ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 1 Reaction and Review - Does it Break the King Curse?

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

ScreenCrush The Podcast tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals.

The first episode of It, Welcome to Derry, makes it official. We are living in a golden age of Stephen King adaptations. Welcome back to Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie, and I'm going to explain why Stephen King adaptations are suddenly so damn good after decades being, well, mediocre. A little later, I'm going to be joined by two horror experts, Colton Ogburn and Brianna McClarty to get their thoughts on the first episode. But first, let me explain why these adaptations were always so bad in the past.

Right a minute. There's a lot of good Stephen King movies. Got Carrie, The Shining. Oh, yeah, there are a ton of... of great Stephen King movies and shows, Green Mile, Shawshank, Stand By Me, Misery, It, The Mist, but there are also more than 60 Stephen King adaptations for movies and TV,

and once you get past that top 15, there's a huge drop-off. So what separates classics like Shawshank from the Langaleers? And where does It Welcome to Derry fall into that range? Well, first of all, Stephen King's stories work because the man is just so great

at crafting characters first. Even in his short stories, he really makes you care about these people. he fleshes them out so they feel real. Stephen King protagonists feel like somebody in your hometown that you've known your whole life. Now, primarily, he does this by writing in either first person or the third person limited and presenting chapters from the points of view of his characters. We are always privy to their thoughts, usually literally as he italicizes internal monologues on the page.

But this makes his characters very difficult to translate on screen. It's no accident that some of the best adaptations of King's work, like Stand By Me and Shawshank, have employed a voiceover. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. This is the kind of thing where if you think about it, when you learn your ABCs when you're a kid. That was me, hosting screen crush videos. Those were the days before the monster came,

before Doug ran away. Those days I thought I was free, but I was in a cage. See, like that. It's a narrative shortcut to make you care more about the characters, but you can't use narration in every single movie. God help you. It's flaccid, sloppy writing.

Any idiot can write voice. voiceover narration. Now, when you run through the best Stephen King adaptations, it's not a coincidence. They are directed by some incredible artists. Rob Reiner, Stanley Kubrick, Frank Darabot, Mike Flanagan, John Carpenter, Brian DePalma, David Cronenberg. Like, these are the artists who were able to apply their own visual style and experience to King's work. But over the year, Stephen King was treated more like a brand and studios slapped his name on anything like he was Krusty the clown. I heartily endorse this event or product. So to save money, studios would then enlist journeyman directors out for a quick buck, and Oscar caliber work from directors like Frank Deribont

then became a rarity. Now, I said the main reason King's story's work is because we relate to the characters, but there's a flip side to this, a dark flip side. The other reason is the awful, awful things that he does to his characters. This man is not afraid to put these likable, relatable people through absolute hell. So any Stephen King adaptation has to get the horror part right. And let's face it, horror by its nature, can easily be very silly. It is a thin line between scary and, hilarious. Like, look at how Freddie and Jason, you started off really scary, but now they've become funny corporate mascots over the years. So, if we do not buy the gore and special effects, we just subconsciously immediately check out of any story. And most Stephen King adaptations are made with schlocky, B-movie effects that the studio used because they were already in debt for paying for the rights to Stephen King's stories.

Now, a large reason for this was the restrictions of the medium, usually TV. Some Stephen King's stories, like The Stand, are epics, so that book was adapted quite loyally into a sprawling week-long miniseries on ABC. The problem there is you're dealing with network budgets, network gore, and network language. Watching King adaptations on network TV was like drinking beer through a sock. Even when you had a loaded cast like The Stand, shoddy special effects undermine the pervasive fear in King's original work. And when you look at the adaptations of King's work, it's also not an accident that the most successful attempts were largely taken. from straight dramas with little gore or mysticism, like Misery, Stand by Me, Shawshank. They're not exactly on-brand stories for Stephen King,

