The eyeball scene and the flashback are the episode’s two standout sequences, and they’re a mixed bag. The injection of Indigenous folklore into the “It” story feels like a tip of the cap to “Twin Peaks,” which similarly chronicled a town haunted by a demonic presence secretly known to both Native Americans and the United States military. The voice-over narration, however, makes the flashback material feel clumsier and cornier than it needs to be. It would have stood better as a stand-alone episode, the way similar stories were told by shows like “Lost” and “Westworld.”
Poor Margie’s eye-popping experience, by contrast, is a top-to-bottom success. It is gross, gory and inventive, constantly ratcheting up the violence, discomfort and cruelty. The use of a bifurcated snail’s-eye-view effect to show us events from Margie’s perspective, forcing us to experience the horror through her googly eyes, is disturbing on a gut level. That’s what I want from a horror television show.
I reviewed tonight’s It: Welcome to Derry for the New York Times. (Gift link!)
Tags: horror, it: welcome to derry, new york times, TV, TV reviews