It: Welcome to Derry subverts a frustrating horror movie trope

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It’s an adage that resonates throughout IT: Welcome to Derry, a town with a dark underbelly, seemingly idyllic but terrorized by a disturbing monster every three decades like clockwork. Derry may run on a particularly cruel cycle, fueled by murder, bigotry, and the supernatural, but the version we see here also feels a little different from what audiences remember of IT: Part 1 and its late ’80s setting.