but King's stories are filled with horrific, incredibly gory science fiction and horror scenes. Like, for instance, in the Dark Tower book 6, when Susanna gives birth to a baby that already has teeth and it immediately runs away. It's horrifying on the page, but it could easily look silly with the wrong special effects. And yet, the first episode of It Welcome to Dairy features a grotesque birth that could have been taken taken straight from a King's story. The visual effects here don't hold back. We can't even show it on the channel. It's gory, it's visceral, and it makes you, oh God, just cringe thinking about it. But that is not why the scene works. We are also in that car watching everything for the point of view of Maddie,

the little boy with the pacifier who just wants to run away from home. So the very first scene in the show makes us identify with Maddie right away. He's watching a movie and we are watching a show. We're experiencing the same sort of entertainment. He's also poor. He's the underdog. He's being chased by an authority figure. And we also don't know much about his home life, but we know it must be bad because he's trying to run away from home in the middle of a snowstorm. Now, if you have seen the It movies, then you're used to Pennywise appearing like usually as a person to frighten the kids. But we've never seen him take on so many forms at once. So I was surprised that this nice, benevolent family turned out to be one of Pennywise's illusions. But then ask yourself, why did Pennywise appear as a family? Well,

Maddie comes from a broken home, so this is tapping into his worst fear. And it's actually a common fear of children to be abandoned by their families while they're in a car. This was like the first nightmare I could remember as a kid in the back seat and both of my parents suddenly bailed out of the front. You think about it. You're a kid. You're in the car. The worst thing that can happen is that your parents are suddenly gone and you have to drive the car yourself. This opening scene ramps up this tension from a common subconscious fear and it doesn't hold back on the gore. And the episode from then on never really lets up. We meet each kid one by one and like in the best Stephen King stories, we find reasons to empathize with all of them.

And that killer final scene shows us that no one in this universe is safe. But now I'm joined by two of my all-time favorite horror experts. We have Colton Ogburn who's trapped in our TV and doesn't know it, so please don't tell him. And Brianna McClarty, the ghost that haunts the back of the video store, who we dare not speak of, lest her evil magic overwhelm is forever. Brianna, we never get to see you anymore. It's as good to see you as it could be to see a ghost that haunts my living nightmares.

I want to start here, like, before we get into it, this episode of it, Welcome to Derry. What do you think about Stephen King adaptations and why don't they always land? I love Stephen King as a writer. He's maybe one of my favorite writers. Kerry is definitely up there in my favorite books of all time. And I think it's really hard to land his adaptations because so much of what makes it scary, it's the fact that you don't know everything that's going on.

And I think as a viewer of a TV show or of a movie, that isn't as rewarding. In a book, that can be really rewarding. say when you so much of what makes it scary, do you mean it book or Stephen King's work? It as Stephen King's work. So much of what makes his work scary. The amount of terrible puns we throw out related to it, it would just depress anybody. So sorry, yeah, you're right. You're right about that. And continue. When you're reading a book, it can be really cool to navigate through this one character. It doesn't work as well, in my opinion, in most movies. I also just think that the level

of gore and weird things he describes is really difficult to capture. I always think about Carrie and I love the movie Carrie. It's an amazing movie. But the way he describes how Carrie feels her telekinesis, how she can feel people's fingers and doorways and stuff, it's something that can be never replicated in film. And so I feel like that is where you lose some of it. It just, he has such a specific style of writing and describing things that is really different. to translate. Interesting. I did not expect you to come out saying that Brian De Palma's Carrie failed as an adapt, not failed as an adaptation, but didn't meet the expectation of the book, because I'll be honest, I've seen the movie. I've not read the book, Carrie, read a bunch of Stephen King,

without that. That's very interesting. I think the movie is amazing. I love it. It is sort of like the Shining Movie to me, where even though it is, again, a very good adaptation, they're just things I don't know how you would capture that. I don't know how you would capture the way she feels italicinesis. I think they do a good job of describing her emotional state, especially with all the music and the lighting. But there's stuff like that that I think is actually really just reserved with the book medium. And as a book lover and a movie lover, you have to expect that to some extent. And I think that's also what makes books special. And it's what makes movies special. Yeah. So Colton, I know you're a big fan of Stephen King's work as well. Why do you think so much

