This year is something of an anomaly for me as a horror fan, in that one of the 2025 TV premieres, HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry, has been drawing more of my anticipation than any upcoming horror movies, even the soon-to-release Stephen King adaptation from Edgar Wright. I’m a sucker for Derry, and would proudly wear a hat expressing as much, regardless of what abusive townies say. Which is all to say: I have so many hopes and expectations going into this.
We’ve no doubt been living in an evolved age of adaptations of King’s extensive library in the relatively recent past, with benchmarks such as Mr. Mercedes, The Monkey and The Long Walk to name just a few. I’d certainly slot Andy Muschietti’s IT: Chapter One on that list, and though Chapter 2 might take more of a discussion to convince me, I’m already certain that Welcome to Derry could best both films, in part by not having as much built-in source material to mine.
