‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Is A Chill-Inducing Prequel
HBOMax’s IT: Welcome to Derry is the prequel show for both films from Andy Muschietti. It is also a treat for the fans of Stephen King’s world from the books and from the adaptation from the 90s. The show from the start exposes itself as both a period piece and a horror project that explores how fear is manufactured in a small town and how a supernatural predator like Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) can feed on it. All thanks to human cruelty and the bad emotions hidden deep inside every person, even the good ones.
As a part of the IT universe, Welcome to Derry promises to be a mix of investigation, mystery, and terror. Even though it’s the prequel, the story is fresh. Pennywise is still scary, and everything we see with each episode makes this show even more terrifying than you’d think.
[Warning: Light spoilers from IT: Welcome to Derry are below!]
The story of IT: Welcome to Derry honors Stephen King’s books
The first season is set in 1962 and focuses on the Hanlon family. They are Leroy (Jovan Adepo), Charlotte (Taylour Paige), and their son Will (Blake Cameron James). Their arrival happens right after a child mysteriously vanishes in Derry.
The series takes time to further establish the setting of the show and focuses on the social interactions in Derry. The town itself is shown as a place stereotypical for that time, racist structures, economic anxieties, and cruelty. Rather than turning it into another show in which viewers will be thrown immediately into a horror spectacle, the show spends its early episodes setting up the mood and giving the background to each character.
This approach pays off in the end with scenes that come unexpectedly and are properly unsettling. All thanks to the treatment, escalation, and deep reveal of human ugliness, rather than giving us only supernatural scenes. The Hanlons are written and shown as a family you can easily understand and get to know. They have their own frustrations, their protective instincts are natural, and they are really connected with everyone they meet, which makes losses in their lives hit harder. Leroy is a man carrying the weight of history, and his first impressions of Derry are much too suspicious for him not to start wondering what’s actually going on in the city.
The horror sequences that involve Pennywise are created with patience and with slowly revealing fashion. There are no cheap jump scares or comedy bits, like in a Scary Movie, where everything is a joke. Bill Skarsgård’s return as Pennywise is effective because the series treats him as a symbol of horror, fear, and as a predator who uses the knowledge of humans to make the clown terrifying. All because many people are afraid of clowns, and he reveals why it’s the thing.
Connections to King’s books and the Andy Muschietti films
One of the show’s central artistic and storytelling challenges is to honor Stephen King’s source material. Especially the chapters that focus on the description of Derry’s long, complicated history. While the show is not adapting the novel 100%, it is also not reducing the importance and valid descriptions King wrote.
At the same time, Andy Muschietti and co-developers and showrunners decided not to make the show into another remake that would create a new universe. The first season focuses on showing the viewers how the society in 1962 functions. As the first chapter in this longer plan, it tries to show every bad thing it can. The idea to go even further back in the past, with creators indicating later seasons will move to 1935 and 1908, makes it even more interesting. Because this is the beginning, and knowing from history, the past was complicated.
The show gives us bread crumbs to slowly connect itself to Muschietti’s films because it’s a prequel to them, but it smartly keeps itself separated. You don’t have to watch those two IT movies to understand this show.
Benjamin Wallfisch’s score and the visual designs iconic for the movies are also back. Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise serves as a bridge between the two worlds. He is once again playing the clown from the big screen, but he also tells his own story by exploring the past of Pennywise. We learn how he arrived on Earth, what awakened him, and, most importantly, why Derry became his hunting ground for fear.
This is important because a prequel can easily make the monster too explainable and lead viewers to stop fearing it. Instead, this series keeps several mysteries intact and won’t touch on them. The series adapts parts of the book into specific episodes that are meant to show the town’s past and create the characters who are noticing and experiencing all those cycles of fear, loss, and inability to prevent the bad things from happening.
That said, IT: Welcome to Derry chases after the idea to make it interesting for everyone. Not only for people who like horror or are familiar with Stephen King’s work, but also for those who want to try something new.
At the same time, the series sometimes goes way too far with certain elements (which are spoilers, so I won’t mention them). The execution of many moments could have been shorter or less complicated. Fortunately, the show often pulls itself back before it over-explains or becomes boring. That’s why it’s so good. It knows what it can and what it can’t do to make the series interesting. By letting certain mysteries remain secret this season, we can easily see them being explained in a small way in future seasons.
It definitely is an entertaining show that honors Stephen King’s work. It even honors the older IT version of the IT, where Tim Curry was Pennywise, but in a small, yet noticeable way, for the fans of that project.
Final thoughts on IT: Welcome to Derry
IT: Welcome to Derry is a complicated but rewarding show that really tries to bring out the best in expanding the mythos of Pennywise and the entire IT universe. It does the hard work of making Derry feel lived-in and historically accurate. It also gives the Hanlon family and supporting townspeople space to shine. The show is preserving enough of Pennywise’s mystery to keep the creature still frightening, rather than making him the broken and sad monster we don’t have to be afraid of anymore.
The series is strongest when it treats horror elements as a way to explain and stigmatize human cruelty, structural racism, and small-town secrecy. All because it leads to something everyone will be afraid of.
IT: Welcome to Derry also has some weak points in the occasional urge to make something not complicated or overexplain certain things. The series would definitely work even better if episodes were slightly longer and more focused on issues at hand, not on some that may never come.
For people who loved Andy Muschietti’s films, just like I did, the show offers satisfying continuity by giving us Bill Skarsgård back as Pennywise, Benjamin Wallfisch’s score, and similar visuals known from the movies. While the show repurposes some of those elements to make something else, it works rather well.
IT: Welcome to Derry is a wonderful, ambitious, sometimes even brilliant addition to the IT canon. It doesn’t answer every question you have, and it shouldn’t, because the most important part of King’s novels is his ability to let you answer them or keep wondering what’s true and what’s not.
IT: Welcome to Derry begins streaming on HBOMax on October 26, 2025.
Also check out The Long Walk: A Standard Stephen King Adaptation
