This chilling prequel of Stephen King’s IT gets five stars
BT: Welcome to Derry ★★★★★
Could there be an eight-episode series that expands on Stephen King’s works? IT Leave behind the wildly successful two film adaptations From producer-director sisters Barbara and Andy Muschietti?
The answer in the first 10 minutes of this chilling spin-off film, created by the same creative teams of the films, is a definite yes; No spoilers, but there is a crazy body-horror scene like I (a seasoned horror buff) have never seen before. Fairly preliminary, the film sets the tone for this lavishly produced prequel that explores the origin story of Pennywise, the character surely responsible for the majority of post-1986 cases of coulrophobia.
Something evil is lurking in the town of Derry BT: Welcome to Derry.Credit: Brooke Palmer? HBO
welcome to Derry It is set in 1962 and is loosely based on King’s “interludes” between the stories of the Losers’ Club (the children at the heart of the story) and explores the history of the town of Derry, which is terrorized every 27 years by a shape-shifting evil living in the town’s sewers. The last incident was in 1935, so you know what that means…
The Muschiettis present us with another group of teenagers hunted by the various, terrifying elements of Pennywise — and I mean Really terrifying – manifestations that again feed on individual fears. After a nightmarish attack at the local movie theater leaves three children missing, Lily (Clara Stack) and Ronnie (Amanda Christine), whose father Hank (Stephen Rider) works at the movie theater and is wrongfully imprisoned for the crime, team up with science nerd Will (Blake Cameron James) and his friend Rich (Arian S. Cartaya) to exonerate Hank.
Pennywise’s use of fear to control the people of Derry has always been a metaphor for fearmongering, and the series’ Cold War setting introduces new scares while touching on the racism of the era, underscoring the atrocities the man is capable of.
Along with King’s trademark coming-of-age elements (the author was heavily involved), there are also central adult characters. This includes Jovan Adepo as Will’s father Leroy Hanlon (Mike Hanlon’s grandfather in the original story); An air force major who is sent to Derry’s military base to work on a top-secret mission.
Leroy believes he will be working on some kind of defensive missile, but he soon discovers that the base’s General Shaw (James Remar) is overseeing something much more sinister that the military hopes to contain and possibly use for their own purposes. As a child, Shaw spent time in Derry, where, after befriending the Native American girl Rose, he encountered a godless creature in the forest. Like everyone who leaves Derry, he forgot everything until he returned to town. He now seeks the help of local indigenous people who know the origins of the centuries-old evil.
