Jessica Chastain reflects on It Chapter 2's brutal hate crime

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Jessica Chastain thinks the brutal hate crime scene in 'It Chapter 2' is still too relevant.

The horror sequel opens with a scene from Stephen King's original 1986 novel which sees a gay couple attacked by a group of teenagers, which was inspired by the death of Charlie Howard in the writer's hometown two years before he released the book.

Chastain - who plays an adult Beverly Marsh in the movie - told Variety: "He wrote the novel 'It' because a hate crime was committed in his childhood town. That darkness, he wanted to explore and that's the first scene in our film... It's going to be hard to talk about this without crying.

"I think you need that scene because he writes about the darkness that's under the surface. The dirt under the fingernails of these small towns or of mankind. That's what 'It' represents. It's the darkness of human behavior.

"I think it was important to see Adrian's scene and not to change it from what it is in the novel because we're living in a time right now where it is very much a part of our culture and part of our conversation and we haven't moved past it. So, we can't pretend that it doesn't still exist because it's part of our every day."

The 42-year-old actress added that King's skills as a writer come from focusing on the horror "inside of us".

She explained: "The reason why I think Stephen King is the king of this genre is because he writes psychological horror. The monster usually is spawned from a human. It's inside of us. Look at 'Pet Sematary.' Look at 'Misery.' We can become our worst enemies sometimes."