Before the Losers Club was ever created, Pennywise’s terror had only just begun

One of Stephen Kings biggest successes in horror is the 1986 novel, It. The book has been adapted into films in 1990, 2017 and 2019. Now the infamous clown is making his debut in a streaming series 

HBO’s new It series continues the story of Pennywise, this time in different time periods. The series comes at the story from a different perspective. Not just continuing after the events of the 2019 sequel but instead reaching deep into the past to explain the crucial events of history that the titular being helped orchestrate such as the Bradley Gang Massacre and the Fire at The Black Spot.  

It: Welcome to Derry features events that take place twenty-seven years before the first It movie. It is planned to be three seasons long with every season taking place another twenty-seven years before the last.  

The show features an entirely new cast of children experiencing supernatural events while dealing with an eerie sense that something is watching them. That something is Pennywise the Dancing Clown played again by Bill Skarsgård reprising his role from the recent films. 

To truly understand the danger these kids are in, one must first understand what this creature is. The show depicts Pennywise as an extraterrestrial being that has been on earth for millions of years, having crashed here in an asteroid. It was hibernating for all that time until humans arrived, which is when it woke up and began preying on children. The series depicts Pennywise shapeshifting into a variety of forms before it settles on the form of a clown as it learned that clowns are a good way to lure children.  

Pennywise had been peacefully preying on kids until the Losers Club came along. They were the first group of kids that gave Pennywise a run for his money and eventually they defeated him. That group of kids were the first to ever kill Pennywise permanently which is how we know that for every season of Welcome to Derry, Pennywise won’t be killed. The interesting part about it, is that the kids in It are the descendants of some of the characters in Welcome to Derry. It’s very cool to see that these two shows are unexpectedly connected in a way that’s more than just Pennywise being on the same land. That small detail shows just how much effort the team is putting into the show. 

However, in Welcome to Derry, Pennywise doesn’t take his clown form until halfway through the season, and fans are torn about that. But exploring these other possible incarnations is a good choice. It allows the show to have fun with different kinds of horror, rather focusing solely on the clown.  

That said, it is very satisfying to see the iconic look of Skarsgård donning the tattered clown outfit.  

For the past eight years, audiences have watched a tamer version of Pennywise. It is evident that from the first few minutes of the series, the creature is not messing around this time. This younger Pennywise is far more vicious. It’s a more gruesome, ruthless version of the horrifying clown that everyone has been dying to see. 

Welcome to Derry, in contrast to the films, focuses more on taking it slow to scare children, whereas the movies were faster paced as they only have a couple hours to complete the story. Having more time allows the plot to expand farther than the movies ever could, by introducing completely new side plots such as an origin for Pennywise or including adults and not centering it on the kids. The set design is also a very big part that the show does incredibly well. The environment that Pennywise uses to scare children and the audience is a big part to get right but they nailed it. Everywhere on screen is super polished and creates that classic horror feel while also capturing the pure essence of how Pennywise is so good at scaring kids. The show goes beyond the kids of Derry, featuring several adult characters that are crucial to the plot. The tone of the town itself also changed drastically. In It (2017), Derry had a darker tone as if the town was dead and had been for decades. Welcome to Derry is filmed with brighter colours, like Derry is an innocent town with nothing wrong. 

From the outside, the town of Derry, Maine seems like a boring town to settle down in. The sun is always shining but it always seems to be a bit too perfect. The town is weirdly normal, with no one doing anything out of the ordinary, just going to work or school and getting on with their days. The only weird thing that happens is the huge number of kids that go missing but even then, no one seems to care. It’s canon that Pennywise put a spell on the town that hypnotizes residents into ignoring the horrible disappearances happening, putting each missing child poster over the last and continuing to live as if nothing terrible has happened.  

It takes five episodes to get to the infamous clown, but with the release of episode five, Pennywise is finally back on screen. He looks amazing and scarier than ever. I got chills when he showed up and couldn’t stop smiling. Skarsgård was born for this role and plays the killer clown flawlessly. Apart from leading up to Pennywise’s first appearance, the episode handles the horror very well. Not just the jump scares, but the psychology of the characters slowly losing their minds and realizing Derry is not the perfect town they once thought. 

Welcome to Derry will revolutionize the way Pennywise terrifies kids and will show that It is in its prime.