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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
14
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
Oct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The cast’s emotional depth and depictions of fright and panic really elevate “It: Welcome to Derry.” .... When it’s all said and done, “It: Welcome to Derry” is a worthy prequel series that not only details the emergence of Pennywise, but also turns a lens on society to showcase how truly horrifying we can be as human beings.
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The IndependentOct 27, 2025
Season 1 Review:
King diehards will be impressed by how faithfully the show recreates IT’s atmosphere of fetid, rising dread. Even Derry Girls fans who have switched on in confusion might be convinced to stick around – at least until the geysers of gore get going and the body parts pile up.
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Oct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Welcome to Derry excels in juggling its numerous storylines (so far) and offers great showcases for actors Chris Chalk and Jovan Adepo, as well as its countless scene-stealing child stars. It’s unclear if the HBO show will be able stick its scary landing, but the first batch of episodes prove to be spine-chilling fun this spooky season.
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Oct 28, 2025
Season 1 Review:
“Derry” dribbles out character details episode-by-episode through five (of eight) episodes made available for review, routinely connecting seemingly disparate characters. That “Stand by Me”-meets-“Stranger Things” vibe of the first episode returns in episode three, thankfully, since it’s the show’s most potent element.
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The Mercury NewsOct 23, 2025
Oct 30, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Here, either it’s assumed we know more, or character development was a casualty of the writing process. Either way, some characters are written pretty thin. Luckily, the young actors are all engaging, making up for a lot of that. And if you like horror — it sounds as if horror would be self-evident in a horror series, but fans of the genre know it can be surprisingly lacking — “It: Welcome to Derry” won’t disappoint. At least not much.
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TV InsiderOct 24, 2025
Screen RantOct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Viewers looking for Stand by Me or even HBO’s King adaptation of The Outsider may be disappointed by the conventional plot and surface-level gestures at difficult topics like race in America, Native American erasure, and Cold War parallels, but those looking for invention, captivating characters, and flying two-headed newborns, IT: Welcome to Derry has a place for you to stay.
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Oct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Unfortunately, some of the most unsettling moments of terror and gore to grace the small screen are contrasted here by some of the cheapest and corniest. .... There’s still surprising depth to Welcome to Derry’s overarching allegory of evil. Having an antagonist who feeds on fear, then drastically expanding those fears on a macro level of a still-segregated society, is smart, timely, and more frightening than most of the show’s actual scares.
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The GuardianOct 27, 2025
Season 1 Review:
It: Welcome to Derry is not going to trouble the top tier of TV adaptations in the King pantheon (including the 1990 version of It wherein Tim Curry’s Pennywise made coulrophobics of us all) but it is solidly entertaining stuff – on a par with Under the Dome, say, rather than the dismal recent offering that was The Institute – and should give fans the nightmares of their dreams.
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Oct 24, 2025
Season 1 Review:
The kids — also including Marge (Matilda Lawler, the secret weapon of “Station Eleven” and “The Santa Clauses”), Lilly’s socially desperate friend — are the strongest element in the story and the show; their energy overwhelms the obviousness of the narrative, and whatever takes us away from them, into pace-slowing side plots, is time less well spent.
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Radio TimesOct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
For horror fans, and those who consider themselves to be Constant Readers (apparently that's the name of Stephen King's fandom), it will likely satisfy, especially as we head into the Halloween season. But if you're tuning in to Welcome to Derry and expecting to return to exactly the same sewers as It Chapters 1 & 2, perhaps you won't be floating too.
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Oct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
“Welcome to Derry” feels like a lesser imitation of the Netflix phenomenon ["Stranger Things"] in almost every way. “Things” mythology and monsters are cooler, the characters are generally richer with more complex psychology, and the evocation of smalltown 1980s isn’t as hamfisted (nor anachronistic) as this show’s early ‘60s. .... The Muschietti team has certainly set up potentially intriguing storylines in these first five chapters, so who knows where it could all go.
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Oct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
For the first five episodes, Welcome to Derry fluctuates between dialogue-heavy scenes that incrementally further parallel mysteries (which we know must eventually lead to Pennywise in the sewers) and overwrought, traumatic backstories that force actors into a uniform state of skittishness and desperation.
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IndieWireOct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
Episodes strain to touch on those fan-favorite aspects almost as often as they work to expand the Stephen King universe from within (even incorporating a missing kid plot reminiscent of “It: Chapter One”). But an engine fueled by filling in the blanks isn’t built to last, and these dots, once connected, prove tacky and sour.
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Oct 27, 2025
Season 1 Review:
It’s both surprising and ultimately frustrating, then, that Welcome to Derry isn’t so much a further adaptation of the novel as a half-baked attempt at a prequel, an elaborate but ultimately vapid work of King fanfiction dumped into an entertainment landscape that already boasts no shortage of such endeavors.
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LooperOct 22, 2025
Season 1 Review:
It does have a decent story structure and execution, but also a sameness to other similar series in the genre that makes it impossible for it to stand out in any real way. It's just another installment to an IP that will likely satisfy die-hard fans of Stephen King's novel (and its numerous adaptations who are hungry for more details and backstories, but barely anybody else who isn't as obsessed and devoted to it.
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RogerEbert.comOct 22, 2025
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