IT: One Book Character The Movies Utterly Wasted
The 2017 IT movie included a memorable character from Stephen King’s book that didn’t make the 1990 miniseries, only to utterly waste them.
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The 2017 IT movie included a memorable character from Stephen King’s book that didn’t make the 1990 miniseries, only to utterly waste them. That’s sadly not too surprising, as even with nearly six hours of screentime to work with between the two theatrical IT films, the book is an absolute door-stopper at well over 1000 pages. It’s also packed full of characters and subplots that serve to flesh out the peculiar town of Derry, many that don’t (or barely) involve the Losers’ Club.
It’s understandable why most of these would be left out of the films, as while such diversions can be great additions to a novel, movies tend to be much more focused dramatically, and audiences tend to prefer that. It already feels a bit weird and tacked on when IT Chapter Two plays out the story of Adrian Mellon’s murder, as while it was a very powerful scene in the book, it kind of feels like a distraction from the main plot on film. It’s not necessarily poorly done, but if the Mellon scene was removed, it would barely have any effect on the rest of the movie’s story.
IT Chapter Two also excised the subplot where Bill’s wife Audra follows him to Derry, and when Beverly Marsh’s abusive husband Tom Rogan does the same. Still, when IT 2017 decided to include a character that the 1990 miniseries had skipped over, many fans of King’s book were interested to see how he would be used. The answer was, not much.
IT: One Book Character The Movies Utterly Wasted
Patrick Hockstetter, played by Owen Teague in IT 2017, was a character not included at all in the 1990 IT miniseries. Funnily enough though, the name actually appears in the credits by mistake, in place of Henry Bowers’ henchman Victor Criss. In the book, Patrick is a complete sociopath and psychopath, but while the same could arguably be said for Henry Bowers eventually, Patrick doesn’t need a push from Pennywise to go off the deep end. Patrick suffered from the delusion that he was the only “real” person on Earth, and that everyone else was merely fake, known as solipsism disorder.
Patrick became evil fast, murdering his own infant brother at the age of five. The baby’s cries kept him awake at night, and drew all his mother’s attention, so Patrick smothered him in his crib. He also killed flies and kept their bodies for fun, as well as murdering small animals and stuffing them in a fridge. Patrick in the book comes off much more dangerous than Henry, and were it not for IT killing him via monstrous flying leeches, it’s easy to imagine him becoming a much bigger threat.
That’s what makes it so disappointing how he was used in the IT films. A truly terrifying villain is turned into a mere lackey for Henry, and also dies very early. His only real evidence of psychosis also seems to be his penchant for lighting people and things on fire. Then he gets slotted into the role of corpse that leads Henry out of Juniper Hills, formerly filled by Belch. While it’s doubtful any version of the films would’ve left room for delving into Patrick’s full backstory, he could at least have gotten a more unique death, and perhaps attempted to do something sadistic and sick to the Losers. As it stands, Patrick’s inclusion in IT 2017 is a total missed opportunity.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/it-movies-patrick-hockstetter-book-character-wasted/