After his It duology took the box office by storm in the late 2010s, Andy Muschietti is back with HBO’s prequel series It: Welcome to Derry, which takes place in the 1960s, before Pennywise showed himself as a clown, manifesting as various spirits and ghouls. The first episode follows Matty (Miles Ekhardt), a runaway desperate to escape the clutches of his abusive father. As he prowls around Derry at night, he hitches a ride with a family who begins acting strange. A flurry of blood spills out into the car, and Matty and the family he was riding with, disappear from our sight. In the wake of his disappearance, his friends Lilly (Clara Stack), Phil (Jack Molloy Legault) and Teddy (Mikkal Karim Fidler) are left mourning not only their friend, but the normalcy of their lives. 

Every child starts to experience visions similar to those shown by Pennywise in various adaptations of this tale. To trace Matty’s steps, the children make their way to the Capital Theater, where they encounter Ronnie (Amanda Christine), the daughter of the theater’s manager. She reveals that she has also been hearing voices coming from the drains and sewers, and Matty’s disappearance has scarred not only her, but has put her father under the watchful eye of Derry’s police force. While watching the film that was playing on the night their friend went missing, the film begins to spiral and spin, showing Matty trapped within the cinema’s screen. This image is one of the episodes’ most arresting, so it’s a shame that it’s swapped out for a winged demon-baby that comes flying out of the screen and proceeds to lay carnage. 

Also Read: ‘Find Your Friends’ Review: An Explosive Debut from Izabel Pakzad [Fantastic Fest 2025]

Here begins the main problem with It: Welcome to Derry. While the Muschietti films were successful for their sprawling casts, the scare factor of the duology was tampered by bloated CGI images that decreased the series’ scares and made it feel quite amateur. The same images plague this prequel series, so much so that there is nearly nothing frightening about the series. In certain instances, the horror aspects of the show are so amateur, they feel like part of a Goosebumps episode. Like these sequences, the show’s score is just as grating. The bass reverberates through each scene like a foghorn designed to penetrate your brain so severely that you forget what you’re watching is an unending mess. 

While the series fails to scare, there are aspects of it that feel almost revolutionary for the fourth on-screen adaptation of a novel. One of the most fascinating aspects of the series is its ties to other Stephen King novels beyond It. The titular prison of Shawshank Redemption looms over the falsely accused Hank (Chris Chalk), but the introduction to one of King’s most famed characters is where the show truly gets interesting. Widely known as the head chef of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, Dick Hallorann was portrayed by Scatman Crothers in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film, and by Carl Lumbly in Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep. Here, a younger version of him is played by Chris Chalk, whose performance is nothing short of revelatory. 

Also Read: ‘It Needs Eyes’ Review: A Spooky, Affecting Gen-Z Creepypasta [Brooklyn Horror 2025]

The commanding force of General Francis Shaw’s (James Remar) search for the supernatural presence within Derry, Hallorann’s powers are commanded and used to not only infiltrate the minds of Derry’s people, but also its land. With this deep-rooted connection comes a heavy weight that does not simply rest upon his shoulders, instead it pushes them down until he becomes a shell-shocked version of the charismatic man we are initially introduced to. Each time Hallorann uses his powers, it’s as if his mind is splicing; his eyes appear vacant, like he’s looking at something in the distance while actually focusing on something else entirely. When these eyes do finally focus on visions the rest of these characters can’t see, they look as if a blazing fire lies behind them. 

The digging up of the earth and the secrets that lie beneath is the undeniable highlight of the series. In a vignette set hundreds of years prior, we get an in-depth look at how the original Indigenous inhabitants of Derry came to know the demon that we now call Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård). With it, the examination of how Derry’s Black residents are discredited and ostracized directly meshes with how the town’s Indigenous people have been abandoned. While it is a welcomed surprise that these aspects which lay dormant in the pages of King’s original novel are finally being explored on screen, you can’t help but wish this series went to lengths to explore these themes more thoroughly. 

Also Read: ‘Mārama’ Review: Gorgeous Māori Gothic Revenge Horror [Fantastic Fest 2025]

“This ain’t America. This is Derry.” Uttered with a matter of fact despondency, perhaps the cruelness of small-town America is the most terrifying thing about the series. Maybe it was always the scariest part of King’s original novel, too. This thread is where the series soars, and if the show abandoned the storyline following Derry’s children, it would undeniably reach its full potential. Disembodied voices and shadowy figures that the adults in this town see are more frightening than anything else in the series, as is the knowledge that, as adults, we cannot escape the moments in our childhoods, no matter how fleeting, that continue to shape us forever. The scars each of these characters bare have irrevocably changed them, but it’s a shame that the series doesn’t start exploring these deep-rooted scars until it’s too late. 

Summary

While ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ explores fascinating themes, it fails to deliver effective scares.

Categorized: Reviews