‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Review: HBO’s Stephen King Prequel Doesn’t Top the Films’ Intense Scares
Over 10 years ago, I devoted the summer I turned 16 to reading Stephen King’s behemoth novel, IT. I had never cracked open a book that long or of that scope or scale before. Every night for three months, I would allow the King of Horror to enrapture me in the terrifying tale of a killer clown lurking underneath the seemingly quaint town of Derry, Maine. Those hazy summer evenings, around the same age as IT‘s characters who are riding bikes, making out, and battling monsters, King had me in the palm of his hand, my jaw consistently on the floor. As cheesy as it sounds, I felt changed for the better by reading it. After reading my first of his novels, I felt that I had shed some of the teenage innocence that I had been coasting on, because King made me more attuned to how cruel and disturbing, but also how awe-inspiring, the world can be.
2017 saw the release of the first theatrical feature adaptation of IT, following the ’90s miniseries with an iconic turn from Tim Curry as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. It became the highest-grossing horror film of all time (not adjusting for inflation), and was praised for its cast of child performers, commitment to atmosphere, jump scares, and blood — and of course, a maniacal, monstrous performance from Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Chapter 2 aced the casting again, and was an overall solid effort, even if it bastardized and simplified the ending (in fairness, how were they going to visualize the ritual of C.H.U.D.?).
Now, director Andy Muschietti has returned to Derry for a prequel series on HBO, IT: Welcome to Derry. Set 27 years before the main events of the novel and the first film, the show follows several different characters — adults and kids — who start to suspect something is very, very wrong with Derry after some unexplained disappearances. While I loved Muschietti’s film adaptations, particularly the first one, the serialized and sanitized prequel doesn’t have the charismatic kid characters, the dread-drenched tension, or tangible atmosphere the director was able to wield on the big screen.
What Is ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ About?
It’s 1962 in Derry, Maine, at the height of the Cold War, and a local military base is hellbent on devising weapons to beat the Communists. Jovan Adepo’s decorated military pilot, Captain Leroy Hanlon (and grandfather of Mike Hanlon, one of the book’s main characters), has returned from Korea — barely in one piece, as he says — to work on a top-secret project in Derry, the details of which his superiors are not quick to share with him. This also brings him into contact with fellow soldier, Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk), who we know goes on to become the Overlook’s head chef in King’s The Shining. In that story, Hallorann also has “the shine,” helping a young Danny Torrance with his powers, and saves him and his mother from his deranged father in the finale. In Welcome to Derry, Hallorann’s gift makes him a great asset to the U.S. military in their top-secret mission.
Alongside Leroy, his wife, Charlotte (Taylour Paige), and 12-year-old son, Will, have moved to Derry for his new job, but the Hanlons are unaware that strange things have been happening in the town. A young boy has been missing for three months, and the only person who seems to genuinely care is his one true friend, Lilly (Clara Stack), who is widely labeled as a pariah for her reaction to her father’s horrible death in a work accident. This is a town where kids who still don’t have body hair are depraved enough to taunt Lilly for… having a dead dad. Any poor souls who are attacked by IT see the entity taking the form of their greatest fears, and when the police don’t believe them and jail an innocent man, the kids must fight alone — while the military uses Hallorann’s “shining” abilities in an attempt to find the entity and aim to control it, even though they clearly don’t know what they’re in for.
‘Welcome to Derry’ Is Nowhere Near as Terrifying as the ‘IT’ Movies
Amanda Christine as Ronnie in It: Welcome to DerryImage Via HBO
Knowing the events of the book, that Pennywise/IT/”the entity” will repeat his rampage in 27 years, debilitates Welcome to Derry‘s sense of suspense and urgency. Nothing still compares to reading the book for the first time, as King puts innocent children up against evil itself in the form of a sadistic, demonic clown, genuinely having no idea as to how it will all end. In Welcome to Derry, with so many different characters, that dread that should be pulsing through the narrative feels fragmented and neutered. The series never proves gripping enough to fill you with the desire to keep watching. With the narrative jumping between so many different perspectives — only the first five episodes were provided for review — the show doesn’t successfully bring all its disparate narratives together to form one cohesive, terrifying path.
