IT: Welcome To Derry Review

One benefit of having a Stephen King universe that can nearly compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of scope and adaptations, if not success and theme park attractions, is that even the most cash-grabbiest idea, like a prequel show to the popular, monosyllabic film series Itdoesn’t raise too many eyebrows. Andy Muschietti, his sister Barbara, and Jason Fuchs are just speaking a language that’s been used to define the sequel-inclined, lore-heavy, revamp-accommodating world of King since Creepshow 2 in 1987.

IT: Welcome to Derry is not the first big-budget horror TV show, but also it’s the prequel to the Muschiettis’ blockbuster hits IT and IT Chapter 2it has the shiny finish and setpiece monstrosities of a major motion picture horror event. You don’t need to have seen those films to understand Welcome to Derrybut knowing there’s a killer clown at the end of the sewer may make the hints and visions feel like an exciting bread crumb trail, rather than a series of inside jokes you only understand half of.

IT: Welcome To Derry Features A Talented Ensemble Cast

Chris Chalke, In Particular, Is Mesmerizing As Dick Hallorann

I was only supplied with the first five episodes of the eight-episode season, which is set in Derry, Maine, the site of Stephen King’s 1986 novel and several of his other stories, which frequently make nods to one another. Welcome to Derry hints at the wider King universe as well. Sometimes it’s with small winks, like a finger poking out of a drain.

Sometimes it shakes you by your shoulders, like with the introduction of Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalke), the same character played with a barely cloaked anxiety by Scatman Crothers in Kubrick’s The Shining. Chalke’s performance is a fantastic vision of the character. Hallorann is smug, sweet, and too cool for school, but his wide, white eyes straining out of his skull let you know he’s seen some things people shouldn’t.

Andy Muschietti’sIT franchise is shifted 30 years ahead of King’s novel in an effort to modernize the series.

King’s IT jumps back and forth between 1958 and 1985, but it also has plenty of interruptions that offer peeks into the previous decades when the monster known as “It” awoke from its slumber to cause horrific mayhem. So, while Welcome to Derry is an original story, King left meat on the bone for the Muschiettis and Fuchs to chew on. Set at the height of the Cold War, Derry has just started experiencing its own battle with a force as unknowable and devastating as the Ruskie’s nuclear arsenal.

A New Group Of Earnest Young Kids Are Terrorized By It

The US Government Wants To Find Out What’s Been Happening In Derry

A series of child disappearances has laid the ground for paranoia and distrust among the townsfolk. In the 1960s, this distrust is naturally exacerbated along racial boundaries, of which newcomers Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo), his wife Charlotte (Taylour Paige), and their son Will (Blake Cameron James) are intimately familiar, though unwilling to abide. Particularly the fiery Charlotte, who has no problem throwing around names like Martin Luther King if it means getting innocent Black men out of jail.

Will, through the usual meet-cutes of middle school life, falls in with a group of kids who have each experienced a terrifying event at the hands of an unknown entity. They’re your typical King rascals, equally proficient at making an ill-timed quip as they are screaming bloody murder. Together, Will and his friends investigate why they’re all being threatened and by what.

It’s a question Will’s father, a major in a top-secret wing of the Air Force, is also being tasked with answering, whether he knows it or not. Linking everyone is the local Indigenous tribe, well aware of the monster at the heart of Derry, and terrified of what will happen if the US government attempts to use it in their war against the Soviet Union.

Welcome To Derry Is Packed With Original & Non-Stop Scares

Some Fans May Be Disappointed With The Show’s Simple Story

It’s not a novel story, and the uninspired directing and the occasional confusing leaps of logic and time can make centering yourself difficult. What IT: Welcome to Derry does offer is an unrelenting amount of horror and carnage. While none of it is as surprising as Pennywise bursting out of the movie screen like he did in ITthe scares are finely crafted and purposeful. Horror fans will welcome a horror TV show willing to throw everything at the wall.

Every episode offers some unique visual, some unexpected fate, some unwelcome thought to infect the minds of children whom Muschietti is happy to toss around, deform, and mutilate. In five episodes, I never felt like I was seeing the same scare twice, and for a horror TV show, that’s an accomplishment in itself.

Viewers looking for Stand by Me or even HBO’s King adaptation of The Outsider may be disappointed by the conventional plot and surface-level gestures at difficult topics like race in America, Native American erasure, and Cold War parallels, but those looking for invention, captivating characters, and flying two-headed newborns, IT: Welcome to Derry has a place for you to stay.