Stranger Things Meets Lovecraftian Horror In HBO Max's 8-Part Horror Thriller

Published Aug 29, 2026, 10:07 PM EDT Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock. When Andy Muschietti’s movie adaptation of It came to theaters in 2017, some casual audiences assumed he was ripping off Stranger Things. They both follow a group of plucky kids in the 1980s as they ride around on their bikes and try to contain supernatural threats within their weird little town. But slightly savvier viewers recognized that Stranger Things had ripped off It, not the other way around. The same thing happened with Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films; he was accused of stealing the Emperor and the desert planet and the “spice” from Star Wars, but George Lucas borrowed all that stuff from Dune. In its first season, Stranger Things was a unique cocktail of influences. It took a lot from Stephen King’s coming-of-age horror stories, like It and Stand by Me, but it also took inspiration from John Carpenter’s sci-fi masterpieces, the warmth of Steven Spielberg movies (particularly E.T.), anime like Akira, and, of course, Altered States. As the series went on, it dropped its horror elements and focused more on superhero spectacle and more grounded science fiction. Originally, Stranger Things was a TV show about kids for grownups, but it eventually became a show for kids (they even made Holly a major character in the final season). The Lovecraftian terror of the early seasons was eventually replaced by cheesy one-liners and a merry band of children living in fairytale land. Obviously, Stranger Things’ later seasons found a massive audience, but some fans were underwhelmed by this tonal shift. After adapting King’s 1,000-page doorstop into a two-part epic for the big screen, Muschietti brought the mythology of It to the small screen in an HBO drama, It: Welcome to Derry. Welcome to Derry went back to 1962 to show Pennywise’s previous reign of terror. If you miss the more horror-centric seasons of Stranger Things, back when the Demogorgon was a formidable eldritch monstrosity and not a joke, then this is the show for you. It: Welcome To Derry Made Up For The Second Movie Muschietti’s first It movie is one of the best horror films of the last decade. He brought the ‘80s to life in frightening fashion, contrasting the made-up horrors of a demonic dancing clown with the very real horrors of bullying and abuse. It remains the highest-grossing horror movie ever made, and it deserves that title. That movie was an incredible experience on the big screen; it had the scale and spectacle of a blockbuster, replete with super-sized set-pieces, but it was a relentlessly terrifying ride, bolstered by Bill Skarsgård’s chilling, wonky-eyed portrayal of Pennywise. The sequel, It Chapter Two, adapting the second half of the novel after the time jump, was a different story. Muschietti assembled another great cast to play the characters as adults, but he forgot to make the second part anywhere near as scary as the first. Aside from one unforgettable sequence with Mrs. Kersh, It Chapter Two rarely achieves a genuine sense of tension or suspense. The set-pieces are bigger than the first film, but it’s just weightless CGI (the axe-swinging Paul Bunyan statue being the absolute worst offender). When it premiered in 2025, It: Welcome to Derry faced the same uphill battle as House of the Dragon, in that it had to make up for the disappointment of the last entry in the franchise. House of the Dragon had to get Game of Thrones fans back on board with the franchise after the dismal Game of Thrones finale had killed all the goodwill that the series had built up over a decade, and Welcome to Derry had to make people scared of Pennywise again after It Chapter Two had failed to do so. Against the odds, It: Welcome to Derry did, indeed, make up for that second movie. It got the franchise back on track with some good old-fashioned terror.