IT: Welcome to Derry: Episode 1, This is not Stranger things.

Now I will begin this article with full transparency, I have not seen IT chapters one and two and neither have I seen Stranger Things.

But somehow all the online chatter around this still intrigued me enough that I sat down and checked it out, even though I am not really that into horror (even though its Halloween) or maybe I just didn't want to leave my blog empty while nothing interesting is airing.

You be the judge of that lols.

But... one thing that is clear, is that in IT: Welcome to Derry, Derry in this version of the IT universe is yet to undergo the transformation into the absolute shithouse it eventually turned out to be, again I am going by reviews and clips, because for some reason I will watch that but neve read the actual book or watch the actual movie.

In this version the town is very much still somewhat functional, except the entity has clearly begun to claim some of its victims, as we will see.

The opening scene shows Matty Clements sneak into a movie to get a freebie, while sucking on a pacifier, showing some form of Childhood trauma that he seeks comfort from.

He is ran out of the theatre, because Obviously, and hitches a ride with a family, which at first seems normal but it soon becomes clear that there is absolutely something off about these people.

Like when the mother calls her daughter a Harlot and how she cannot keep her legs closed, and then the father says it reminds him of his wife.

The whole thing is beyond creepy as the mother then begins to give birth in the most horrific way possible, to a mutant Baby.

These are very clearly past victims of the Entity, who it is now using as mimics to scare the living crap out of this kid, because this cosmic entity, likes to feed on fear.

Eventually Matty and the family are killed (although the family is probably already dead goddammit.) and then we cut to four months later when two of Matty's friends are missing him and one girl named Lilly hears the voice of Matty coming from a sewer, she tries telling her friend and that goes about as well as expected, because everyone in the school thinks that she is crazy after going to a mental institution following her father's demise.

The only person who had treated her properly and let her talk about it, was Matty but when she rejected a kiss from him he went away, and that was their last memory together prior to his disappearance, obviously she feels a lot of guilt and is scared of going back to the mental health facility.

So she goes to Teddy and Phil his former best friends hoping they would be the only ones to believe her, and Teddy does, Phil is skeptical, seeing who its coming from.

That night however, Teddy's abusive family tell him about the past of Jews having their skin used for Nightshades, and then he has a hallucination of a lampshade made of talking human faces coming after him.

The boys finally believe her and decide to start their own investigation, leading them to the theatre Matty ran from in the beginning, and meeting the kid there, called Ronnie, who at first is offended by the nth call at their place regarding this, the previous calls even including the police...

But as she learns they too had visions and heard Matty's voice, she lets them into the theatre where they play the movie being played that night.

Just like in the projector scene from IT, the film reveals that a distorted version of Matty exists inside it, and he lets out the mutant baby from the beginning, which come to think of it, is probably a product of Matty's childhood trauma...

And then...

Yeah only Ronnie and Lilly survive, with Lilly still holding onto a severed hand...

The episode ends in her scream.

So my understanding is, that at this point, the Entity is kinda sorta new here, and therefore it isn't in its preferred form of a scary clown, and is still figuring out how to go about things, there is some affect on the adults of Derry, like for example Teddy's parents, but overall the Adults are nowhere near as demented and insensitive as in the movies...

Again going by various YouTube videos and not the movie itself, so who knows.

The mutant Baby will probably be a recurring sight this season, with that essentially playing the role of the entity itself I guess, and now that so much of the main gang is killed, and it can no longer be Stranger things lite, it remains to be seen what happens next...

The dead characters will probably reappear just as Matty and that family did, so we shall see I guess...