Forget Stranger Things – this TV horror is the real masterpiece

I have a confession. I thought the first four episodes of Stranger Things Season 5 were pretty ‘mid’, as the kids probably don’t say any more. 

​Yes, I know the action in the penultimate episode was exciting and that final cliffhanger was shocking enough, but that’s only two of four episodes.

​The first two episodes were duller than a trip to a museum exhibition dedicated to the weird and wonderful world of air-conditioning units. 

And after waiting over three years for Stranger Things to return, I wasn’t overly impressed with Season 5. 

​However, I did enjoy another TV show that features kids battling a horror beyond human understanding – It: Welcome to Derry.

This show serves as a prequel to the It movies from the late 2010s. 

​It (pun unintended) follows a new group of kids in the 1960s trying to take down Pennywise the Dancing Clown, played once again by the cross-eyed wonder Bill Skarsgård. 

​Needless to say, considering we know from the movies Pennywise returns to feast on the fears of Derry again in the 1980s, things don’t go overly well for our young heroes. 

I’ve already written at length how much I enjoyed the first five episodes of the series, but after seeing all eight, I’m willing to go on the record. It: Welcome to Derry is something of a horror masterpiece.

​What makes it so good? Well, it’s scary, unpredictable, and downright weird, but also funny and uplifting at the same time. 

​Without spoiling anything in the finale, I was disturbed, delighted, shocked, and – surprisingly, for a show about a monstrous clown chowing down on children – moved. 

​Basically, it reminds me of the films I watched growing up, like Gremlins and Poltergeist. 

​For me, those classic movies, like It: Welcome to Derry, walked the fine line between terror and wonder with astounding grace.

​They were scary (the scene in Poltergeist where the man peels his face off will stay with me forever), but I always saw a sense of undeniable optimism in them.

​I know that sounds weird, considering their grisly subject matter, spooky ghosts, and literal monsters in the case of Gremlins.

Yet while watching these movies, I just had a sense that whatever horrors our heroes were facing, they’d triumph by facing the evil with hope and friendship.

It: Welcome to Derry, has that same optimistic spirit; for me, there’s a feeling of heart beneath the monstrous mayhem.

Honestly, it reminded me a lot of Stranger Things Season 1, which struck a very similar tone.

Stranger Things, meanwhile, has been ‘Netflix-ified’.

Yes, the characters are the same, but the bigger budget has, to my mind, led to them putting spectacle over soul – it looks great, but the emphasis seems to be on the action, not the characters.

That first season of Stranger Things didn’t appear to prioritise action over all. Instead, like Welcome to Derry, it was full of personality. 

Season 1 felt like a passion project for those working on it, and while there were CGI monsters and psychic powers, the characters came first. ​

This new season, meanwhile, seems to lack that scrappy earnestness of the first season. 

It’s just carnage without the catharsis, where everything has been overly polished, like it’s been reverse-engineered to be a global event, not a TV show to watch at home. 

Of course, you can argue that this comparison is unfair. I’ve seen all of Welcome to Derry while Stranger Things season 4 isn’t even halfway over, but here’s the thing: That’s on Netflix.

The decision to split this season up into three parts has robbed our gang of wisecracking young evil-battlers of their momentum. 

Oh, sure, I know a multipart season model must be good for subscriber retention numbers, but there’s almost a month to wait before we get the full story of Will’s psychic powers. 

It: Welcome to Derry, meanwhile, with its weekly release, has kept my attention for the last two months.

Each week I would sit about waiting for the episode to drop like a kid staying up for Santa at Christmas. 

And that ultimately is what I loved about Welcome to Derry: it took me back to being a kid. 

It reminded me of a time when I’d watch scary movies with my dad and feel like I was doing something naughty or grown-up. 

I used to get that warm feeling of nostalgia from Stranger Things, but this year I didn’t find it in Hawkins. 

I did, however, get it when I was welcomed into Derry.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected]. 

Share your views in the comments below.