of Stephen King's work just does not translate? You know, before we get into this episode and why we like it? Well, you know, I don't give him a lot of credit, whether it be positive or negative credit, when it comes to the adaptations of his stuff. I mean, he's a very talented writer, and I think that's what he should be judged on, are his books. He's not a screenwriter either. You guys might be able to tell me, hasn't he done a few screenplays, like, for some of his films? And original works, too, like Storm of the Century. Yeah. There have been masterpieces based on King's work, like Shawshank.

there have been, you know, some not so great stuff. I won't pick on anything in particular. But let's move on to what you thought. So you wrote and hosted our breakdown video, a great breakdown video. You really dove into all the nuances. What were your thoughts in this first episode and did it work for you? Yeah, I really liked it. And I'm really, really glad that Pennywise wasn't in it. I think that they lean on the clown too much. But, you know, that's always been what they leaned on even going back to the, the miniseries that they did. It takes on so many different forms,

and I'm glad that they're exploring that. And I haven't got to watch, like, any other episodes, but from what I've heard, is they really explore all the different monsters that it can be throughout this season and don't do too big of a focus on the clown until later. So I'm excited to hear that, because that's what they do in the book.

So I'm really excited for that. I got to just a general question for both of you before I get your thoughts on the episode, Brianna. When did the clown first become an image that he, because he appears every 27 years, right, throughout history? I mean, was the clown just a fairly recent one? Because you got me thinking, did that first start in the 50s? Or what in the book? Are they ever specific on that point?

Or in the flashbacks does he appear as a clown as well? In the book, I'm less certain. I believe in the movies, they do find photos like going back pretty far where the clouds in it. But I'm not sure when the book starts. Okay, got it. So thanks for clearing that up. Brianna, what did you think about this opener? I really enjoyed it. Yeah, it was brutal.

So that's actually what I enjoyed most about it. I will say, like, that opening scare hook was horrifying, and I was, like, wincing as I watched it. And I enjoyed that so much. I love being like, that was terrible and terrifying, and I loved it. I will say where it hasn't, I'm really enjoying watching it. It just hasn't quite for me. answered the question of, is it going to make the movies and just the lore better? And I think that might go a little bit into me being just more of a horror fan than I am a sci-fi fan.

I really like sci-fi, but horror is my first love. And it does seem like they're going to have a military and sort of more sci-fi element storyline. And I don't know if that for me makes it scarier. I think maybe I'm okay with Pennywise slash it. We have the references to that. We kind of know that background, but it being a little bit more up in the air. And so at the moment, that's the only thing I'm struggling with in the show.

But I hope it does make me feel like, okay, this is really bolstering the lore. This is really bolstering the movies because as a standalone, I'm really enjoying it. It's just hard not to think about the movies and be like, why do I care about these characters when we already have like the losers club who's amazing. Yeah, it is going to be hard for them to not repeat those same beats over and over that we've seen. I mean, killing a kid, killing two kids in the first episode is a pretty darn good start to that. I will say though, as far as the sci-fi aspect goes, and like the military base, I think Colton, you talked about this in your breakdown video.

There was Cold War paranoia at the time, the Red Scare. So it's not just about the fears of these kids, but it seems like it's a great time for it to tie into the fears of a nation. And we also get the racism in the early 1960s, you know, at the start of it too. So I loved how they're doing that. And obviously there's a huge history of Stephen King, military stories, the shop, things like that, that are mentioned other stuff. Colton, what do you think? What was your first thought, like, breakdown aside, what was your first thought of this?

