Watch the terrifying trailer for Stephen King’s It

Those with coulrophobia look away now, because Pennywise – the scariest clown in pop culture – is back. The first teaser trailer for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel It is in, and it’s pleasingly creepy.

A generation of kids have already been scared by Pennywise the Clown, an eternal monster that lives under the fictional town of Derry, Maine and feeds on its children every 27 years. King’s 1986 book was adapted into a two-part mini-series in 1990, with Tim Curry making for a chilling version of the creature.

Bill Skarsgård – son of Stellan, little brother of Alexander – will don the white face paint and orange wig this time round as ‘It’, and keeps the clown’s ominous catchphrase: “You’ll float, too”. The Losers’ Club, the group of kids who join forces to take on the killer clown, meanwhile, includes Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard and Midnight Special’s Jaeden Lieberher in their number.

Lieberher plays Bill Denbrough, the Losers’ Club ostensible leader, and the clip opens with Pennywise confronting Bill’s little brother, George, from the gloom of a storm drain after the boy's paper boat floats into it with the rain water. Scary red balloons, CGI corpses of drowned children and blood-filled plumbing also feature in the trailer.

Beasts of No Nation director Cary Fukunaga was initially down to direct, but when he pulled out Argentine film director Andrés Muschietti, who made 2013 shocker Mama, took the reins, and these first snippets suggest he might have been the right choice.

Take a look at the teaser in the player above; the film's poster is below.