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Pennywise is back, baby, and pop culture's favorite freaky clown is going back in time to kill the kids of Derry, Maine, in 1962, with future seasons (should they materialize) visiting other time periods. If my hometown saw mass slaughterings of children every generation or so, I might be tempted to pick up stakes and head on out—but the Stephen King IP train must keep rolling, and so here we are.
So far, the show isn't hitting the heights of previous It adaptations, but it's shown an admirable willingness to shock—the opening scene includes an impressively graphic and rather unconventional birthing sequence, and the show has quickly made clear that no characters are safe from the dark deeds of Pennywise. While you're waiting for new episodes to drop, you might enjoy these other horror series (including other King adaptations) that hit some of the same notes.
Castle Rock (2018 – 2019)
Castle Rock, canceled after two (rather excellent) seasons, was a victim of failed marketing. The show was promoted as a dive into some kind of Stephen King connected universe, promising Easter eggs without suggesting much by way of storytelling. And yet! There are actual stories here, with real dramatic heft—the first season’s “The Queen,” told from the unstable perspective of a character (played by Sissy Spacek) with worsening dementia, was one of the best, and most existentially horrifying, things on television that year. The second season introduces young Annie Wilkes, (Lizzy Caplan), the Kathy Bates character we know from Misery. The cast across the two seasons is stellar, and includes Bill Skarsgård, a creepy character not named Pennywise. There’s plenty of stuff for King fans to sink their teeth into as we dive into the backstory of a different Stephen King town, but it all works rather well on its own, as well. Stream Castle Rock on Hulu.
Talamasca: The Secret Order (2025 – )
The third series in what AMC is calling its Immortal Universe of shows based on the works of Anne Rice, this one stars Nicholas Denton as Guy Anatole, a new recruit to the title organization of supernatural spies and watchers, William Fichtner as a vampire making a play for control of the organization, all while Downton Abbey's Elizabeth McGovern brings us yet another delightfully confusing accent playing the leader of the Talamasca's New York motherhouse. The show is impressively spry and lively—a bit of a surprise, given the heavy emo vibes of Interview with the Vampire and The Mayfair Witches. We're only a couple of episodes in, but the show kicks off with a rather brutal dismembering in the style of It. Stream Talamasca on AMC+.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023 – )
This is more of an action thriller than a gloopy It-style horror show, but the shows still have a couple of things in common. First, they both provide previously uncharted backstories for popular film properties; second, they're both full of monsters. Monarch does a surprisingly effective job of telling its own story within the universe of all the American Godzilla movies of the past decade or so, bringing the bigger stories back down to Earth while building out an entire decades-long monster-verse mythology in the process. Anna Sawai stars as a young teacher searching for her father, missing since Godzilla's attack on San Francisco (depicted in the 2014 film), and who finds herself drawn into the past and present of a secret government agency. Wyatt and Kurt Russell play the past and present incarnations of the Army colonel who helped set the whole thing in motion way back in 1959. Stream Monarch on Apple TV+.
Dark (2017 – 2020)
Dark began as a mystery involving a missing child and evolved, over its three seasons, into a wildly complex narrative: a time travel-driven story that explores dark family secrets over the course of several generations. If it's not quite as bloody as Welcome to Derry, it shares with that show a willingness to put kids and teens through the wringer. Youth may be a sort of protection in some horror stories, but not here—not even a little tiny bit. The German import has a striking look and incredibly atmospheric feel, with an ensemble cast of teens and adults whose narratives are deftly intertwined across decades in a story that starts when a child goes missing (one of the least bad things that happens to the people of fictional Winden, Germany). Stream Dark on Netflix.
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