Well, I think one of the key reasons that it is even in the title is just for like IP sake. I think that the true title of the show really is Welcome to Derry. and they're going to be diving into far more than just the it of it all. Derry shows up in so many of King's other works, and there's so many weird things that happen in Derry. And I really think they're going to be diving into that as well in this series. And I'm excited for it because, yes, it's a horror novel. King's a horror writer,

but there is so much science fiction and alien stuff specifically and, like, love Crafty and just, weird shit, like the giant space turtle that I personally love about its works. So I'm hoping that with this being a series instead of a movie, that they're going to feel like the freedom to really dive into that stuff and get weird with it. So that's my hope for the series. And I think episode one really showed that they're willing to go there. In terms of like the replicating of the Losers Club, I had the exact same thought as I was taking notes watching it. I was like, wow, there's a ton of parallels to the losers. This is.

is going to get really repetitive. So I was really glad to see more than half of them get slaughtered at the end of the episode. Yeah, you heard it here first for folks. Colton's just not sold on a show until you kill off half the children. And apparently I don't like the mist. I don't know. I remember you always complained about full house. You were like, that's a pretty good show, but does the house have to be so full? Can't we just purge some of these kids? I personally, going back to King, Lorre, right? I don't know if you guys watch Castle Rock. Did you guys watch that show? I watched some of it, not all of it. Pretty cool show. It's set in the Stephen King multiverse,

so they tied into Salem's Lod and Shawshank. There's all these things that are in and around Castle Rock, which I think is really cool. Hell, we just did a whole video about the Stephen King universe and how everything is connected. Really good, by the way. Thank you. And you're pretty, I don't know, as of this viewing, it doesn't have any views to speak of,

but your It projector video is just flat out one of my favorite videos we've ever done, the video about the projector scene. just love that video. I've watched it, you know, almost all the way through. You know, really, really great job. So consider those plugs, now plugged. But there's so much stuff, like you're right,

like Dream Catchers about aliens also takes place in Derry. I hope that there's enough Stephen King IP that's owned by Warner Brothers to where if this show goes multiple seasons, you know, one, maybe we go further into the past for next season, and it's about other groups or something like that. like in different time periods, but also it would just be cool to expand the scope and see other creatures like Pennywise from Toadash Space like the Monsters in the Mist, not to keep bringing that up. Well, and there's a lot of, would you guys agree, there's a lot of redundancy when it comes to its like different characters and stuff? Like, yeah, you'll hear like the same towns and stuff mentioned or they'll reuse certain characters.

But I feel like a lot of the times you'll create other characters that are pretty much, it's just like, well, that could have been Pennywise. You're right, though. There's lots of connections. Like, the Dark Tower movie was supposed to be, like, the beginning of that, right? And, like, Ben Affleck tried to do the Dark Tower. Ron Howard was going to do a Dark Tower movie, followed by a TV series. And the casting of the Dark Tower was so good. I mean, Idris L was a perfect role in. So I, maybe, hell, wouldn't that be a hell of a twist? If at the end of this, these kids maybe defeat Pennywise or not defeat him, but, like, get past him at the end of the season. But then, they get sucked through a thinny and next thing, you know, we're in a cheeky dairy in another universe or something like that. I don't know. I just want to see those stories told with this same level of care and budget. Breonna, what about you? Do you think that we're going to get more of the king verse in this? I will say, kind of thinking of it more as a Welcome to Dairy show versus a It Welcome to Dairy show does make me like it. It'll like personally like it better because there is a lot of untapped market in Dairy.

There's also a really weird and good story that I believe is also set in Derry called Needful Things, where kind of Castle Rock. Oh, that's in Castle Rock. But they could change it. I mean, Castle Rock and Derry are like these two. They're right next to each other. Demonic pinpoints. Yeah, they're close, yeah. They're not super close, but. But Neatful Things could easily be shifted over to Derry. You're right. Yeah, and there's so much lore there. I would love it if they approached it more, almost doesn't answer.

where different dairy stories are happening. Yeah. Because there is a ton of things that aren't just related to Pennywise. And I do feel, and I feel like this show is going to do a very good job, but it part one and part two are pretty definitive it stories for me. I think it would be hard to top that or just keep adding on to it. So it would be more interesting for me if they do kind of this as a it prequel of sorts and then just dive into all the other lore.

