IT: Welcome To Derry — Prequel To Hit Films Is A Knockout Halloween Gift

IN A SEQUENCE from the first episode of IT: Welcome to Derry, Theodore, an innocent but curious kid, asks his Rabbi father a speculative question — can someone kidnap a kid and keep them underground? It’s a general rebuke of the laws of physics by a child who clearly hasn’t arrived at the understanding of any. It’s precisely the world of disbelief that Stephen King’s world of warm horror is set in. That right mix of toe-curling scares, Christmas-y nightmares and the benevolence of a summer music album that choruses love, heartbreak and growing up on the fringes of a sleepy town. The texture of a box of chocolates, percolated by the sense of something more sinister, gruelling and come to think of it, nasty. The fact that a new adaptation wants to also tackle racial history and geopolitics only adds to the richness of the festive box. The new series, slated to serve as a prequel to the wildly successful IT films, as a result, feels richer, gorier and true to streaming, worthy of its stretched lifespan.

The show opens on a snowy January day in 1962, in Derry, Maine. A 12-year-old boy, Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt), has just been ushered out of the local theatre for stealing his way into a film screening he did not have the tickets to. This little boy, you can tell, has to go back to an abusive family. Rather than do so, he plucks his mood pacifier and hitches a ride out of town with what seems like a jolly family of four. The journey of escape, however, devolves into one of the most terrifying reveals that a horror series has managed to put together in the recent past. Featuring a flesh-eating demon baby, an umbilical cord cut from hell and the tardy, yet impressive ergonomics of violence that refuses to hold back for the sake of the victim’s age. This again is King’s world, where the sacred and the sacriligeous often confront each other for validity.

The series actually kicks into gear four months after Matty’s disappearance. The town, the adults at least, have reluctantly moved on. But kids at Derry High School are inquisitive enough to forge an investigative committee of sorts. Some are urged by voices they hear from under the kitchen sink, while others are plainly inquisitive, with enough time and drive on their hands to want to make themselves useful. Also new in town is Air Force Major Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo), posted to this little-known knick of the woods for a mission he hasn’t exactly been briefed on. The Derry of the 60s is in a time of racial and political churn. Hanlon experiences it first-hand, adding another layer of interpersonal dynamics into what already feels like a socio-political upgrade — post-war scars, race, and personal abuse. More is surely to come.

IT: Welcome to Derry | From Pennywise's growing terror to Derry's ancient lore—what to expect from the season

IT is one of those rare horror franchises that has managed to find the balance between mainstream storytelling and King-ian eccentricities. Far from an eerie and unsettling '90s mini-series, the two films imported the coveted origin story of one of the spookiest literary characters ever conceived into the frothy well of a post-Stranger Things world. A world nostalgic, to some extent, for its own exuberance and capacity for romance. So you had adults sit around the park, in circles, and shoot curious looks like it's normal to do in today’s age. Band together on self-sabotaging missions as if it’s the only sensible endeavour to share amongst your childhood friends. So much seems possible and plausible if you take away the mood killer — cellphones. The point of the seeking isn’t the mystery as much as it is the opportunity to do it together.

Creators Jason Fuchs, Andy Muschietti (who directed the films) and Barbara Muschietti deepen that sense of camaraderie and wonder by adding layers of politics and history. In a line, IT: Welcome to Derry already feels like it has more of a personality compared to the thin visual filters of the films. There is so much to chew here, so many different threads that will likely unravel, piecemeal as both horror and narrative revelation. The kids aren’t alright, and this time, the adults will have to consider the cost of the world they have conceived. The series will likely try and add up to an origin story for Pennywise, but as a standalone story, this particular adaptation has other schemes, designs and aspirations.

Near the climax of the episode, you’ll gawk in horror as children, their nimble bodies are subjected to satanic torment. And yet, this world, its newfound capacity to also absorb racial and geopolitical horrors, only adds to a feast that’s best served bittersweet. Turn on the barbarity a bit too much, and you have a slasher with teenagers tied to the block. Sweeten it and you lose the punch-to-the-gut realities that simmer under the warm teak texture of the town — the fact that this is a brutal world. And to witness its violence from a child’s eyes is possibly the most horrifying of lived experiences. From one of the best cold opens in recent times to a rousing, shattering climax, IT: Welcome to Derry earns its streaming stripes in style — with added substance.

IT: Welcome to Derry is currently streaming on JioHotstar, now available with your OTTplay Premium subscription. Watch the series here.