IT: Welcome to Derry

This new show has three episodes out as of this publication, but at the time of this writing only two were available. I’m pretty hooked on the show already, though, which blows my mind a bit because I can’t even remember a time I’ve been this into a horror television show. The Walking Dead doesn’t count because I only watched a couple of years of it and finally gave up doing the same thing over and over trying to get a different result. I am NOT crazy, but I did hope it would somehow get better than following the dangerously stupid lives of some unlikeable characters with great zombies and a good budget. I was reluctant to watch It mostly because the showrunner is the same person who made those awful It movies a few years back.

The quintessential Stephen King abused boy is chased out of the town’s cinema, where he has sneaked in for some warmth, Cracker Jacks, and a long hard suck on his pacifier. The movie is The Music Man, which was released in the same year Welcome to Derry is set, 1962. The choice of film is wonderful, as it’s a tale of deception, community fear of an elusive danger, and the movie itself can be weirdly disturbing at times for a technicolor musical of that era. Robert Preston is singing Ya Got Trouble on the big screen as the kid is chased out, and yes, Derry sure does have trouble.

Right off the bat, Welcome to Derry sets a viewer into the small town and vibes that most Stephen King fans are familiar with. Derry is a quaint, old New England town that periodically loses a fair number of its children in gruesome ways. Gruesomeness is a core value of the story, and I would argue all of the live action attempts to capture that spirit of meanness has been done very well. The first miniseries worked best in the psychological horror Pennywise, the evil spirit behind it all, imposed on its victims. That was due to a smaller than theater release movie budget, and that it was on television. Back then, you just couldn’t show the really awful stuff the evil clown did to children while watching from a Lazyboy.

Still, the first death of cute little Georgie getting his arm ripped off at the shoulder was shocking enough, even though they didn’t show the actual ripping. Many years later, there are essentially no limits to what can be shown on television, I suppose mostly because people are paying for the service like they used to do at the theater. I should look that up. The scene of this first death built at a nice pace. Because it’s Derry, we know something terrible is going to happen to this kid, but we’re made to wait. Like the original series, the psychological terror has to be built before the yucky, painful stuff happens. But the character is so sympathetic there’s a little voice in your head trying to tell you maybe the bad thing won’t happen even as the evil slowly unfolds.

I haven’t read the book in a very, very long time, but I seem to recall that Pennywise feeds off the fear as much as the deaths themselves. First box checked on that, followed quickly by something super graphic and utterly shocking. I was as amazed and shocked and astounded by that something as I was by Georgie’s death decades before. My jaw did drop, and I was hooked on this new show.

The entire first episode kept me that enthralled as it zipped on past in a rollercoaster of character development and building tension. The original book had a core group of kids who called themselves The Losers Club, who banded together to fight Pennywise. This time around there is a loose band of recognizably Stephen King kids who begin experiencing terrifying things.

The biggest hook for me was that, after going to great lengths to set the story in a famous Stephen King milieu, by the end of the first episode my mouth hung open and I realized I really had no idea what the heck would happen next. Some surprises are good ones, and this is one of those.

The second episode slowed down in some ways, digging more deeply into the plot and setting up more new characters. Sort of. If you’re a fan of Stephen King you will recognize a name I didn’t remember being in the story It. I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens with that character, though the typical horror film issue of having a character you know shows up in a later work does hinder the tension. We see a lot of characters from the book, in the time before the book setting, and a lot of new characters and a storyline that is completely new – I think. Again, I haven’t read the book in a very long time. There is also great psychological terror, which should be just as big a part as the gore and squishy horror. The filmmakers have nailed the feel of Pennywise, giving victims a good, hard fright before tearing them apart – or not tearing them apart, leaving them to simmer, if you will.

Something the filmmakers have done that King never quite got the hang of is using racial tension in a constructive way. One of the families is African American in this lily white town under the influence of evil. They can see the looks people give them, when they’re not looking the other way when evil happens. The family mistakes those mannerisms for “simple” racism, but in this case it’s something terribly worse. I think that’s kinda genius.

One thing streaming series do well is put together visually good looking cinema, and this show is no exception. Derry is gorgeous, the cars are wonderful to look at, the costumes are great, and the general feel of the perfect small town in a simpler time beautifully covers the bubbling rot as it begins to subsume that perfection. I’m really looking forward to watching this show, even though I know it will be cancelled before it reaches a good end point. That’s what they do now. I hate it, but dang it all I still want to see where they take this story.

LINKS:

• IT: Welcome to Derry – Official Website
• IT: Welcome to Derry – IMDB
• IT: Welcome to Derry – Wikipedia

CFR: In Addition:

I’ve thought about watching this. This then makes me think of my late husband, Scott. He loved Stephen King about as much as Cranky. He also did a crazy spot on Tim Curry Pennywise. I swear if you closed your eyes, you could not tell the difference. I have another friend, Rene, who does an incredible movie Pennywise. I wanted to make a video with the two of them where I “killed” them using one of my lightsabers. Also a photoshoot at a run down house. Now it will just be Rene.

I miss my husband so much.

I also don’t want horror movies anymore because I don’t have him with me and watching scary movies with him and then sleeping beside him made me feel safe.

So Cranky, you may have to come over sometime and watch a few of these episodes with me in the middle of the day. Or all of it. I have HBO Max. It would be nice to share that with you.

I’m glad this show is liked by Cranky. I’m glad you like it.