Derry Review assesses IT Chapter Two, in which CGI fright tactics supplant the psychological terror that rendered Pennywise so haunting and memorable.
When IT: Welcome to Derry aired on HBO at the end of 2024, fans of the genre thought it was going to be a new version of Stephen King’s horrifying world. But in its opening episode, the series offered something else — a very familiar (and not in a good way) experience. The very thing that made IT (2017) a triumph is what turns the prequel’s opening moments into a warning: the misapplication of horror principles that plagued IT: Chapter Two. And if you’re wondering where things went haywire, strap in — because it’s a lesson the franchise should have gotten the first time around.
“Young Matty Clements” The Original Story begins on the night of a snowstorm, a boy called Matty Clements running from his abusive father with nothing else but hope, young Matty Clements. He is taken in by a seemingly warm family, and for a fleeting moment the audience experiences genuine relief for him. Then everything goes horribly wrong. A grotesque, computer generated, winged thing explodes out of the car in a welter of blood. It’s supposed to echo Georgie’s death in the original movie — a chilling first taste of Pennywise’s real form. But here is the problem: it couldn’t be more wrong.
Compare with Georgie’s’s iconic death in IT (2017). Director Andy Muschietti choreographed that scene with surgical precision. Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise was this chillingly intimate, yet threateningly expansive. The Georgie and clown talk gained genuine dread through conversation and psychology rather than spectacle. Every second seemed well-earned, every shock felt intimate. Pennywise took advantage of Georgie’s particular weakness — his faith in strangers, his wish to get back his boat. That’s efficient terror.”
That’s when it gets frustrating. IT: Chapter Two (2019) in particular was derided for eschewing the psychological horror that made the 1990 version so effective. The sequel padded itself out with a two-hour-and-forty-nine-minute running time, repetitive solo missions for every Loser Club member, and most damningly a dependence on cartoonish CGI monster moments. Critics were not shy about it—the attack on the Paul Bunyan statue, the grotesquerie creature designs, the visual spectacle that is not actually scary. It was like someone told the filmmakers: Bigger means better, and they darted off blindly downhill.
Chapter Two’s Rotten Tomatoes rating fell 23 points from the original. Box office receipts plummeted by more than $230 million. The message from the crowd was plain: we don’t want spectacle, we want atmosphere.
So what Welcome to Derry accomplishes in its first few minutes? It’s the exact same error. That demon baby on the fly, that horrific beast bursting out of the family vehicle, the extended gore set piece — it’s all Chapter Two’s playbook, dusted off and amazon prime-ready. The scene goes on uncomfortably long, giving up slow-building suspense for cheap scares.The winged creature reappears at the end of the episode and that moment works better narratively, though it can still not come close to the real terror of the opening of the original film.
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This isn’t just one badly staged scene. It’s a matter of philosophy.” IT worked because it knew something fundamental: Pennywise is scariest when horror feels close and personal. The warped Judith painting that plagues Stan, the leper that represents Eddie’s hypochondria, Georgie’s guilt-induced visions — these are mental terrors sculpted around each character’s unique fears.
Welcome to Derry had the formula for greatness. It was allowed to roam in the characters, new traumas, and the societal canvas of ’60s Derry, free from the constraints of a single Stephen King novel. It got a chance to fix Chapter Two’s mistakes. Instead, it fell all over itself, hurrying for a big monster moment without cultivating the mood of dread that makes Pennywise really scary.
Welcome to Derry has already made beats of learning this lesson in later episodes. Hallucination sequences customized to characters’ fears, atmosphere-building scenes using lighting and suspense, and sequences that prey on mental fragility have far outperformed those big CGI set pieces.
If the show continues on this path – sacrificing spectacle to pummel us with character-specific horror – maybe it’ll break its cycle for once. Because the big lesson isn’t that bigger is better. It’s that personal psychological terror will always stand the test of time over a computer-generated creature, no matter how cool it looks on screen.
IT: Welcome to Derry doesn’t come up short for lack of concepts, it wavers because it abandons what made IT so terrifying to begin with. The franchise was at its weakest when Pennywise ballooned into giant CGI monstrosities; it was at its best when fear tiptoed in silently, cloaked in guilt, trauma, and anxieties so personal they couldn’t be named. Instead of building suspense, the series starts with spectacle in what briefly amounts to the exact mistake that undermined IT: Chapter Two.
That’s not to say the show is irredeemable. Its succeeding episodes point to a more comprehensive approach to psychological horror derived from building atmosphere, character-based dread and the gradual disintegration of safety. If Welcome to Derry keeps playing to those strengths, it can still do right by Stephen King’s legacy instead of watering it down. Because Pennywise, at the end of the day, does not need wings, or blood sprays, or extra run time in order to be frightening — he just needs to get close enough to whisper.
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Star Trek Strange New Worlds : explores the emotional breakup of Spock and Chapel, revealing how their split reshapes relationships and future storylines.
If you have been watching the bridge of the USS Enterprise of late, then you are well aware that the halls of Star Trek Strange New Worlds have been a bit more “emotional” than your typical starship. Nurse Christine Chapel and Lieutenant Spock—the couple that fans cheered for, sobbed over, and then witnessed come apart in a way that is only describable as “peak awkward” was at the center of that cyclone.
At Farpoint 2026, however, Brock had to finally come to terms with the elephant in the room: that musical breakup. And her impression is just as brutally honest as the character she portrays.
We all know the scene. This season in the K/S musical “Subspace Rhapsody,” Christine Chapel not only ended it with Spock, she did so in a choreographed song-and-dance routine at work with their colleagues as backup dancers. It was tactile, it was rhythmical, and Spock was crushed by it.
