Trust Twitter to turn one of the scariest horror movie villains of all time into a dancing diva.
Pennywise the clown is the central villain of Stephen King’s horror novel It. Bill Skarsgard’s portrayal of the killer clown who feeds on children’s fears in Andres Muschietti’s film adaptation has earned the actor plaudits as much as the character has given audiences nightmares.
Twitter user @GamingSpeedy took a key scene towards the end of the film, in which Pennywise does a dance to scare a potential victim, and edited it to the dance-pop group Steps song 5,6,7,8. The result, shared from the newly created Twitter account @Pennywise_Dance, became viral within minutes.
Motivated, the user kept creating similar videos by editing the footage to a variety of pop songs, including Vengaboys’ Boom, Boom, Boom, Aqua’s Barbie Girl, Rednex’s Cotton Eye Joe and Pharell Williams’ Happy, among others.
When King tweeted that if there was one song he could hear for the rest of his life, that would be Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega, Pennywise didn’t waste any time.
This is not the first time Pennywise has got the meme treatment. Days after its release, the clown was paired as the gay partner of the monster Babadook from the 2014 Australian horror film of the same name. A screenshot was posted on the social networking website Tumblr, which showed The Babadook as listed under LGBT movies. “The B in LGBT stands for Babadook,” a user commented.
Overnight, the Babadook became an LGBT icon. Its status as a queer symbol got cemented during Pride Month in April in the United States of America, when the top hat wearing, teeth-baring ghoul began appearing at rallies across Boston and Washington.
A few days after the release of Muschietti’s It on September 8, Pennywise and Babadook were turned into a romantic pair by the folks on Twitter and Tumblr because, why not? “Pennywise and boyfriend, The Babadook are off on a date to get crepes and terrorize some kids,” wrote one user.