguing with adult Ben Hanscom (played by Jay Ryan) about an architecture project.
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Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes
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- Warner Bros.
Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes makes an appearance in the 2019 adaptation. In both the book and film, it’s the store where Bill finds and re-buys his old bike, Silver. The store is featured in nearly every King story in which Derry pops up, including Insomnia and 11/22/63.
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There's A Turtle In The High School Classroom
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- IT Chapter One/Warner Bros.
In Stephen King's novel, a massive, immensely powerful turtle called Maturin gives the Losers advice that helps them defeat Pennywise. The creature doesn't show up in It or IT Chapter Two, but there are a few small references to it. In the first installment from 2017, there's a toy turtle in Georgie's bedroom. In Chapter Two, there's a turtle in one of the Derry High School classrooms that Ben visits while looking for his totem.
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The Neibolt Street House Collapses, 'Carrie'-Style
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At the end of It Chapter Two - spoiler alert - the surviving members of the Losers' Club, having defeated Pennywise, dart out of the rapidly self-destructing Neibolt house. Once they make their exit, it's not long before the house collapses entirely into the earth, as if into the depths of hell itself - in almost exactly the same manner as Carrie's similarly hellish home in the fiery climactic moments of Carrie, the capstone to her night of vengeful rage.
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Bill Writes Bad Endings
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A running joke throughout the film is that nobody enjoys the endings Bill writes - despite otherwise enjoying the novels as a whole. One of the biggest complaints many critics and fans have had with Stephen King's work over the years is that his endings often tend to fall flat, or go off the rails.
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Bev Gets Covered In Blood, Carrie-Style
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As the members of the Losers' Club get separated from one another during It Chapter Two's extended climax - each faced with shifting incarnations of their deepest fears - Bev (Jessica Chastain) winds up stuck in a bathroom and nearly drowned in an endless supply of blood. As she eventually emerges, she's dripping head to toe, her blood-soaked image instantly calling to mind Sissy Spacek's iconically vengeful Carrie White from the back half of Brian De Palma's adaptation of King's novel Carrie.
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Henry Bowers Says, 'Here’s Johnny!'
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Near the end of the film, when the Losers are facing off with Pennywise, Bev ends up stuck in a bathroom stall - which is rapidly filling up with blood - as multiple people from her past trying to force their way inside. One of them is Henry Bowers, and when he pushes open the door, he yells, "Here’s Johnny!" The line is taken straight from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining - Jack Torrance famously yells it at his wife, Wendy, as he peers in through the bathroom door he's just chopped a massive hole into. Director Andy Muschietti even frames Henry’s face similarly to the way Kubrick framed Jack Nicholson's face.
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Stephen King, Antiques Shop Proprietor
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It's been a while since Stephen King popped up in one of the adaptations of his books, but he memorably appears in It Chapter Two. While Bill wanders through Derry looking for his totem, he sees his old bike Silver in the window of a shop called Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes.
He goes inside to buy the bike and encounters a surly shop owner, played by King. King sells the bike to Bill at an inflated price - because, as he says, "You're a writer, you can afford it." King even lays on the Maine accent much more than any other character in the film.
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