That would be awesome. They just dropped the it for the second season, like use that to get us hooked. But then maybe next season, what if we got it like, you know, insomnia? You know, like that book, that would never work as an adaptation for a movie. But it takes place in Dairy. It ties into the dark tower. There are so many books that take place in and around Derry or in Haven where Shalshink is. Like they could do a million different things with that IP, especially if this season's a hit.

And Warner Brothers goes, hey, let's start buying this up. What else can we do? Again, probably not going to do a cheeky dart tower series, but they could make it a spinoff. I just love the dark tower so much. I mean, it's just the imagination he puts into those worlds. It's mind-blowing if you guys haven't seen it. So do you guys think this is like a better medium?

I'll just leave you with this question, I guess. Is this a better medium for Stephen King's work, television, like streaming television R-rated than movies where everything has to be condensed? What do you guys think? Colton? I don't know that it's better. I mean, if you're wanting to, like, explore certain characters more and tell more story than sure.

And, I mean, especially with, I mean, the It book itself is so fucking long. So I get that. No, I wouldn't say it's better. They're two totally different things. We've seen this story told in film, what, like three times now. So I'm glad that they're going the series route with it, just to kind of change things up and explore other things.

And I think, I would say in the next 10 years or so, we probably see another something in this universe that, you know, they take theatrically. And if they explore like doing a cinematic universe of King's stuff and it's really starting with Welcome to Derry, then, I mean, yeah, do movies, do shows. I mean, have a whole franchise built around it. I would love to see that.

Brianna, what about you? And if this is a follow-up question, if this is a cinematic universe, they're starting. what's the first thing you want to see them get in there that we need to see? My answer is obviously the Dark Tower. I think in terms of movies versus TV shows, it just really depends on the stories. His breadth of work is so big that I think it's really hard to be like, this is always better this way, this is always better that way.

The Long Walk just came out, which he wrote under Richard Bachman, which is a great movie. I do like Carriess movie. Misery is a great movie. And I don't know if I think those would work better. in sort of a long serialized form. I think they work as movies. I think something like Dreamcatcher

would work really well as a TV show because there's more nuances. They did try to do a missed TV show. I haven't seen it, but I don't remember it being on for super alone. And finally, I'll give this question to both of you, Brianna, if this is a new high-budget, high-end director, Stephen King,

Expanded Universe that they're doing, what do you want to see Adapted First? I do love Needful Things. that is a really good book. So that... And not a great movie. Oh, I didn't even know there was a movie. It's okay.

Ed Harris. Or Fairy Tale, which is a pretty new book he wrote. It's another brick. But it is really good and it's pretty intricate. So I think it could be a very cool TV show. Very cool. Colton, same question, do you? What do you think?

You know what would make for a good TV show, but I almost want the movie to just be considered canon is The Shining. I really like what they did with Dr. Sleep, but I think you can maybe tell a cool story there. And we've got the character from The Shining. What's that character's name? And he's in it. Dick. Yeah. There's some cool stuff going on there. I guess that's my answer. I'm not too familiar with what they haven't. Are you asking what I want them to do that they haven't already adapted? There's a favorite Stephen King. Nah, whatever it is. It could be like, because obviously they've done the Dark Tower. see it done right. Everybody's got their favorite Stephen King that was, you know. I too would like

to see the Dark Tower done right. Yeah, who wouldn't? So I want to know this also from all you guys down in the comments. What Stephen King, do you want to see most adapted and given the it, welcome to dairy treatment, of course, what you thought of the first episode. Brianna McClardy, the ghost who haunts the back of the store in my living nightmares, thank you so much for coming back again. We appreciate it. Colton Ogburn, trapped in the TV doesn't know, so please don't tell him down in the comments. Thank you for coming as well. Looks like there's a problem with Colton's Mike. We'll get that fixed. Guys, if it's your first time here, please subscribe, smash that for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.