Editorials
‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Explained: The Many Stephen King Connections & References in Episode Four
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for episode four of It: Welcome to Derry.
As we near the midpoint of It: Welcome to Derry season one, the lore deepens and fan favorite characters begin coming together. Episode four, “The Great Swirling Apparatus of Our Planet’s Function,” not only provides an origin story for the titular monster but also marks the appearance of a prominent canon location. The sprawling story of Stephen King‘s 1986 source material, It, is punctuated by a series of Interludes chronicling earlier cycles of the monster’s destruction compiled by librarian, town historian, and Losers’ Club member Mike Hanlon.
It: Welcome to Derry brings these disturbing tales to life, promising future seasons that will explore the grisly Bradley Gang massacre and the Kitchener Ironworks explosions, both depicted in the show’s eerie opening sequence. While it remains to be seen if we’ll get to see the gruesome ax murder at The Sleepy Silver Dollar, series creator Andy Muschietti‘s first season will center the fire at the Black Spot.
As payment for his extraordinary service, airman Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) is granted use of a decommissioned storage building several miles away from the barracks. Unable to relax in the informally segregated town, the base’s Black servicemen hope to turn the place into a nightclub similar to the one seen in Ryan Coogler‘s 2025 film Sinners. For now, the Black Spot is simply a building with a lot of promise, but a Danger sign on the surrounding gate hints at the horrors of King’s second Interlude. Set during the Great Depression (see Muscietti’s altered timeline explained in our recap of episode one), the men of Derry’s all-Black Company E suffer horrific acts of racist abuse, but find refuge in this exclusive club, which eventually features food, liquor, and live music. As the Black Spot grows in popularity, it attracts the attention of local racists who belong to the Derry chapter of The Maine Legion of White Decency, aka the Ku Klux Klan.
Photograph by Brooke Palmer/HBO
On a busy Saturday night, a handful of hooded men creep out of the woods with gasoline and torches, then set the crowded building ablaze. With music blaring, the two or three hundred patrons don’t immediately notice the fire, and most become trapped inside. While some do manage to escape, including Mike’s father Will Hanlon and fellow serviceman Dick Hallorann, this hate crime kills around eighty people, a final sacrifice that concludes It’s 1930 cycle of death. Considering the racial tensions we’ve seen on the base, we’re likely to see this deadly episode play out in future episodes.
Despite this looming horror, the Black Spot we see in episode four is still just a dusty storage shed in need of renovation. While Dick and his friends begin this work, Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) arrives demanding information about the mysterious Operation Precept. Hours before their angry encounter, Leroy is fishing with his son Will (Blake Cameron James) when he steps away to retrieve supplies. Standing alone in the water, Will notices a strangely friendly fish with orange and white stripes similar to the white clown suit and orange pompoms worn by Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgård). When Will bends over for a closer look, a hand reaches out of the water and pulls him under. Drifting up from the river’s impossible depths is the charred corpse of his father. With glazed eyes, the ghoul moans an ominous warning: “You’ll burn too.” While obviously a nod to the murderous clown’s chilling catch phrase, “you’ll float too,” this variation hints at Will’s own demise—in Muscietti’s version of the story.
The Will Hanlon we meet in King’s original novel is a successful farmer and loving father who helps his son navigate the treacherous town. In fact, it’s Will who recounts the story of the Black Spot as he lies in a hospital bed dying of cancer. But Muschietti’s 2017 adaptation, It, introduces us to an altogether different Hanlon family. This Leroy (Steven Williams) is a surly cattle farmer, and Mike (Chosen Jacobs) is a lonely orphan, his parents having died in a house fire when he was a child. Not only did Mike witness Will’s horrific death, but he must ignore vicious and racist rumors that the fire was caused by careless drug use. It: Welcome to Derry may provide more information about this tragic event, but for now, Will’s ominous river vision stands as a premonition of his untimely end.
While Leroy struggles to understand the town’s sinister secrets, Dick continues his mission to locate the dangerous entity. This time, he’s tasked with interrogating Taniel (Joshua Odjick), a member of the town’s indigenous community who’s been monitoring the military excavation. Reluctant to proceed, Dick begs the young man to share information, warning that what follows will not be pleasant. When Taniel refuses, Dick uses his telepathic talent to enter Taniel’s mind and finds himself surrounded by a metaphysical circle of backlit doors. He opens one into a memory of the young man’s past and a detailed description of the tribe’s closely guarded secret.
While none of King’s works show Dick wielding this invasive skill, it’s a curious facet of the psychic ability known as the shining, most prominently seen in Doctor Sleep. This 2013 sequel to King’s 1977 novel follows a similarly gifted girl named Abra Stone who is hunted by a team of energy vampires led by the sinister Rose the Hat. Using her own shine, Rose mentally travels across the country to infiltrate Abra’s consciousness and search through metaphysical file cabinets, each filled with the girl’s accumulated memories.
