IT: Welcome To Derry

Streaming on: Sky/NOW
Episodes viewed: 5 of 8

Roll up, roll up. Come be terrified by the ashen clown once more. After his two-part movie adaptation of Stephen King’s doorstop 1986 novel (2017’s It: Chapter One and 2019’s It: Chapter Two) about an extra-terrestrial clown haunting a group of friends, director Andy Muschietti (alongside producing partner Barbara Muschietti and co-showrunner here, Jason Fuchs) returns to the sinister town of Derry for an invented prequel. Much like the movies, and the book, it’s a mix of the nightmarishly scary, darkly imaginative, and sometimes awkwardly silly.

Primarily set in 1962, with occasional flashbacks even earlier, the show begins with a boy disappearing. We know what’s got him, but his classmates do not. Led by Lilly (Clara Stack), who’s recently spent time in the town asylum, several of the school’s less popular kids try to figure out where the boy has gone, and why they’re being tormented by horrible visions. At the same time, a young Black soldier, Major Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo), arrives in the largely white town with his family to be part of a mysterious military mission.

The Derry kids are a great bunch of misfits to spend time with.

This is very much a show of two parts: one is the kids’ spooky adventure, and the other sees the adults grapple with the terrors of a real world of bigotry and nuclear threat, and the supernatural evils bleeding into it. Similarly to the films, the child-led part is much more entertaining. Played by a collection of extremely talented young actors, the Derry kids are a great bunch of misfits to spend time with. All of them are outcasts in one way or another, and their stumbling attempts to form friendships are touching and peppered with moments of comedy. Their fertile imaginations – _It’_s monster plays on a person’s deepest fears – make for the best scares.

From the first episode, the horror sequences are bonkers, in a very enjoyable way. It begins with a car ride from hell, and culminates in a display of lunatic, bloody destruction that makes very clear that absolutely nobody is safe, no matter how adorable. Anyone waiting for the return of Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise will need patience – he’s used extremely sparingly in the five episodes made available for review – but there’s plenty to induce nightmares while you wait.

The adult strands are a slower affair, making a noble but underdeveloped effort to give the story some weight with civil rights storylines. It’s here that some of the plot feels silly, although still in keeping with King’s novel. You can’t entirely avoid daftness in a story of a killer clown from space. It all still feels of a piece with the films, and like a worthy new chapter in the It saga.