Although Stephen King’s It: Chapter 2 gained some infamy by killing off kids, It’s upcoming prequel series Welcome To Derry should steer clear of this taboo. 2017’s It managed to find a tricky tonal balance between dark comedy, cute coming-of-age character drama, and outright horror. Its 2019 sequel It: Chapter 2 was not as lucky, often veering into outright goofy comedy and stark, brutal tragedy without much in the way of consistency.
As a result of this inconsistency, It’s upcoming prequel Welcome To Derry should avoid the most shocking surprise that It: Chapter 2 pulled off. In two separate scenes, It: Chapter 2 graphically killed off young child characters, a surprising choice that kept the movie from becoming a full-blown comedy but still didn’t entirely work in terms of tone. Since Welcome To Derry is already a darker prequel, the series should entirely avoid this taboo.
Despite being lighter and funnier than It: Chapter 1, It: Chapter 2 made the jarring decision to kill off two child characters onscreen in a bloody fashion where It: Chapter 1 only killed off Georgie in the infamous opening scene and then kept the rest of its deaths off-screen. It was a taboo rarely seen in teen horror movies (Fear Street 1978 was another recent exception), as generally mainstream entries into the genre avoid depicting the death of young children onscreen. Welcome to Derry, the Pennywise-centric It prequel series that is arriving soon, would be wise to avoid this taboo, since knowing that Pennywise survives the series makes the plot bleak enough already, so seeing him kill children is likely to put viewers off altogether.
It won’t be easy for Welcome To Derry to create a compelling story when viewers already know that Pennywise survives the prequel series and - since he’s an inter-dimensional entity that can follow people anywhere - this means the show’s new characters likely won’t. This means that It’s prequel will be darker than the original movies no matter what approach the creators take, and thus, the last thing the series needs is the death of child characters to amp up the tragedy. The reason that Georgie’s death works in It: Chapter 1 is because the movie hits viewers with a shocking, gruesome sight in the opening scene, but then never has to repeat this tragic moment. For the rest of It: Chapter 1’s action, viewers are under no illusion about what Pennywise is capable of.
This, ironically, means he doesn’t need to kill off any other kids onscreen to be consistently threatening. It: Chapter 2 took the exact opposite approach, with Pennywise proving comically ineffectual when trying to attack the grown-up Losers Club (as proven why Eddie’s infamously silly “Angel of the Morning” face-off) but jarringly, horrifically efficient at killing off innocent kids. Like Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger, the villain became too powerful and too comedic at the same time, resulting in an uneven sequel. However, where It: Chapter 2 could at least provide audiences with a satisfying ending, Welcome To Derry must end with the heroes defeated and Pennywise still alive for the series to function as an It prequel, meaning the last thing the show needs is to throw some child death in and make proceedings even more depressingly hopeless.