{"id":50395,"date":"2025-10-31T15:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=50395"},"modified":"2025-12-17T00:37:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T05:37:56","slug":"it-welcome-to-derry-episode-1-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/31\/it-welcome-to-derry-episode-1-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"It: Welcome to Derry – Episode 1 [2025] [Halloween Horror Month 2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A trio of kids look for a missing friend while a new pilot lands at Derry AFB as Pennywise returns in It: Welcome To Derry, Episode 1: The Pilot. <\/p>\n

It: Welcome to Derry premiered this week, on Sunday, October 26th. The eight-episode series is a prequel to Andy Muschietti\u2019s two-film adaptation of the 1986 Stephen King tome (with Muschietti returning to direct). For It: Welcome to Derry, I\u2019m switching up my normal \u201creview the whole season at once\u201d like I have for Alien: Earth, Haunted Hotel, or Hell Motel. I\u2019m going to review and muse on each episode as it airs, with a collection and overview review when it finishes in the middle of December. The show airs Sundays, except for the second episode, which airs on Halloween. These might be a little looser than normal, as full story and character details aren\u2019t known until the end. It should be interesting to revisit after the full arc to see how the in-show observations line up with the end.<\/span><\/p>\n

It might be obvious, but to be on the same page, I want to be clear: It: Welcome to Derry is directly a precursor to Muschetti\u2019s take, existing in the world he set up in adaptation. As those films pushed up King’s 60s\/80s to 80s\/2010s, that leaves the 60s (as the first, Tim Curry-led, directed by Halloween III\u2019s Tommy Lee Wallace adaptation used as well) open for the story. It: Welcome to Derry is set to follow the residents of the Maine town during the Pennywise feeding spree before the Loser\u2019s Club figures out his game. It\u2019s a nice touch to visit the novel time in a new way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It does feel very King. From the way people talk, the characters themselves (especially the so-direct bullies), and the general feel, it has the tone I feel from the book in spades. As he does best, a wide variety of characters are ready to start coming together. That\u2019s essentially the push of the first episode. Meeting the characters and setting up the pieces to move, with just enough horror and danger.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It all starts as pre-teen Matty goes missing after watching The Music Man at the theatre. A fantastic short film of an opening sequence jumps into how Pennywise terrifies and messes with its victims. This sequence is disturbing, with a wonderful build and an awesome monster. As a standalone, it\u2019s solid. Following, we meet Lilly, a girl dealing with the death of her father (a slightly embarrassing one, so here come bullies) and the boy\u2019s friends Phil and Teddy (the chemistry and readings of these kids is fantastic). They do research and try to find out what happened, starting to slightly uncover the town\u2019s history. On the other end of town, Captain Leroy Hanlon has arrived at Derry Air Force Base and is dealing with racism in the ranks, espionage, and a secret project.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, Hanlon. Presemingly, the father or grandfather of Mike Hanlon. One of the boy\u2019s last name is Uris, matching Stanley. Relations of two of the Loser\u2019s Club? I really hope we don\u2019t go too far down the direct connection, generational\/\u201dhey, know this\u201d elbow nudges. I\u2019m pleased with the restraint in Pennywise and expectations. After the first film’s success and cultural acceptance, Chapter II was Too Much on all levels, especially in how they used Pennywise, taking what worked in moments in Chapter I and running to the ground (looking at you, Richie quips). But Muchetti keeps a low use, just enough to tease and set up for this version of kids vs monsters.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m off two minds on the look. The clean-cut sixties have a specific cinematic style at this point in culture, and Welcome to Derry follows to a tee – matching King\u2019s outlook of the era. To create the look, however, it looks overly digital. Too clean. Too neat. The shots of the kids on the balcony are overly processed. So it bounces from verisimilitude to \u201coh, that’s digital.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder where this all can go. We know the story of IT. We know Pennywise won\u2019t be defeated until two more returns of its 27-year sleep cycle.\u00a0 The kids feel like stand-ins for the Loser\u2019s Club, unpopular and odd. But King and the audience love the oddballs, but it does seem just a bit too familiar. With the weird stuff at base on the Hanlon side of the story, I wonder if we\u2019re going to slide into things going wrong ala the Mist and become more of a King pastiche ala Castle Rock (that two season show was\u2026 okay. Season 2 was better but it was a mess overall) since can\u2019t go too deep into the sewers of Pennywise\u2019s doings. I do like seeing a specific Stephen King character, well-known from another novel, who was in It, show up. In a specific \u201cwhere does this go?\u201d I loved the climactic sequence and the implications of the cliffhanger. I do suspect it’s all part of Pennywise\u2019s machination, but we\u2019ll see!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It: Welcome to Derry, Episode 1: The Pilot, is a solid start to the prequel series. With a restraint in use of Pennywise and setting up the dominos without leaning too heavily on scares for scares’ sake (some may find the \u201cmake the normally friendly now creepy\u201d use of Music Man to be much), and enough character, with the promise of building up well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Keep coming back for each episode reviews as soon as I can after airing! [Episode<\/a> 2] [Episode 3<\/a>]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A trio of kids look for a missing friend while a new pilot lands at Derry AFB as Pennywise returns in It: Welcome To Derry, Episode 1: The Pilot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[477],"class_list":["post-50395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50395"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51065,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50395\/revisions\/51065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}