Phrasemaker

Andy and Barbara Muschietti achieved the impossible with Stephen King’s It in 2017. Not only does the film hold the title of being the best King adaptation since The Shawshank Redemption, but it also had a legendary box office run to become the highest-grossing horror movie of all time. Now, Muschietti and co. aim to expand the lore of Pennywise and venture deeper into Derry’s past with It: Welcome to Derry.

The long-awaited prequel series begins in 1962, when the American military is on the trail of Pennywise, and a new group of kids becomes entangled in the terror thrust upon Derry by Skarsgård’s evil dancing clown (some of whom have connections to the characters in the future timeline). You get more backstory into the circus performer whose identity Pennywise assumed, as well as the introduction of special stones that arrived with Pennywise when the alien crash-landed on Earth, which are the key to warding him off. The first season also starts planting story seeds that delve even deeper into the past, which will segue right into the second and third seasons. But does it live up to the status of the films?

It: Welcome to Derry is one of those shows that opens strong but then struggles to keep the same momentum for the duration of the season. The intro sequence was probably one of the wildest and gnarliest things to happen in horror this year, even when we already had releases like Bring Her Back, Weapons, and Together. It all starts with little Matty Clements (played by Miles Ekhardt) running away from Derry and hitching a ride from a seemingly cordial family, with two kids of their own. The car ride quickly turns into a creepy and sinister marathon spelling bee, and then the mom graphically births a conjoined winged baby demon that devours Matty. It sure made Georgie’s death in the original seem like child’s play, to say the least.

This winged demonic baby version of Pennywise appears again at the end of the pilot through a movie theater screen and proceeds to shockingly kill off who you believed would be the main child protagonists in the story, a move that expertly subverted expectations. This variant of Pennywise brought the first true horror element in It: Welcome to Derry, which hasn’t really been topped since. This moment also sets up the main plot of the movie theater owner, Hank Grogan, being framed and targeted for the murders of those children.

Throughout the rest of the episodes, until his grand cinematic entrance in the sewers in episode five (brilliantly transforming from Matty), you don’t see the clown version of Pennywise in action, but rather his various manifestations. These various forms are not frightening in the least bit and instead come off as more cartoonish in a horror comedy way, the skin lamp, grocery store pickle jar set piece, and especially the whole graveyard chase scenario being something out of Scooby-Doo. You’d find gorier and more intense moments in It: Chapters 1 and 2.

The writing and acting also just don’t quite seem to match other shows that HBO has set a benchmark for, like The Penguin, Succession, True Detective, 2025’s Task, or even Stephen King’s other horror series with the streamer, The Outsider. While you do have standouts like Madeleine Stowe and Tyner Rushing as Ingrid Kersh, Taylour Paige as Charlotte Hanlon, Chris Chalk as Dick Hallorann, Arian S. Cartaya as Rich Santos, Matilda Lawler as Marge Truman, and, of course, Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise, the dialogue in Welcome to Derry is often cheesy, forgettable, and lacks the compelling dramatic quality you generally associate with Emmy-winning HBO Max content.

The chemistry between the main group of kids who take on Pennywise also never quite reaches the levels of the original films by Andy Muschietti. There’s not that same iconic feel as the Losers Club from the 2017 movie, nor is there the same organic emotional investment in these characters as the protagonists in Netflix’s Stranger Things, even though this series is desperately trying to replicate this dynamic and not quite landing it.

Take, also, for example, James Remar, who plays General Francis Shaw. In the beginning, he’s introduced as someone who looks out for Major Hanlon and aims to stop Pennywise, only to be given the most generic, predictable, and uninspired villain twist that he’s been a corrupt general all along, seeking out those protective stones only to destroy them and unleash Pennywise into the world to push an agenda of fear and submission that quells civil unrest (a very cringey and overdone story direction).

Remar is such a phenomenal and underappreciated actor, but never gets to truly display his full set of talent here because of the tropey and lackluster way his character is written, with his dialogue sounding on par with run-of-the-mill sci-fi military caricatures like Edie Falco’s general in Avatar or Linda Hamilton’s general in Resident Alien, rather than a unique and serious intimidating monster, like Sean Penn’s Colonel Lockjaw from One Battle After Another. Just months prior, Remar reprised the role of Harry Morgan on Dexter: Resurrection, and the delivery is night and day, giving such an outstanding dramatic performance that his chemistry with Michael C. Hall’s Dexter was like he never left the series.

The best parts of season one aren’t really the scares or the action; it’s actually the relationship between Ingrid Kersh and Pennywise (who has her convinced that it’s still her father, thereby molding her into an accomplice), the storyline of the Native Americans who laid the groundwork to protecting the town from Pennywise (which will be developed even further in later seasons), and Dick Hallorann’s ability to use the Shining to tap into the same psychic frequency as Pennywise as well as seeing him be haunted by spirits, like the victims who sadly perished in the Black Spot fire in episode seven.

Hallorann would eventually be the cook at the Overlook Hotel from The Shining, who helps Danny Torrance with his ability (also appearing in Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep). His story is canon to King’s lore in the novels, and it’s fantastic that this crossover is finally being explored in the show, with Chris Chalk wonderfully carrying the mantle from Scatman Crothers, Melvin Van Peebles, and Carl Lumbly in bringing Hallorann to life.

Bill Skarsgård, now in the dual roles of the real circus performer and parent Bob Gray and the monstrous Pennywise version, continues to show his immense talent as a monster actor, also having just come off the heels of an equally frightening and menacing Count Orlok performance in Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu. Pennywise’s best screentime is perhaps in episode five and then in the last two episodes of the season, with the juke joint fire being one of the most harrowing set pieces in horror television that elevates this score a tad higher.

There are also fun Easter eggs sprinkled throughout (even plenty nodding to the arch nemesis of Pennywise, a cosmic turtle known as Maturin), which the most devoted Stephen King fans will have fun spotting.