(KTLA) \u2014 Just in time for Halloween, HBO\u2019s \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry\u201d<\/a> has finally arrived with a spine-tingling premiere that lays out a fresh tapestry of intrigue while also harkening back to what we loved about Andy Muschietti\u2019s adaptations of Stephen King\u2019s \u201cIt.\u201d And episode 1 isn\u2019t clowning around with the scares.<\/p>\n The series, which was co-developed by Muschietti, is set in fictional Maine hamlet of Derry, decades before The Losers Club would meet the ancient evil known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Taking place in the early 1960s, the show explores the origins and development of the evil that hangs over the city.<\/p>\n \u2018Mild\u2019 horror movies to watch during Halloween season <\/a><\/p>\n Spoilers ahead for \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry\u201d episode 1.<\/strong><\/p>\n The series\u2019 opening is one you won\u2019t soon forget. We meet tween Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt<\/a>), who\u2019s just been chased out of a screening of \u201cThe Music Man\u201d<\/a> he snuck into at a local theater. Matty heads out into the winter night before hitching a ride with a normal-looking couple and their two normal-looking kids. They\u2019re probably normal, right?<\/p>\n The ride quickly turns nightmarish as the uncanny family starts acting strange \u2014 including ingestion of raw livers and the family playing a spelling game of words like \u201cnecrosis\u201d and \u201cstrangulation\u201d \u2014 prompting Matty to unsuccessfully attempt an escape.<\/p>\n He accidentally hits the pregnant mother\u2019s belly, sending the woman into an immediate and painful (and gory) delivery right in the passenger seat. In the episode\u2019s crowning (no pun intended) most gruesome moment, a baby-headed winged beast plops out of the mother\u2019s body and kills Matty.<\/p>\n RIP Matty.<\/p>\n \u2026 And congratulations on the baby, I guess?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/a> Miles Ekhardt as Matty Clements in \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry\u201d (Credit: Brooke Palmer\/HBO)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Four months after Matty\u2019s disappearance, Korean War vets Major Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo<\/a>) and Captain Pauly Russo (Rudy Mancuso<\/a>) arrive at the Derry Air Force base for a new assignment. Upon arrival, however, Maj. Hanlon encounters resistance from a white subordinate, who refuses to salute the major, ostensibly because Hanlon is Black.<\/p>\n The airman is reprimanded by General Shaw (James Remar<\/a>), who asks Hanlon (recognize that last name?<\/a><\/em>) to meet him in his office the next day. There, Shaw explains that Hanlon was brought in to test-fly a brand new (and top secret) B-52 bomber jet amid tensions with the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n <\/a> Jovan Adepo as Major Leroy Hanlon in \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry\u201d (Credit: Brooke Palmer\/HBO)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Later, Hanlon is attacked in bed by a group of adversaries in gas masks who threaten to kill him if he doesn\u2019t give them the specs for the new aircraft. Hanlon refuses and, as the masked gunman prepares to fire, Russo breaks into the room and helps fight them men off. The intruders escape into the night.<\/p>\n Honestly, this is maybe the episode\u2019s weakest thread, though it has potential to become interesting. After all, what does<\/em> the Air Force have to do with anything here?<\/p>\n Lilly Bainbridge (Clara Stack<\/a>), a misunderstood Derry High School student, finds herself missing Matty, whom she had a somewhat covert friendship with. Through flashback, we learn that Matty took her to the secret hangout spot he shares with friends Teddy Uris (Mikkal Karim-Fidler<\/a>) and Phil Malkin (Jack Molloy Legault<\/a>).<\/p>\n At the secret viewing deck in an abandoned tower, Lilly opens up about why she\u2019s called \u201cloony\u201d by her classmates. Her father died in an accident she feels responsible for and she was sent away for mental health treatment. Matty says he thinks she\u2019s different than other girls and makes a move to kiss her, but Lilly isn\u2019t ready and rejects him, despite (I think?) liking him too.<\/p>\n Robert Englund reveals how Wes Craven taught him to \u2018respect\u2019 the horror genre, talks Walk of Fame star honor <\/a><\/p>\n Lilly reminisces as she prepares a bath but an eerie sound from the tub drain interrupts her reverie. A voice singing \u201cYa Got Trouble,\u201d from \u201cThe Music Man,\u201d<\/a> which the family that picked up Matty also sang before his death.<\/p>\n Hearing Matty\u2019s voice, she begs him to \u201ccome home\u201d but the voice calls out \u201cHe won\u2019t let me!\u201d as two bloody fingers emerge from the drain. Lilly decides to share the news with Teddy and Phil, hoping they\u2019ll believe her. They don\u2019t.<\/p>\n <\/a> Clara Stack as Lilly Bainbridge in \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry\u201d (Credit: Brooke Palmer\/HBO)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Phil and Teddy are best friends who\u2019ve kept themselves busy since Matty\u2019s disappearance by working on homemade comics and debating conspiracy theories. Though close, the two feel differently about the incident. While\u2019s Teddy\u2019s still sad and searching for answers, Phil urges him to move on because Matty is dead.<\/p>\n The boys tell Lilly they just can\u2019t believe her. Later that night, Teddy\u2019s dad admonishes him at dinner for posing a theory that Matty could be alive in the sewers. Mr. Uris says Teddy should reflect on the real horrors of the world, like family members lost in the Holocaust, where he says Nazis used the skin of Jewish prisoners \u201cfor lampshades.