Growth goes awry in prequel collection It: Welcome to Derry. Set 27 years earlier than the Losers Membership first confronted the child-eating trans-dimensional entity, and 54 years earlier than they’d return as adults to destroy it for good, not a lot has modified in Stephen King‘s fictional Maine city. To bypass the prequel’s narrative constraints, developed by Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti, together with showrunners Brad Caleb Kane and Jason Fuchs try to deepen the lore by digging additional into the previous and King’s different literary works. It makes for a wildly uneven mashup of acquainted retread and fascinating remix of King’s works.
The collection begins with the arrival of the Hanlon household; patriarch Leroy (Overlord‘s Jovan Adepo) has simply relocated his spouse Charlotte (The Poisonous Avenger‘s Taylour Paige) and son Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James) to the suburbs for a top-secret navy task overseen by Common Shaw (James Remar). That retains the grownups busy and distracted whereas unusual happenings on the town lead Will to attach with fellow outcast youngsters like Lilly (Clara Stack) and Ronnie (Amanda Christine) as they uncover they’re all being tormented by the identical sinister presence.
{Photograph} by Brooke Palmer/HBO
A protracted opening sequence, which sees a troubled child undergo a reasonably gnarly encounter with the eponymous shapeshifter, lays naked one of many collection’ most evident issues straightaway: shock worth takes priority over dread and real scares. The primary 5 episodes screened for critics search to construct anticipation for Invoice Skarsgård‘s Pennywise, relegating the determine to background scares because it chooses grand guignol-style techniques to terrorize the children in 1962. Whereas the imagery will be potent, Derry errors soar scares and fetal bat infants for rigidity and concern. Not serving to is that the children, at the least to date, are caught following an identical formulaic path as the Losers Membership as they attempt to rally previous their fears to resolve a collection of lacking youngsters instances whereas being disregarded by adults.
Stack and Christine are standouts among the many younger forged, with Stack particularly efficient and heartbreaking because the courageous however bullied woman nonetheless reeling from tragedy. Adepo and Paige earn straightforward rooting curiosity because the level-headed newcomers with sturdy ethical facilities, a should in a city like Derry, however are given far much less to do the extra Derry piles on the lore and subplots. Nevertheless it’s telling that the strongest character work and story dangers hail from Chris Chalk‘s Dick Hallorann, years earlier than the telepathic cook dinner would step foot within the Overlook. Hallorann is certainly a personality briefly talked about in King’s epic novel, so his inclusion isn’t irregular, however Kane and Fuchs’ writing workforce finds reasonably fascinating methods to include the characters’ distinctive skillset right here. Chalk’s potential to externalize Hallorann’s reasonably inside psychology and the toll of his powers makes for one of the vital compelling facets of the prequel collection.
Chris Chalk as Dick Hallorann. {Photograph} by Brooke Palmer/HBO
The Shawshank Jail additionally will get folded in with the turbulent race relations of the ’60s setting, together with no scarcity of references and easter eggs lifted straight out of King’s works. Fixed Readers may need enjoyable matching the painstakingly recreated set items that really feel lifted straight out of Muschietti’s movies, untouched by time, to character names and particulars from the novel’s pages. However the extra the collection wears on, the extra it turns into clear that these connections have change into a story crutch.
Welcome to Derry introduces a whole lot of nice concepts and set items that present glimpses of greatness. The suitable elements are all there for one thing particular. The forged is as large because the manufacturing design, and the ’60s setting conjures up new angles to exposing the rot beneath Derry’s Norman Rockwell-like facade. However there’s an nearly empty artifice to all of it, simply contemporary window dressing on a well-known story we’ve already seen and know the way it ends, particularly because the horror takes its time to escalate. The characters go far to retain curiosity, however to date, Welcome to Derry struggles to say something with conviction, and we’ve seen Pennywise’s freakshow act already earlier than.
The eight-episode collection premieres Sunday, October 26, at 9pm ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max. New episodes will debut weekly main as much as the season finale on December 14.
