It: Welcome to Derry
An HBO supernatural horror series set in Derry, Maine, that expands the story of Stephen King’s novel It and its film adaptations.
It (novel): Stephen King’s 1986 horror novel about a group of friends confronting a shapeshifting entity in Derry, Maine. The novel supplies the series’ central mythology and the town’s long history of horror.
Stephen King: An American author known for horror, suspense, and supernatural fiction, including the novel It. His novel created the story world the series revisits.
Cosmic horror: Horror centered on humanity’s vulnerability to vast, alien forces beyond ordinary understanding. It’s entity gives the series a threat larger than a conventional killer.
Horror television: Television fiction that uses suspense, fear, or supernatural threats as central elements. The series adapts horror techniques to an episodic format.
Derry (Stephen King): A fictional Maine town that appears in several works by Stephen King, especially It. The series returns to the town as the setting for another period of its violence.
Andy Muschietti: An Argentine filmmaker who directed the films It and It Chapter Two. He directs and helps develop the series, extending his film adaptations.
Shapeshifting: The ability of a being to change its physical form, often used as a supernatural power in fiction. The entity’s changing forms make fear personal and unpredictable.
Prequel: A work set before the events of an earlier story, often expanding its history or causes. The series explores Derry’s history before the main events of It.
Pennywise: The clown form of an ancient shapeshifting entity that preys on children in Stephen King’s It. The series builds on the monster’s presence and influence in Derry.
It (1990 miniseries): A television adaptation of Stephen King’s It, starring Tim Curry as Pennywise. It is an earlier television version against which the HBO series can be compared.