User reviews

This is it! This is what we want! I love the fact that they are not shying away from making this series as disturbing as possible. I won't spoil anything but the ending is so unpredictable and you don't see it coming at all. I don't think there could've been a better start to a show than this first episode. I seriously cannot wait for the next.

Some scenes have scare potential, but consistently get ruined by over the top goofy horror stuff. It never gets actually scary. The kids are typical generic hollywood nerds. One guy is an exact copy of the annoying guy from the modern movies and Stranger Things. The dialogues don't feel very natural and often too modern. The story has some potential, the 60's look looks fine but the camera angles are sometimes odd.

The first episode of It: Welcome to Derry is simply magnificent and serves to redeem the director who failed with It: Part Two. And anyone complaining that It didn't appear clearly didn't understand the first movie and its premise, it's about It's influence on Derry and its people. It's not just about fear, but its power over the collective. And the episode delivered that very well - not to mention the ending, which features a twist that, at least for me, was unexpected.

Because this doesn't seem to be written by human writers. It is lazy, incoherent and not one once of mystery or eerieness.

It is all "in your face" loud volume scares which are tacky, spoonfed and forced.

The direction of the kids is bad, they seem like little adults who use current lingo, taking the viewer out the 1950's.

I don't see this getting better.

A group of kids are on high alert when one of their own, Matty, a fellow outsider, vanishes - only some of the kids think they've heard him in the drain system underground.

I'm almost apologising here, like a parent trying to be polite about a glitter-covered, green donkey painting: made with love, but... simple.

This is not Stephen King. This is a Goonies-inspired episode of Stranger Things. There's taking liberties, and then there's giving us an angry Christmas decoration instead of Pennywise. I'm writing from years of reading the book and watching the original adaptation - subtle, measured fear, not the in-your-face, flying goblin kind we're subjected to here.

I'll applaud the acting and special effects - part of the opening sequence was genuinely creepy - but soon it turns into something that just feels forced.

The pilot's story itself is fine; I'm intrigued. But as for the Scooby-Doo team and the long-lost brother of Bacchus... not convinced.

5/10.

I loved It Chapter One, HATED Chapter Two so I have mixed hopes for the show. This episode has great moments but my two complaints are the dialogue is not realistic with the kids at all- Chapter One had great, realistic flowy dialogue and this isn't like that at all. I can picture the script while hearing it. And the scares did nothing for me which I know is subjective, but the CGI action stuff does nothing for me. If I'd see it in an action movie it's not that good. But the stories are intriguing and the acting is pretty good. Interested to see where the show will go.

The actors are good.. but there's an itch that feels off. If you're going to set a film in a different time period you need to do 3 things right. 1. Costumes; this show does amazing at the ambience! Probs, clothes, hair style is perfect! 2. Scenery; th cgi of a 60's town is rough... it's so over saturated that it distracts from the plot. Sunsets built with shader plus is gross.. just film in a filed at twilight it's strange that the production crew would skip this. 3. Dialogue; use speech and accents of the times. This series does a solid 0/10 on this. It's abysmal. Slapping young kids in with 0 training is apparent. Loses All credibility for the era.

In case you enjoy nightmarishly bad CGI and writers who confused comedy with horror, then this series is just right for you. I had a hearty laugh. But I'm afraid the show will have its titular character appear in ugly CGI form most of the time to keep Skarsgård's salary in check. The story is far too erratic. The characters were barely introduced before disappearing again, which the audience just shrugs off. At best, it might qualify as a guilty pleasure...

It borrows a lot from the IT movies that came before, which makes it look cheap and tacky. These kids feel like Temu versions of the original kids. Two main boys in this episode are just knockoffs of Richie and Stanley from the original movie. The only good thing is production quality the rest is kinda "meh" and the acting is not good. It's not really scary or creepy it just feels random and considering the runtime is almost 55 minutes, the story seems slow. As a pilot it's meant to hook people and I'm personally not, but the series might get better.

Love the path this is headed. Grotesque and not walking on egg shells. Let's just say nobody is safe and they're not afraid to show it right out of the gate!

Some scenes pay homage to the movie making it easy to follow for new viewers or people who have followed the feature length movies. I admittedly haven't read the novel, started many times, but do love the movies both old and new.

Looking forward to how the tell the story!

From the outset, the pilot of IT: Welcome to Derry shows flashes of promise - but overwhelmingly, it trips over its own ambition. Directed by Andy Muschietti and setting out in 1962 in the town of Derry, the show is meant to deepen the mythology of the cursed town, the missing children, and the monster beneath the sewers. Unfortunately, Episode 1 ends up feeling disjointed, overstuffed, and strangely inert for a horror-series launch.

What doesn't work: 1. Too many characters and threads.

One of the most persistent complaints is that the pilot opens not so much with a focused central narrative as with a scattered ensemble. Critics point out that the writing "jumps around all these seemingly disconnected characters." The effect: rather than drawing the viewer into a tight, compelling arc, the episode is constantly sidetracked by new names, subplots, locations and time-jumps. It dilutes momentum and leaves the horror elements hanging rather than driving them forward.

2. A strong horror short that unravels into a weak hour.

The opening sequence - a road-trip gone wrong, a family that seems normal until it isn't, a demonic birth - is genuinely eerie and shows what the series could do.

But after that promising start, the remainder of the episode struggles to maintain the tension it initially generated. Screen Rant puts it bluntly: "The rest of the episode fails to live up to the terrifying opening." Horror works on atmosphere, escalation and stakes; here the threat is presented, but the follow-through lacks coherence and urgency.

