It: Welcome To Derry Is Stranger Things Turned Up To 11

It: Welcome to Derry is a series that begs comparison. The first and obvious comparison is to It itself: the novel, the miniseries, and the two movies it serves as a prequel for. It’s also similar to other period sci-fi/fantasy HBO series, like Lovecraft Country or Watchmen. But the biggest influence that looms over everything is Stranger Things.

Welcome to Derry has a complex relationship with the Netflix series. In a way, they are both based on the works of Stephen King, but it’s clear that this series was developed in the hopes of creating a decade-long phenomenon like Stranger Things. The result is a series that is King through and through with a truly innovative plot — but one that gets a little lost in trying to outdo its predecessor.

It: Welcome to Derry comes from It and It: Chapter Two director Andy Muschietti, but it winds back the clock one 27-year cycle to 1962, the last time Pennywise wreaked havoc on the town before the events of the movies. Muschietti told Deadline the series would open with a huge, shocking sequence, and that’s true, but it proves to be a double-edged sword. The opening sequence does give that much-desired feeling that nobody and nothing is safe in this world, but it also immediately establishes that the show pulls no punches when it comes to the blood and guts.

Thankfully, after that sequence, we’re brought back to normal Derry and establish the highlight of the series: the supernatural mystery hidden on Derry Air Force base. Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) and his wife Charlotte (Taylour Paige) are looking for a quiet life in Maine with their young, scientifically minded son Will (Blake Cameron James). Leroy’s secret mission unites him with a young soldier named Hallorann (Chris Chalk), who possesses a secret power. If you’ve seen or read The Shining, you can probably figure out what it is.

That plot line is classic Stephen King, incorporating local legend, Red Scare ideologies, Native American mysticism, and lots and lots of nostalgia. But in between those storylines is one focused on Will and his friends at school, and it’s here that the series loses its way. If this show was entirely focused on the kids, it could be a fun Goonies-esque adventure, but set two decades earlier. But instead, this storyline delivers some of the most gruesome imagery I’ve seen on HBO, and that’s only occasionally a good thing.

Setting aside the ourorboros-esque tangle of King influences, if this really is an attempt to create a show to replace Stranger Things in pop culture, then it’s amplifying the worst things about it as well as the best. Sure, it makes the 1980s nostalgia even more nostalgic by turning the clock back more, (and any possible future seasons will only go back further), but it makes the horror even more horrific. Stranger Things was already a series that was on the bubble of being too scary for the whole family, but Welcome to Derry doubles down on the fright with sequences of gore that bear striking resemblances to the gnarliest scene in Weapons, even borrowing the “parasite documentary as foreshadowing” device.

Yes, there’s some Pennywise lore, but it’s oddly paced. Yes, there are references to other King stories, but they are mainly surface-level. Judging off of the five of eight episodes I received for review, Welcome to Derry works better as a horror series than an It prequel, which makes me wonder just who the target demographic for this series really is. It’s too scary for family viewing, too vulgar for the wholesome nostalgia crowd, and a bit too tangential for the King diehards.

Hopefully, its strengths as a standalone horror series will prove its worth, because underneath all of its cultural baggage is a great period supernatural mystery. If you meet it at that level, then it will be a warm welcome indeed.

It: Welcome to Derry premieres October 26 on HBO.