Photograph by Brooke Palmer/HBO
Though reluctant to enter Taniel’s mind, Dick’s mission is ultimately successful. In a conversation with his aunt Rose (Kimberly Guerrero), a young Taniel (Tres Garcia) explains Its origins. We learn that long before the dawn of man, a falling star crashed into the land that would eventually be known as Derry. Cracking open, this fallen star released a dangerous monster capable of taking the shape of its prey’s greatest fear. Remnants of the meteoroid formed the stalagmite-like nest at the center of Pennywise’s lair, and pieces of its jagged shards can be used to subdue the beast. While King’s source material describes a cataclysmic asteroid crashing into the rural landscape, possibly coming from Todash Space (described in our recap of episode three), most of this origin stems from Muschietti’s 2019 conclusion, It: Chapter Two. In order to defeat this otherworldly beast, Mike gathers information from local tribal leaders about the dangerous Ritual of Chüd, said to counteract Its manipulative power.
Along with this secret revelation, Dick also forces Taniel to reveal the location of the entity’s nest: the dreaded house on Neibolt Street. We first encounter this rundown structure when Loser Eddie Kaspbrak is menaced by a lecherous leper who slowly transforms into the sinister clown. Muschietti makes extensive use of the terrifying locale, known as the Well House, in his adaptations, positioning it as a gateway into the realm of It. Terrifying visions and unsuspecting monsters litter the dilapidated rooms, protecting the monster’s inner sanctum. This ominous cliffhanger all but guarantees we’ll soon return to the nightmarish house on Neibolt Street.
Photograph by Brooke Palmer/HBO
“Elevated Horror.” Of all the combinations in the English language, that one is the most insufferable.
It represents almost a decade of scary movies that, for the most part, took themselves too seriously. Horror responds to the moment, so its “why so serious” lean makes sense as we scuttle through the “worst of times” equation of Charles Dickens’ famous opening lines. But there’s still an opening and a need for a lighter approach; one that not only has fun with its audience but takes the piss out of a genre that is seemingly letting its newfound “respectability” go to its head.
Wes Craven believed devotees see horror films to let out their fears one primal scream at a time. At their core, these movies are roller coasters; they bring us as close to the edge as possible before pulling us back into a safety net of reality. The need for a bigger and badder coaster increases during times when the size of that net decreases.
There’s a thrill that comes from imagining being in a foot race with a madman, or outthinking the hordes of zombies on the other side of the door, plus the scavenger humans coming behind them. There’s even a rush that comes from imagining how one might deal with possession to see good triumph over evil in the end. It’s all about building tension and releasing it through catharsis. That cathartic release usually sounds like screams followed by laughter, which signals relief. Genre heavy hitters over the past 10 years offered very little of that respite when the credits rolled. Films like Hereditary, The Witch, Talk to Me, and even Smile (pick one) keep that tension going after the screen fades to black.
Hereditary
As the genre became obsessed with creating trauma metaphors, that lack of release made sense. Anyone with even a small sample size of traumatic experiences knows those emotions don’t magically resolve themselves in an allotted run time. But how much trauma can one take? Especially when there’s a mess going on outside that few of us can escape from. Movies offer that off-ramp, no matter how short.
Everything can’t be, nor should it be, “elevated.” Audiences need thoughtful explorations of life’s ills via monsters as much as they need murdering masked maniacs with kitchen knives. And no, it doesn’t have to go any deeper than that. Sometimes, a knife is just a knife, and it’s still worth our time and respect. As weird as it sounds, that simplicity is comforting not in spite of the trauma but because of it.
The worst of times should manifest more than just anguish. People need to laugh just as much as they need to think seriously about this moment in time. Even the Scream franchise forgot the meta rock upon which it built its church when the latest foray sacrificed the subtle comedy for serious drama. Scary Movie returned at the perfect moment. It provides the necessary laughs, but it’s not a cure-all.
This isn’t a call for Scary Movie imitators but a return to a mainstream landscape where Killer Klowns from Outer Space sat with The Serpent and the Rainbow, nestled neatly with the latest Nightmare on Elm Street, which took nothing away from The Vanishing.
They Live
Even They Live, John Carpenter’s horror sci-fi satire sandwich, kept its tongue firmly in cheek while discussing serious ideas still relevant in 2026. Yes, a film about aliens taking over the world through subliminal messaging only visible through coded sunglasses is, in fact, a tad silly. Carpenter understood that mainstream horror can’t become so self-important that it never looks itself in the mirror and laughs at that inherent silliness.
The thing is, horror historically excels at poking fun at itself. Most of the Scream franchise, The Cabin in the Woods, or The Blackening show adoration without kowtowing. They recognize tropes and trappings but invert them for an audience already in on the joke, but one that also finds solace in said conventions. This keeps the genre on its toes; once something gets parodied, it’s usually time to evolve. That breeds new ideas and fresh filmmakers, which not only strengthen the genre’s collective voice but also amplify it.
Get Out, as “elevated” as some critics want us to believe it is, is a cathartic, populist scary movie that spoke to an untapped audience rather than speaking down to them. Backrooms is one of the biggest horror hits in years, partially because it’s fine-tuned for modern-day teenagers instead of their parents. Movies like these tell everyone the genre is open for business; open for innovation and, yeah, open for new ways in which people can lovingly poke fun at with a wink and a nudge.
Horror needs dread as much as it needs laughter.
Catharsis is just as important as tension, and pulpy populism has the same merit as more high-brow material. Respectability shouldn’t come at the expense of an experience akin to walking through a haunted house. At a time when joy seems in short supply, horror should look to its past to map out its future, and make things just a tad brighter for audiences.
Backrooms
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