3. Scares that fall flat.

The show invests in visual and creature effects, and while that might sound good, in practice some of those effects feel cheap or cartoonish - undermining the grounded terror the show seems to aspire to. One review mentions that a lampshade made of human faces "is a terrifying sight - until ... the mouths start to move, when it just becomes goofy." When horror turns into absurd spectacle without the build-up, it loses impact. For a series associated with Stephen King's world and the earlier films, that's a disappointing step backwards.

4. Writing and tone feel uncertain.

Despite the show's strong production design - the 1960s setting, costumes, the townscape of Derry - many critics argue the writing doesn't match. For example: "Overstuffed ensemble, an unfocused plot, and a disappointing dearth of genuine scares." Because the episode tries to juggle so many themes (missing kids, racial tension, military conspiracies, supernatural seepage) the tone wobbles. Sometimes we're in real emotional terrain, sometimes we're in cartoon-horror. That mismatch hampers immersion.

5. Fan-service without substance.

As a prequel to IT, the series naturally leans on legacy and nostalgia. But some reviewers warn that by over-referencing the familiar (kids on bikes, sewers, children disappearing) without delivering a fresh or compelling twist, the show risks feeling derivative. As one write-up put it: "It is really challenging to recommend ... if you are a fan of this franchise ... be patient." In short: if you're coming in expecting the lightning-strike fear and originality of the first IT film, you may be disappointed.

Bottom line: Episode 1 of IT: Welcome to Derry raises the flag for something ambitious: a richly realised setting, eerie visuals, and the promise of a deeper mythology. But it fails to deliver that promise in the pilot hour. The story feels unfocused, the scares too often veer into the silly, and the flood of characters and subplots leaves you struggling to care. For horror that aims to dig into childhood trauma and small-town evil, it instead gives you a sprawling setup that lacks the emotional sharpness or narrative discipline to carry it - at least not yet.

If I were giving it a grade: 6/10 - decent effort, but too many missteps to fully recommend. If the show tightens its focus and dials back the spectacle in favour of character and tension, there's still potential. But as a premiere it's under-whelming given the expectations.

Before watching, I was just hoping to see Pennywise. I tried not to consider any connections between the TV series and the other two films or other stories in Stephen King's universe.

The first scene in the car is one of the most shocking, sickening, and graphic openings I've seen in years. Let the audience know that this isn't a Stranger Things-type story. There are two main storylines: a gang of inner-city kids who are linked by Matty, a kid who might be "It"'s first victim here, who goes missing. I've loved them all from the very first episode. Their characters are distinct and unique. Like the movies, they face "It" in the form of their own fears or traumas. The other storyline follows two pilots who have just been transferred to a military base in the town, encountering mysterious and unusual things within the base. They'll likely encounter more unusual things in the town later on. But as military men, they seem ready to fight.

One clever thing is that this episode is titled "The Pilot," which could refer to the pilot episode of the series, but also hints at the characters of Jovan Adepo and Rudy Mancuso, two pilots who have just been transferred to the city a well.

Director Andy Muschietti, who helmed both films, also directed the first episode of the show. This guy is really good at using visuals to tell a story. It straddles the line between creepy, gross, and downright hilarious. I hope they can keep this momentum going. Finally, I salute their audacity. I never thought they'd get off on it like this from the start. No one in this story is safe.

Let me point out how Pennywise worked in the movies: 1. It slowly builds fear in people to "season" them and very rarely outright "takes them"; 2. Pennywise never outright attacks a group of people - he threatens them, he splits them up, isolates them, and only then he "takes them" one by one; 3. Pennywise never "takes" more than one person at a time; 4. Threading on his domain (sewers) is the exception - then he outrights "takes people" with very little restraint.

At the beginning of the first episode it looks like the producer/director respected these unwritten rules, but by the end of the first episode it is outright shown that they did not respect it.

Without spoiling anything, I can say that the first episode failed both as a horror show and as IT prequel. It went for the shock factor, but all it managed to do was to disappoint. Moreover, it shown that now Pennywise is not even interested in building fear into people and that he can simply "take" any people at any time, and there is absolutely no reason why characters would survive for longer than a single episode aside from plot armor and modern politics.

Just stick the movies. Even the second movie was better than this.

I'm going to keep it short. IT as a show is decent at best. As unsettling with its horror as it is on the big screen, it is with everything in between where it fails to hit the same checks boxes. From child acting to the writing and pacing, it is simply put undercooked and so far just feels like an unnecessary addition to the franchise. We already had this, but better. Maybe stick to the two parter.

Holy cow that opening scene and ending scene was intense! You rarely see anything on that level and it was satisfying. Probably because all horror seems really tame these and hardly any shock value. But this checked every box I had going into this show. I was excited for this to air and it lived up to my expectations. I want to write a lengthy, in depth review but I'm still getting over the whole thing. Don't come up like characters right out the gate, that's all I'm saying. But this started off with a great big jump in the right direction, I hope it keeps the same momentum for the Halloween episode. Shock value, brutality, interesting story line that we all know from the IT movies already but the deliverance was a chef's kiss.

Like in The Flash, Muschietti's odd CGI baby obsession returns in IT Welcome To Derry. Overconfidence in digital spectacularity and a progressive disconnection from the practical or emotional horror that made the original It films work. Many will celebrate this approach, but CGI is not needed to generate genuine terror.