IT: Welcome to HBO

Strap in for a delightfully twisted ride... The pilot of 'IT: Welcome to Derry' splashes down into the eerie world of Derry, Maine in 1962 with a gleeful bang—equal parts suburban normalcy and creeping nightmare.

The opening scene, in which a young boy flees a movie theatre, hitches a ride with a creepy family, and then witnesses a monstrous birth-event that bursts from the backseat, immediately tells you this isn’t your average small-town welcome wagon. The tone is upbeat in its audacity, zany in its disturbing imagery, and very much rooted in the tradition of premium horror storytelling.

What makes the episode especially fun is how it leans into familiar territory from the mythos—missing children, a town that looks idyllic but is rotten beneath the surface, and the looming sense of a great evil about to rise—yet flips the script just enough to keep you guessing.

Set before the events of the earlier films, the series gives us fresh characters—Major Leroy Hanlon and Capt. Pauly Russo arrive at the Derry Air Force Base just as the disappearance of kids begins to stir suspicion. The kids Teddy, Phil, Lilly and Ronnie vow to discover what’s going on, and the pilot interweaves their storyline with the adult subplot in a way that promises layered horror, not just jump-scares.

If you’re familiar with the original novel, It by Stephen King, you’ll recognize the ingredients: the cyclical nature of evil returning to Derry, the childhood trauma, the small-town façade that hides monstrous truths. The novel itself leaps between the late ’50s and the ’80s, exploring fear, memory, and the power of friendship under cosmic horror. Then there were the films—It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019)—which streamlined and amplified King’s sprawling narrative into blockbuster horror: Pennywise front and centre, big set pieces, scarier monsters, and a more direct confrontation with evil. The new series walks in the footsteps of both, but rather than re-enact what came before, it digs deeper into the origin story of the horror, conjuring a version of Derry that feels like a prologue to the known events while still being thrilling on its own. The pilot’s decision to set the clock at 1962—before the Hoofed Fury of ‘57 in the novel—means we’re seeing a “cycle before the cycle,” an origin tale of sorts.

The connection with the network’s legacy is also worth cheering.

The fact that this horror-epic prequel sits on the banner of HBO is no accident. HBO has long been associated with expertly crafted television—series that combine high production value, bold artistic ambition, and storytelling that doesn’t shy away from complexity. From prestige dramas to boundary-pushing genre fare, HBO has built a reputation around quality. Welcome to Derry sits comfortably in that tradition: the production design nails 1960s Maine (complete with analog radios, Base-Life tension, and creeping suburban dread), and the cast brings weight—Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige and Chris Chalk deliver performances that ground the weirdness in real emotion. While early reviews note that the episode sometimes juggles too many threads or holds back the full horror monster for later, the consensus is optimistic: it hits the mark for atmosphere and ambition. Critics called the premiere “makes you feel right at home in America’s worst small town” while giving credit to the tension and craftsmanship.

What’s especially thrilling is how the pilot pays homage without being derivative. It invites fans of the novel and films to recognize the lineage—yes, the town of Derry that we know, yes, the malevolent entity that resurfaces every twenty-seven years—but it also invites newcomers to dive in without needing encyclopedic knowledge of the mythos. There’s a wink to the original story and the films, but this version isn’t bound by them. It’s free to roam the darker corners of the myth and explore new angles—the racial tension at the air base, the pre-mayhem quiet before the carnival opens, characters we hadn’t met before.

By the end of the hour you feel that familiar balloon floating in the distance—the red silhouette of dread—but you also feel the ground shifting. The pilot teases that the horror to come will be not just about the clown but about the underbelly of a town, the sins of the past, the community in denial, the children who know more than the grown-ups. It offers the spectacle of horror but wrapped in a package where story, character and myth all matter. For those wondering whether this show will live up to HBO’s pedigree, the answer is: yes—this first episode argues strongly that it can.

In short, if you were drawn to the novel’s rich layering of fear and friendship, or if you loved the films’ big-screen chills, the pilot of IT: Welcome to Derry offers a fresh yet familiar ride. It’s got the clown, the sewer, the missing kids—but it also has a prologue’s promise: something bigger, deeper, richer. HBO has given us a horror series that remembers its roots and yet leans into bold new territory. So dim the lights, keep an eye on that red balloon, and welcome to Derry—where the nightmare has just begun, but tonight you’re watching from the front row.