I, like thousands of other people, went to go see "It" last week. The newest adaption of the Stephen King classic novel, in simple terms, did not disappoint.

Though packed with a fair amount of jump scares, "It" does not rely solely on cheap tactics to scare its audience. From the very beginning, it's subtle horror is what drives the viewer to nail-biting fear. In recent years the horror genre has resorted to simple plot-lines and overused cliches to sell, but "It" does more. A lot of that can be attributed to Stephen King's masterful novel. See, the beauty of the story is that "It" subtly preys on its viewer's worst fears. The scariness lies in the fact that there are children on the screen and we grow to love them. We root for these kids and we see them form bonds with each other and come of age together. In a way, we can all relate to that. Whenever there are young people onscreen an audience will see their own youth projected in them. That coupled with the natural instinct all humans have to protect its youngest is what makes "It"'s lack of hesitation to hurt the kids terrifying. The story is not afraid to violently torture and kill children.The shock is enough to jar the audience into expecting the absolute unexpected, setting the rest of the scares to be that much more horrifying. When we see the Losers Club suffer we see a part of ourselves. We adopt their trauma and develop the same fear of Pennywise.

Which leads us to the obvious thing to fear, clowns. Another reason "It" works so well is because it plays off the juxtaposition of a cheery, supposedly child-friendly subject being driven by an evil murderous entity, the deadlights. But okay lets face it, clowns are terrifying in and of themselves. But what makes them terrifying isn't actually Stephen King's cultural contribution.In fact, according to assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School Steve Scholzman, M.D., in an interview for PEOPLE magazine, people's fear of clowns can be boiled down to a basic instinct- pattern recognition. It is the same reason ghosts and vampires are so terrifying. These creatures are odd-looking and have creepy, malicious tendencies. But they are just humanoid enough to blend in. Something about their similarity in features to our own is unsettling. It's almost as if we see ourselves as the monster. "It" only reinforces the fear.

"It" works because it scares the audience of itself. It is equally an outstanding reboot and a game-changer for horror. Because while it does contain the elements of modern horror that we have come to grow familiar with; jump scares, gore, etc; it revamps them under the scope of the psychological thriller. "It" ties together the best parts of scary movies and boy, is it scary.