It: Welcome to Derry Finally Reveals the Icon Who Godfathered the Franchise’s 82% Rotten Tomatoes Prequel

Spooky season check: if you want something that actually crawls under your skin, 'It: Welcome to Derry' delivers. And here is the fun twist — Stephen King himself says the new prequel rattled him. When the guy who invented Pennywise tells you he got spooked, I tend to listen.

"I like 'Welcome to Derry' a lot. There are plenty of horrors and lots of surreal visuals. There’s a supermarket scare that sticks in my mind, complete with pickle jars."

— Stephen King to the New York Post, Oct. 31, 2025

So what is this thing?

Set in 1962, 'It: Welcome to Derry' winds the clock back on the town that keeps birthing nightmares. The setup is simple: a couple moves to Derry, and right on cue, the bad stuff starts. Pennywise is the big shadow in the room — even when he is not on screen, you feel him. Bill Skarsgard does return as the dancing clown, but per what has aired so far, he shows up later and in smaller doses. The dread is baked in from minute one.

Who is in it?

The cast goes hard on the unsettling vibe, and it shows. The source that kicked off this convo framed it as a two-episode show — to clarify, that reads like what has aired to date rather than the entire season. Either way, here is the key roster the series is riding on:

• Bill Skarsgard — Pennywise (back in greasepaint, used sparingly but effectively)
• Taylour Paige — Charlotte Hanlon
• Jovan Adepo — Leroy Hanlon
• James Remar — General Shaw
• Matilda Lawler — Marge
• Amanda Christine — Veronica 'Ronnie' Grogan
• Stephen Rider — Hank Grogan

Does it actually work?

Judging by early numbers, yeah: it is sitting at 82% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.9/10 on IMDb as of now. The show leans into surreal imagery — King called out a supermarket sequence with pickle jars that clearly lives rent-free in his head — and it is less jump-scare factory, more slow, sickly rot underneath everything.

How it expands the King-verse

This one digs into the town’s rot long before the Losers Club. The point is not just 'Pennywise is scary'; it is that Derry itself is the disease. The show threads together human ugliness and supernatural terror in a way that plays nicely with the broader Stephen King ecosystem (think the oppressive dread of 'The Mist' living next door to 'It').

Setting it in the early 60s gives it a crisp, period-horror look that still feels modern, basically a bridge between the classic King adaptations and whatever comes next. It respects the lore while sharpening it for anyone discovering this world now.

Where to watch

'It: Welcome to Derry' is available to stream on HBO Max (US). If you dive in this season, tell me where the show got you — the pickle jars moment is going to be hard to beat.