Muscheitti, in just three feature horror films, has proven he can take on deep lore, larger-than-life monsters, and extensive ensembles. His directorial debut, Mama, was much smaller in scale but still an effectively chilling family vs. supernatural force tale of terror. With both of his IT movies, but particularly the first, he gave us an exhilarating update of arguably King’s most visually iconic monster. Here, he continues his aptitude for daylight scares, with one certain chase scene in the sunlit woods serving as a thrilling standout. However, more often than not, the different shapes that IT takes often look like they’ve come right out of a Goosebumps episode.
One graveyard scene, with a group of kids cycling furiously to escape green-tinged, Casper-esque ghosts gliding through the sky, pales in comparison to the unrelenting, bombastic, in-your-face horror of the films. While there are still sequences that are reminiscent of that intimate horror, like one character’s bed turning into their mother’s vagina as she gives birth, a lot of the monsters here are less Stephen King and more R.L. Stine. In the first five episodes, there is nowhere near enough Pennywise, but rest assured, Skarsgård makes the most of the few minutes he’s on-screen.
‘IT: Welcome to Derry’s Adult Storylines Are Much Stronger Than the Children’s
Lilly, Terry, Phil, and Susie in ‘It: Welcome to Derry’Image via HBO
One of IT: Welcome to Derry‘s largest issues is that it’s trying and failing to be Stranger Things. While the first movie leaned into the “kids on bikes” formula, the cast had electric chemistry and were all crafted into fully-formed characters, with the sparring between Richie (Finn Wolfhard) and Eddie (Jack Dylan Glazer) making for genuine laughs. But Welcome to Derry’s younger cast is nowhere near as charming as the movies’ ensemble.
Without going into too much detail, as the show pulls off some major surprises early on, the somewhat forced themes of child friendship and how togetherness can beat any evil downplay the already reduced horror. It’s hard to feel fully gripped or nervous for these kids’ fates when almost every scene ends with predictable, tropey line readings of “Guys! I have an idea…” or “Are you in or are you out?” Still, Welcome to Derry does deserve kudos for some truly surprising turns of events in the premiere, which goes where not even certain major horror releases (ahem, Blumhouse) would dare to tread.
Taylour Paige and Jovan Adepo Deliver Standout Performances in ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’
Welcome to Derry‘s adult characters fare far better, with Leeroy and Charlotte coming to stomach-churning revelations on the army base and in Derry while also reckoning with the racism that both environments bring, making for much more compelling stories. This is also strengthened by two brilliant lead performances from Jovan Adepo and Taylour Paige. Adepo is a strong, grounding presence as a revered military man caught between his duty and a newfound fear for his family. The military-set scenes between Leeroy and James Remar as General Shaw up the urgency and dread, establishing the stakes before the narrative cycles back to bike-riding kids.
As Charlotte, Taylour Paige uses that same world-weariness that made her such a compelling protagonist in Zola, and transports it back to the early ’60s for a character who both understands and rejects the place white society has forced her into. Nailing the mid-century Southern drawl of an educated woman who wants to fight the resistance but also support her family, Paige’s performance holds up the emotional and cultural stakes of the story, making her scenes just as engaging even when she’s nowhere near any monsters. Chalk matches the esoteric, tortured Hallorann that Scatman Crothers created in 1980 without ever feeling like he’s clamoring to do an exact imitation. As Lilly, Clara Stack is the standout of the younger actors as a 12-year-old who has suffered far more than any child her age should, but her past also emphasizes why she’s the best candidate to go up against Pennywise.
IT: Welcome to Derry should satisfy die-hard King fans who have been yearning for an extended universe, with references to the Bower Gang and a focus on the Indigenous origins of the titular entity. As a horror show, however, it pales in comparison to what Muschietti was able to do with his movie adaptations. Perhaps if I were less of a fan of the films or the book that started it all, I would have had a better time with this, but that same, deep-rooted horror never fully took hold. Thanks mainly to the performances of Paige, Adepo, and Chalk, IT: Welcome to Derry is not without its storytelling merits, even if none of them are all that scary.
IT: Welcome to Derry premieres October 26 on HBO, with episodes released every Sunday.
