When Horror remembers what a town tries to forget
Introduction
Every now and then in life, we hear stories about places that linger long after the final page or closing credits. Some locations come alive in our imaginations—Neverland in Peter Pan, Oz in The Wizard of Oz, Wonderland in Alice in Wonderland—each steeped in magic and mystery.
Derry belongs to a vastly different lineage. It doesn’t shimmer with nostalgia or escapism. Instead, it breathes. It watches. It remembers. In IT: Welcome to Derry, the town is not merely a backdrop but a fully realised character in its own right: complicit, observant, and wilfully blind. Derry exists in a state of collective denial, a place that knows exactly what happens within its borders and chooses, time and time again, to look the other way.
Remember the ‘Losers Club?’
In the late 1980s, Pennywise crossed paths with the Losers’ Club. For those who need a refresher, they were Bill Denbrough, Beverly Marsh, Ben Hanscom, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Mike Hanlon, and Stan Uris—seven children bound by fear, friendship, and a shared understanding that something was deeply wrong in Derry. IT: Welcome to Derry takes the generation prior to the Losers Club and lands them in the middle of one of Pennywise.
Back to `62
Now roll the clock back twenty-seven years to 1962. IT: Welcome to Derry, deliberately steps away from retreading the familiar childhood camaraderie of the Losers’ Club. Instead, it widens its gaze. This is no longer just a story about Pennywise. It is a story about a town that looks away—again and again, generation after generation. It is about the people of Derry, and the quiet, devastating cost of their silence.
Welcome to Derry
From the opening moments of the show, the tone is darker than its cinematic predecessors. The series opens with unsettling, grotesque imagery. This series is not made for entertaining you, one scare to the next. The series is destined to sit with you, to get under your skin and to express its own interest in your discomfort, fear, and emotion.
There was a conscious choice for the series to be set in the early 60s. Undercurrents of racism, prejudice, and institutional violence were seen during that time but often unspoken. One family are central to this exploration, the Hanlon family. The Hanlons are stationed at a nearby Air Force base. We see their storylines ground Derry’s supernatural horror and place it into a very real existence. By putting these storyline’s front and centre, the suggests that Derry`s evil is not confined to the sewer drains, but that it is embedded in the fabric of the town and its people.
IT: Welcome to Derry, is ambitious in its taking on of a prequel to a famed Stephen King novel. Multiple storylines intertwine. Children investigate their friends disappearance. Adults confront past trauma. Families struggle to survive in a town that outwardly resents them. While these multiple stories work beautifully at times, offering up depth and scale usually not reserved for horror, they also have the potential to dilute tension, leaving a sense of unfinished business.
The series is a little uneven and that is a notable weakness. The emotional core of the Losers Club from the movies, were the bonds that anchored their story and resonated throughout. IT: Welcome to Derry, while having some exceptional child actors and characters, lacks the one unifying relationship to pull the audience through the peaceful moments.
One thing that IT: Welcome to Derry, gets very right, is the atmosphere. Derry feels as it should. It is oppressive and suffocating. It feels wrong in a way that you can’t remember or cannot quite put your finger on. There is something creepy in the undertones of the everyday. Smiles linger too long. Streets feel as if they are being watched. Silence is a warning to what might be to come. The intent to unsettle the viewer is never in question. Is it achieved? Yes.
Pennywise, The Dancing Clown
Bill Skarsgard steps back into the costume as Pennywise. While he does not dominate the initial series first episodes, he is an overarching presence. His presence is fragmented, indirect and often seen through fleeting glimpses. This has divided some audiences who had an expectation of seeing Pennywise throughout, with him being the franchises most iconic figure.
The restraint used in reducing his screen time, has allowed Pennywise/IT to be elusive. It has allowed the reinforcing of the ideas that Pennywise is not just a clown. He is an ancient, shape-shifting embodiment of pure fear. To that end, one must ask whether Pennywise is the horror of the story?
Pennywise is not the beginning or the end of Derrys horror. He is its expression, something visible and tangible that can be attributed to the horror. The real terror in the town, is the town itself and the amnesia that the town has. The town has a willingness to forget murdered children, to forget unexplained accidents and unspeakable acts. Surely that is the most evil thing of all. Evil thrives not only through existence but also through the towns willingness to allow it.
Conclusion
The series is a strong one in many ways, despite its unevenness at times. It examines a community’s rationality of cruelty and murder. It explains away violence and continues with life. The show asks a question. That question is evident from the first to the last episode. The question is, ‘How much horror is required before everyone goes from denial to complicit?’
Is it an easy series to watch? No, neither should it be – it is based on IT – the Stephen King novel. To expect an easy series is like walking into a haunted house and complaining that it’s scary. You miss the point. What the series would like to do and what it achieves are a little uneven at times, but this is exactly the reason that you should watch the series.
Just remember, Derry has always been a town that forgets. Forgetting is the most frightening thing of all.