When it came to the scene at Farpoint, Bush had no qualms, laughing and telling the audience:
“Look, I didn’t write it. I’ve gotta be honest, when I read the script for the musical, I was like, ‘Bill [Wolkoff], this is brutal. Like, what?”
This feeling is prevalent within a majority of the Trek fanbase. Watching Spock, a man who exemplifies the struggle of balancing logic and emotion receive his heart on a silver platter in an electrifying musical extravaganza is definitely a “a moment too agonizing to look at, too overwhelming to dismiss” moment of the ages. Bush said she was just as surprised as the fans when she initially viewed where the writers were going.
One of the greatest obstacles to the Spock–Chapel romance (often referred to as “Spapel” by fans) was the reality of modern television production. Strange New Worlds, on the other hand, has a slimmed down 10-episode schedule compared to the 26-episode seasons that were packaged in the 90s.
Due to this shortened format, their dating had to move from “will-they-won’t-they” to “full-blown romance” to “heartbreaking breakup” faster than the speed of light. Although Bush and Ethan Peck had undeniable chemistry, the narrative weight of the musical episode drove a wedge between them that seemed sudden to many.
Star Trek Strange New Worlds on Season 3 finds the dust settled but the terrain different:
Jess Bush at the pity party her commentary on the breakup really wasn’t the most exciting part of her appearance at the con was that it turned to what’s to come.
The series ended shooting its fifth and final series in December 2025, but Bush teased there could be more to the story.
Bush alluded to the thought, “I think it was a very bad end, but maybe it is not the end.”
With Season 4 and 5 yet to premiere on Paramount+, the question remains for fans of what “not the end” truly means. We know where these characters end up, eventually, in The Original Series—they’re still close colleagues, but the romantic flame seems to have waned into a mutual, if occasionally painful, respect.
Can these last 16 episodes close the gap, or is there one more twist in the stars for the nurse and the Vulcan?
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Jess Bush has been a standout in the Star Trek Strange New Worlds, making a character that was routinely sidelined in the 60s into a juggernaut of ambition, wit, and vulnerability. Even if she believes the split was “brutal,” the fact that she could sell that pain is precisely why we’re all still talking about it years later.
If you are Team Chapel, Team La’an, or just Team “Let Spock Have a Nap,” there’s one thing we can all agree on is this: Strange New World’s final two seasons are shaping up to be a real tearjerker.
Explore Run Away on Netflix cast and characters from Harlan Coben’s thriller. Full breakdown of Simon, Paige, Ingrid and supporting roles.
Harlan Coben is back with a new thriller series on Netflix, and this time he’s leading you into the secret, distorted world of Run Away. ‘Run Away’ is adapted from the 2019 novel of the specified name, with a stellar cast bringing its complex characters to life. Limited to one season of eight episodes, the series has held the attention of viewers by way of compelling storytelling and performances. If you’ve already watched the show or are about to watch the show, the cast and their characters will definitely make an impact.
James Nesbitt is at the forefront as Simon Greene, whose life appears perfect until his oldest daughter Paige disappears. Nesbitt, who has played winning roles in other Coben adaptations like Missing You and Stay Close, lends a remarkable depth to a desperate father. Coben also commented on Nesbitt’s versatility, saying:
“There’s a naturalness to him that comes with an ease and warmth, so that you find yourself rooting for Simon — even when you know he’s making all the wrong choices.”
Minnie Driver is Ingrid Greene, Simon’s wife, who keeps the family stable as her husband descends in peril. Driver (The Serpent Queen, the iconic Good Will Hunting) brings emotional heft to the home front chaos at the core of this thriller.
Ellie de Lange is the daughter who had runaway, now a character with addiction issues and secrets, Paige Greene. Coben personally chose de Lange from a multitude of audition tapes, and lauded her strength and vulnerability as an actress – a fine balance key to Paige’s character arc.
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Ruth Jones stars as Elena Ravenscroft, an ex-cop-turned-private-eye. Her new case, a missing person, intersects with Simon’s own desperate mission and sends them both hurtling into a labyrinth of mystery and intrigue.
Alfred Enoch (Dean Thomas in Harry Potter) stars as Detective Isaac Fagbenle, who is looking into the murder of a drug dealer, Aaron Corval. When a viral video puts Simon at the center of the crime, Isaac’s pursuit gains momentum—especially as secrets from his past threaten to compromise the case.
Lucian Msamati (Conclave, Gangs of London) is Cornelius Faber, a former soldier now residing in the Marinduque Estate. Cornelius ends up becoming Simon’s friend and confidante, but the unpredictable nature of the former makes for some nervous moments. Msamati describes the character as “a storm waiting to happen.”
The show manages to bring genuinely unsettling characters to life, thanks to Jon Pointing as Ash and Maeve Courtier-Lilley as Dee Dee — two assassins who were raised in foster care and now run around the country wreaking havoc together. Coben characterizes them as
Like a couple plucked from True Romance or Bonnie and Clyde, they’re clearly off the rails — but the way they make their getaway is completely spellbinding.”
The ensemble is further bolstered by Tracy-Ann Oberman as Simon’s barrister Jessica Kinberg, Annette Badland as Lou, and Amy Gledhill as Detective Ruby Todd. Each character in this elaborate web of secrets and lies is needed to bring the story together in ‘Run Away’ on Netflix.
Run Away, the latest from Netflix based on the novels of Harlan Coben, shows us once again why he’s the king. With this all-star cast riveting performances, viewers are taken on an unforgettable journey into darkness and despair. The series is now available to stream on Netflix, which is ready to you keep you busy on your next binge-fest.
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