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, Teddy\u2019s trying to read a comic before bed but his lamp keeps clicking off. Teddy pulls the string to turn it on again and the light illuminates a skin-lake mass of horrifying faces. The lamp rolls across the room, cornering a screaming Teddy, before his older brother comes in and turns the lights on. In the light, everything has vanished and lamp is back in place.<\/p>\n Time to switch to overhead lighting only<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/a> The \u201cskin lampshade\u201d scene in Teddy Uris\u2019 bedroom from \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry\u201d (Credit: Brooke Palmer\/HBO)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Teddy\u2019s experience is enough to convince the boys that Lilly\u2019s telling the truth, so they all start investigating. At the local library, the trio review microfilmed newspaper articles about Matty, where they learn a classmate, Ronnie Grogan (Amanda Christine<\/a>), was the last person known to have seen Teddy.<\/p>\n When they arrive at Ronnie\u2019s apartment building, suggested to be located in a poorer part of town, they find her unwilling to discuss Matty, however. Ronnie says police tried to \u201cpin it\u201d on her dad Hank, a Black theater employee, despite having no evidence. She orders them to go but as they leave, she overhears them talking about a song in the drains and she tells them she\u2019s heard it too.<\/p>\n Who knew \u201cYa Got Trouble\u201d by Robert Preston<\/a> was charting in Derry, huh?<\/p>\n <\/a> Amanda Christine as Ronnie Grogan in \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry\u201d (Credit: Brooke Palmer\/HBO)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Ronnie tells the group the song comes from \u201cThe Music Man,\u201d and she sneaks them into the theater to see if the film might contain a clue about Matty or else, context for the song.<\/p>\n Ronnie rolls the projector as Lilly, Teddy, Phil, and Phil\u2019s little sister Susie (Matilda Legault<\/a>) watch below. As the film begins, the kids share how sad they actually are about what happened to Matty and how responsible they feel for not being able to stop it. A crying Phil consoles Teddy and Lilly, telling them it\u2019s not their fault and that all that matters is they\u2019re trying to do something about it.<\/p>\n <\/a> Clara Stack in HBO\u2019s \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry\u201d (Credit:<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The movie arrives at the \u201cYa Got Trouble\u201d scene, and the group spot an inexplicable new addition to the crowd of people in the frame: Matty. Standing in front of the creepy family from earlier, their friend is holding a swaddled baby.<\/p>\n They shout for him to follow their voices out of the movie and Matty, baby in arms, moves closer and closer toward the center of the screen.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re the reason I\u2019m in here. Because you weren\u2019t there!\u201d says the image of Matty, whose face transforms into a devilishly grinning visage resembling Pennywise. \u201cMatty\u201d tosses the crying baby through the screen and the winged monster seen earlier \u2014 now much larger \u2014 flies out, killing Susie, Phil and Teddy.<\/p>\n A blood-soaked Lilly is rescued by Ronnie and the girls lock the creature inside the theater. They stare at each other in terror as Lilly realizes she\u2019s still holding Susie\u2019s dismembered hand and credits roll.<\/p>\n Not exactly a night at the Alamo Drafthouse.<\/p>\n The first episode of \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry\u201d likely isn\u2019t what many viewers expected or perhaps hoped for from a \u201cPennywise TV show\u201d \u2014 and that\u2019s actually a good thing. Though I wasn\u2019t expecting much, I came away from the premiere impressed by how much it surprised me.<\/p>\n Showrunner and executive producer Jason Fuchs<\/a> previously said the series will focus on the origins of the shapeshifting evil entity but it will also focus on the town\u2019s<\/em> origins. \u201cDerry is <\/em>the entity in many ways,\u201d Fuchs told Entertainment Weekly<\/a> this month. This concept is well-established in episode one.<\/p>\n Though we don\u2019t see Pennywise the Dancing Clown, we do see the entity in new and frightening forms. Even when \u201cIt\u201d isn\u2019t on screen, its presence pervades. In episode one\u2019s portrait of Derry, we find mothers icing out grieving daughters, fathers lashing out at heartbroken sons, visible racial tensions and inequities, and deadly political animus<\/p>\n REVIEW: Tame Impala\u2019s \u2018Deadbeat\u2019 is more chillwave than \u2018dance\u2019 <\/a><\/p>\n There\u2019s no escaping the horrors of real life, and the show seems interested in attempting to explore these, in addition to the intergalactic, demonic ones.<\/p>\n I\u2019m delighted the Fuchs-written episode pulled a small-screen bait-and-switch by having us get to know Phil and Teddy right before their deaths. The \u201cPsycho shower scene\u201d twist<\/a> has been replicated countless times and sometimes, now, you can see it coming. But I didn\u2019t here, and I\u2019m happy with who we\u2019re left with. Finally, the episode opening was also a delight, as Fuchs and Muschietti (who directed) turn the heat up in continuously unexpected ways. There may be no clown here yet but this one\u2019s still a party.<\/p>\n Grade: A.<\/strong><\/p>\n The next episode of \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry\u201d airs<\/a> Halloween night.<\/p>\n Nexstar\u2019s Russell Falcon can be found on\u00a0Instagram<\/a>,\u00a0X<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0TikTok<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/i><\/p>\n For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\nRideshare from Hell<\/h2>\n
Derr-force<\/h2>\n
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Music from the drain<\/h2>\n
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Don\u2019t turn on the light<\/h2>\n
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Matty on the microfiche<\/h2>\n
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Immersive cinema<\/h2>\n
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Final thoughts<\/h2>\n