However, bringing the action to the 1980s would’ve required Andy Muschietti to use iconic slasher monsters like A Nightmare On Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger, Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees, or Halloween’s Michael Myers, which would’ve ultimately felt a bit too on the nose.
Stephen King used his set of monsters well in the 1950s world that he initially created, but an IT story in the 1980s required something else.
In the book, Pennywise takes the form of creatures like The Mummy, Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon to get under their skin.
Bringing someone like Freddy Krueger into the equation technically would’ve been more accurate to the spirit of the source material in the sense that The Losers Club is haunted by classic Universal movie monsters in the original novel.