IT: Welcome to Derry showed the incredible lengths Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) would go to instill fear in its victims by taking on these horrifying forms. The titular ancient evil from the HBO Max prequel series is best known for its shapeshifting abilities as it embodies the greatest fear of its victims. While Pennywise the Dancing Clown is the entity's usual (and favorite) form, this ancient evil uses fear as its fuel and as a means of terrifying its victims before fully consuming them.
Andy Muschietti's IT and IT: Chapter Two showcased a plethora of Pennywise's horrifying forms, including those of a Leper, a Mummy, a scary painting, and even the towering Paul Bunyan statue in Derry, Maine. Pennywise's shapeshifting tactic continued in IT: Welcome to Derry, and the ancient evil took it to a whole new level.
Every Form Pennywise Takes in 'Welcome to Derry' (So Far)
Monster Baby Demon
As part of Pennywise's cruelest trick against Matty Clements in IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 1, the ancient evil unleashed one of its terrifying forms: a monster baby demon.
This eyeless (and bloated) infant has an absorbed twin on its right side and wings to torment its victim, which is, in this case, Matty. The monster baby demon attacked Matty while inside the car he hitchhiked into, seemingly killing him to begin Pennywise's 1962 cycle in the prequel series.
Dead Matty Clements
After killing Matty Clements in the opening sequence of the HBO Max prequel, Pennywise used the kid as one of his forms to wreak havoc and mock his friends (Lilly Bainbridge and the others) over his disappearance.
During Lilly, Ronnie, Phil, Teddy, and Susie's investigation into Matty's sudden disappearing act, Pennywise used a key scene from Music Man, which highlighted Robert Preston's Harold Hill trying to convince citizens that moral decay is creeping into the town (a fitting metaphor for what the ancient evil is doing to Derry), to incorporate and take the form of Matty Clements and unleash a much larger monster baby to kill the kids (except for Lilly and Ronnie) inside Capitol Theater.
Episode 1's traumatic and devastating ending sets the stage for Pennywise's more violent nature in the prequel.
Fake Family Who Took Matty
Aside from taking the form of the monster baby demon, Pennywise also used its ancient power to utilize an entire fake family to trick Matty Clements into achieving his goal of trying to escape Derry.
What started as a kid-friendly family later turned out to be a nightmare because of Pennywise's grand scheme of "playing" with its food by tricking Matty before consuming him.
The Pickle-Jar Dad Monster
Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack) is one of the main kid protagonists in IT: Welcome to Derry, and she has a tragic backstory due to her father's unexpected death. As expected, Pennywise used the death of Lilly's father as one of its ways to torment her, utilizing the guilt that she felt as its own weapon to weaken her and turn some of the townsfolk against her.
Episode 2 showed the full might of Pennywise's torment of Lilly by using a pickle jar monster as one of its forms. Pennywise tormented Lilly's mind with pickles because her father had worked in a pickle factory before his death.
While the killer clown didn't murder Lilly, Pennywise's scare of using the monstrous pickle jar form was more than enough to send her back to Juniper Hill Asylum, a place where IT thrives due to the animosity of the inmates.
Ronnie's Dead Mom
Ronnie, another one of the main kid protagonists in IT: Welcome to Derry, who survived Pennywise's attack in Episode 1's ending, also had an emotional baggage of her own. Ronnie had overwhelming guilt over her mother's death because she blamed herself when she died during childbirth.
Pennywise used Ronnie's guilt as a weapon by taking the form of her mother to amplify the negative aura she already felt. The ancient evil essentially utilized Ronnie's trauma to feed on her fear by reenacting the birthing sequence that became the cause of her mother's demise.
Skeleton Man
IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 3's opening sequence featured a closer look at the younger version of Frank Shaw (James Renar) and his first encounter with Pennywise during one of its cycles before 1962. Pennywise took the form of a tall and naked old man (known as Skeleton Man) to chase Shaw in the woods before being saved by a Derry native named Rose.
This naked old man is an eerie callback to Mrs. Kersh in IT: Chapter Two after she transformed into a horrifying old lady to torment Beverly Marsh.
Ghosts of Lilly's Friends
Pennywise continued to torment Lilly, Ronnie, and their new members, Rich and Will Hanlon (a character related to one of the original Losers' Club in the IT movies), by taking the form of the ghosts of their dead friends (Susie, Matty, Phil, and Teddy) after they initially believed that they were being haunted by the supernatural.
Zombiefied Uncle Sam
The red band trailer of IT: Welcome to Derry confirmed that an eventual clash between Pennywise and the military will happen at some point in the series.
Pennywise didn't use his usual killer clown form. Instead, the ancient evil took the form of a zombified Uncle Sam, which was quite fitting because of its deeper meaning. For context, Uncle Sam is a common national personification of the United States, and an image of him is most often used in recruitment for the army.
As a rotting, patriotic ghoul, Pennywise is mocking the military because they would obviously fail in their efforts.
