A New Family, A Familiar Doom
The trailer introduces Charlotte and Leroy Hanlon, a couple who move to Derry in 1962. Their arrival coincides with the disappearance of a child, setting off the town’s latest spiral into horror.
If the Hanlon name sounds familiar, it should. Mike Hanlon, the historian of the Losers’ Club, was the one who pieced together Derry’s cursed history in King’s original novel. This prequel suggests that the Hanlon family’s roots in Derry go deeper than fans may have realized.
Pennywise’s Origin Story
Bill Skarsgård is back in full makeup as Pennywise, and the trailer hints at his beginnings. We glimpse a meteor crash, cryptic rituals, and the sense that Derry itself is poisoned by something older than human memory.
The show appears to answer the question the films only hinted at: Where did Pennywise come from? By leaning into the cosmic horror of Stephen King’s lore, Welcome to Derry promises to pull the curtain back on the creature’s first arrival and its cycle of awakening every 27 years.
The Town as a Character
The trailer lingers on Derry itself: misty streets, decaying buildings, crimson balloons floating in the air. Just as in the films and novel, the town isn’t just a backdrop. It’s a character. Complicit, cursed, and corrupted.
There’s an ominous moment where a road sign reads “Anywhere but Derry,” underscoring that those who come here can never truly leave unchanged.
The Themes Beneath the Horror
Like the best of King’s work, Welcome to Derry isn’t just about jump scares and monsters. The trailer suggests deeper themes:
Racism and violence: The Black Spot fire storyline is expected to depict systemic hatred manipulated by Pennywise.
Memory and denial: Derry’s citizens once again seem blind to its horrors, forgetting tragedies that should never be forgotten.
The futility of wealth and power: The town’s elites, just like its poorest citizens, are powerless against the cycles of Pennywise’s terror.
This makes the series as much about human nature as it is about cosmic evil.
We’ve seen plenty of horror prequels, but few have the potential weight of Welcome to Derry. By setting the story decades earlier, it can explore how fear, prejudice, and history intertwine. By tying in King’s larger universe, it hints at a shared mythology of horror. And by returning Skarsgård to his most chilling role, it guarantees the kind of nightmare fuel that made the IT films global hits.
Final Note
The IT: Welcome to Derry trailer doesn’t just tease more Pennywise scares. It reframes Derry as the center of something much larger, darker, and more interconnected than fans may have imagined.
The series premieres on HBO Max in october 2025, and if the trailer is any indication, it won’t just revisit familiar fears — it will expand them.
