It: Welcome to Derry (2025)

My favorite time of the year is Halloween… so here are some Horror films and television shows that you might want to check out.

It: Welcome to Derry
hbomax.com

Welcome to Derry, or rather its official name, It: Welcome to Derry, is the much-anticipated HBO series based on Stephen King’s novel, It. The television show is a prequel to the 2017 It film and It Chapter Two. The show has the same people who worked on both films.

The pilot episode premiered today (October 26), just days before Halloween. I got to watch it, and it’s pretty good.

Since the show pre-dates the first It film, the setting is in the 60s. It’s about a group of friends in elementary school and one of their friends went missing. After the main girl hears voices from the missing kid from the sewers, they tried and investigate and hope to find their missing friend.

It isn’t exactly Pennywise the Clown, I don’t believe It evolved to the clown until the 80’s… so it seems like It manifested into a mutant baby or something gross. Speaking of which, the birth at the beginning of the show is absolutely revolting.

So far, from what I’ve seen, it’s definitely movie quality. And the pilot ends on this weird cliffhanger (I won’t get into it), but I’m wondering just how the main character is going to explain all the missing kids.

The Institute (2025)

The Institute
amazon.com

Deadline semi-recently announced that ‘The Institute’ Renewed For Season 2 At MGM+. I’ve never heard of this show, but it seems right up my alley, given the fact that I like Sci-Fi and Stephen King.

Since Amazon purchased MGM, you can actually watch a few episodes of The Institute for free, before they ask you to pony up for a subscription to MGM+.

Anyway, from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty good. The show is about these special kids that are kidnapped and put in a place called The Institute. These kids have either telepathy (TP) or telekinesis (TK). Our main character is a child genius (Luke) from Minneapolis, and we follow his journey as a prisoner of the Institute.

You find out that this place does tests on all the kids. You’re not sure what they’re after, what is the point to all these tests?

I can see where this story is going, obviously the kids are going to try escape, but how are they going to do it? Meanwhile, the kids are slowly being removed one by one, as new ones are brought in. I figure that the kids are being murdered, but it’s hard to say because we’re given little information about where they go.

There’s also a side-story about a night watchman who works in a small town. I’m not quite sure how his story fits in, but I’m sure the two will meet.

Normally I don’t really like seeing a bunch of kid actors, especially because this show is all about them at the Institute… but all the actors here are pretty good and believable. It’s probably helps that the writing is good, too.

P.S. The theme song is by The Lumineers, doing a cover of Tears for Fears’ “Shout.”

The Long Walk (2025)

The Long Walk
thelongwalk.movie

I’ll cut to the chase: I did not enjoy this movie. It is a long brutal torturous film, based on a 1979 Stephen King (under his pseudonym Richard Bachman) novel.

The premise of the movie is that sometime in the near future (which looks more like the 1970s), the government is run by The General. Every year he holds the national The Long Walk, in which 50 contestants (one boy from every state) participate. The one boy left walking is the winner and gets one wish and countless riches are awarded to him.

The rules are simple, you just have to walk at a certain pace. If you slow down to poop or pee, you get a warning. If you got three warnings, “your ticket is punched.”

You soon realize that this wasn’t a fun contest, but rather just a long execution of 49 boys. And it’s horrible, how one by one each of them fall, from a sprained ankle, to getting their legs crushed by a tank, to trying to escape the long walk… They all get shot in the head.

I question why anyone would want to participate (willingly) in The Long Walk, because chances of you dying is near 100%. The other thing I don’t get is why the entire group don’t revolt or just run off – certainly there’s fifty of them vs only a few guys on tanks.

Where this story shine is with the characters. In typical Stephen King style, you have the bully, you have the friendship bonding, and you have various races represented. I guess it’s missing the mental (not smart) kid, at least it wasn’t shown in the movie.

This is one of those movies that you might watch once and probably don’t care to revisit it ever. For me, while I love Requiem for a Dream or Schindler’s List … I probably won’t want to re-watch them. The same can be said for The Long Walk.