The death of Eddie Kaspbrak in the IT novel and miniseries is a heartbreaking moment - here’s how his demise compares in both versions. Even by Stephen King standards, IT makes for a hefty read at over 1,100 pages. This results in one of his richest, and scariest, books, that tells the epic story of seven friends who team together one summer to stop the monster preying on their town. When it re-emerges decades later, they reunite again to stop it for good.

While IT’s monster can take any form it wants, it most commonly takes the guise of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Given the epic length of the book, it was decided an adaptation would be best served as a miniseries instead of a movie. George A. Romero (Night Of The Living Dead) was the original director and planned to make a faithful, ten-part series for ABC. Once Romero departed the project, the network decided to shrink IT down to a two-parter instead with Tommy Lee Wallace (Halloween III: Season Of The Witch) taking over as director. The miniseries is considered something of a classic, with Tim Curry’s Pennywise haunting an entire generation of horror fans.

Naturally, the IT miniseries had to drop a lot of material from King’s novel, but it still did an admirable job staying true to the source material. The series especially did a great job bringing the friendship of The Losers’ Club to life, in both the childhood and grown-up segments. Sadly, not all of the heroes make to the end of the story, with Eddie sacrificing himself to save his friends during the final confrontation with Pennywise.

Eddie is seen as one of the meekest of the group due to his overbearing mother, and later marrying a woman with many of the same traits. In the IT novel, he overcomes his fear to save Richie and Bill, jamming his arm into the beast’s mouth and spraying its throat with his aspirator. The creature then bites Eddie’s arm off and he quickly bleeds to the death, but surrounded by his friends. This pushes the survivors on to kill Pennywise.

The IT miniseries takes a less gory approach to Eddie’s death, however. In the series, the rest of The Losers become entranced by Pennywise’s deadlights after he takes the form of a giant spider. Eddie covers his eyes and presses ahead to spray it with his aspirator, which succeeded in wounding the clown when he was young. The spider grabs Eddie and starts to crush him to death, giving Beverly enough time to use her slingshot to hit the spider in the deadlights and cause it to drop Eddie. Like the novel, he soon dies of his wounds, spurring the others to finish Pennywise for good.

Given how popular the IT novel and miniseries are its unknown if the upcoming IT: Chapter Two - where Eddie will be played by James Ransone - will stay true to Eddie’s demise or choose to subvert expectations. Either way, The Losers’ Club will be in for a stressful time.

Next: Every Stephen King Movie Ranked, From Worst To Best

  • IT Chapter Two Release Date: 2019-09-06