It: Welcome to Derry Delivers a Mother of a Nightmare

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Spoilers follow for the first two episodes of It: Welcome to Derry. 

I was really struck by something in It: Welcome to Derry – how easily parents can actually become the source of a child’s torment. It’s not just the monster itself, but how it feeds on the tension between generations. The way parents demand obedience, and the anger that builds up in kids because of it, that’s what really fuels this evil. It’s like that friction is exactly what It needs to thrive – it’s genuinely unsettling.

So far, It: Welcome to Derry has created many frightening moments by exploring the complicated relationship we have with our parents. For example, one scene shows Lilly’s deceased father appearing as a monstrous octopus made of pickled body parts, demanding a kiss from his daughter. Another features Teddy’s father’s stories about the Holocaust manifesting as screaming faces on his son’s lampshade. These aren’t just random nightmares; they feel real and impactful because the series cleverly taps into the idea that parents can be both a source of comfort and a source of pain. This dynamic is particularly striking in the second episode, which presents a disturbing and twisted take on childbirth, reimagining the typical labor scene with a focus on childhood trauma.

Television shows are increasingly using extremely difficult childbirth scenes as a way to represent the challenges women face. Series like Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, House of the Dragon, and The Pitt all show childbirth as a physically and emotionally brutal experience, often emphasizing pain and danger. These scenes typically center on the mother – her suffering, her anxieties, and the risks to her body. The focus is often on whether she will survive, how the loss of a child might affect her, and how she will be treated afterward by those around her. The mother’s perspective is prioritized, as a baby has no memory of the event, and these depictions often imply that childbirth is the most defining experience in a woman’s life, deserving serious consideration.

The first episode of It: Welcome to Derry initially appears to follow a familiar horror pattern, but quickly subverts expectations. When Matty Clements tries to escape Derry, he accepts a ride from a seemingly normal, idyllic family – one that looks like a classic American painting. However, the scene quickly turns disturbing as the family’s facade crumbles. The daughter eats raw liver, the son spells out unsettling words like “kidnapping,” and the mother cruelly insults her children. The idea of having children is a constant theme, with references to vasectomies and unusual birth defects caused by nuclear testing. When Matty accidentally bumps into the mother’s pregnant belly, it’s as if she was waiting for a signal to go into labor. The resulting demonic baby is both a product of Matty’s actions and the cause of his downfall, knocking him out of the car and into the sewers where Pennywise lurks. The baby later seems to embrace Matty, but is now evil and attacks his friends. This scene highlights Matty’s deepest fears – fear of Derry, fear of this twisted family, fear of what the woman will give birth to, and fear of his own transformation when the demon takes hold. The horror of childbirth is shifted from the mother to the perspective of a child who was raised to distrust anyone who appears loving.

As a horror fan, I was really struck by how the scene in It: Welcome to Derry flipped the script on childbirth horror. Usually, we worry about the mother, but this episode makes the child the one in danger – whether they’re witnessing a traumatic birth, like young Matty, or experiencing it firsthand, as we see in Ronnie’s terrifying nightmare. The show doesn’t shy away from being shocking – there’s a lot of disturbing imagery, from a creepy, slimy kiss to some truly gruesome effects involving a demonic baby. But it’s Ronnie’s nightmare that really got to me. It taps into this primal fear that being born itself is a dangerous act, almost like entering the world is a curse. The sequence suggests that life is full of hidden dangers, even in what should be safe places, and the scariest part is that we might be the source of that danger ourselves.

The scene’s design, which shockingly turns Ronnie’s bed into a representation of her mother, is incredibly disturbing. The bedsheets become veiny and flesh-like, reminiscent of body horror films, and a thick, fluid seems to surround Ronnie, like being inside a womb. The unsettling sounds of oozing and squelching amplify the effect, but the most striking image is Ronnie’s bed transformed into her mother’s body – the sheets become tangled limbs, an umbilical cord, and the headboard, her shoulders. The scene is mostly gray and black, with the only color coming from her mother’s glowing red and gold eyes – similar to those of Pennywise – and rows of white teeth that form a massive, fanged mouth on her stomach. As this mouth opens, Ronnie’s mother unleashes a torrent of hateful words disguised as the harsh motherly advice Ronnie never got: “You came out of me and ripped me apart. All I wanted was to hold my baby. And you killed me.” The use of shadows and sharp angles creates a German Expressionist feel, making Ronnie’s confrontation feel both surreal and frighteningly real.

The scene’s focus on Ronnie and her confusion broadens the story’s appeal. While not everyone is a mother, everyone remembers being a child and the guilt of disappointing or hurting a parent. Ronnie didn’t intend for her mother to die during childbirth, but the show highlights her guilt surrounding the event, which demonstrates Pennywise’s lasting power as a terrifying villain. He unearths deeply buried trauma, bringing it to the surface and corrupting memories and identity. Ultimately, Pennywise invades personal boundaries, and for a young person navigating adolescence, this invasion manifests as a disturbing self-discovery. The monstrous baby in the first episode wasn’t particularly original, but the image of the mother as the birthing bed is truly shocking and unforgettable—a moment of genuine brilliance in It: Welcome to Derry. It’s a universally disturbing image that feels deeply primal and unsettling.

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2025-10-31 22:55