IT: WELCOME TO DERRY Unleashes Its Most Horrific Sequence and Andy Muschietti Breaks It Down
Episode 7 of It: Welcome to Derry pushes the series into darker territory, and it rips the floor out from under the audience. What begins as a flashback revealing the early days of Pennywise quickly shifts into one of the most disturbing and emotionally charged moments the show has delivered.
Spoilers Ahead!
The attack on the Black Spot, a small but vital event from Stephen King’s novel, becomes a centerpiece of the HBO Max prequel, and under the direction of Andy Muschietti, it turns into a nightmarish collision of human hatred and supernatural terror.
The sequence erupts after the racist mob of Derry’s white citizens storms the Black Spot, searching for the wrongly accused Hank Grogan. Weapons drawn, tension tightening, it seems like a massacre is about to spark.
The clash is briefly interrupted when the mob steps back, giving everyone inside a moment to breathe. That breath is short lived. The doors slam shut from the outside while Molotov cocktails shatter through the air. Bullets tear into the walls. The Black Spot ignites with its patrons trapped inside, including many of the series’ key characters.
In the novel, this event is haunting and abrupt. Here, it becomes a sprawling and harrowing experience. Muschietti says the team always envisioned expanding the sequence.
“In the big ocean that is the book, the Black Spot seems small, but it’s actually a very substantial event in the interludes. Since we’re basing the show on the interludes, we really wanted to show the events of the Black Spot and use it as a guideline.
“Apart from a dramatic low point, it is a guideline that leads our characters towards a catastrophic conclusion, or, if not a conclusion, a big pivotal point in the story.”
As fire spreads and the mob’s violence crescendos, the supernatural slips in. Pennywise drifts into the chaos, drawn to the panic as if feeding in real time.
Dick Hallorann, with his telekinetic gifts, witnesses spirits flooding the burning room. Real world brutality merges with the otherworldly in a way that underscores the show’s core idea that Derry’s worst horrors are homegrown.
Part of what makes the sequence so intense is the pacing. Muschietti crafted it to trap viewers inside the nightmare.
“I wanted to do justice to the book in terms of the horror and the atrocities that are experienced. I wanted to not only create tension and suspense on the build up, but also when the whole thing goes off.
“We wanted to create the impression that we are locked inside with the rest of the people. That’s why the perspective doesn’t leave the room. There is a bit of a oner that basically follows several characters as the panic spreads with the fire.
“It’s a really tough scene to watch and was a very tough scene to shoot, but I really wanted to stay true to the intensity of that part of the book.”
Pulling off a sequence like this required a massive technical swing. The production used two sets to create the illusion of an enclosed, burning deathtrap.
“The burning of the Black Spot happened mainly on two big sets. One of them is the set of the Black Spot where we shot several scenes before. The second one is a more open place used for the part where chaos prevails and everything is on fire. I wanted to create confusion.
“I wanted to put the audience in the driver’s seat of that catastrophe and give the impression that you are lost and you don’t know where the door is.”
He explains that the shot blends both sets seamlessly. “It’s curious, because set No. 1 and set No. 2 are sort of fused in one of the shots. You can actually see it if you pay attention; you can see how we go from the set to a place that is engulfed in flames.”
Practical fire was used whenever safety allowed, and the rest came through post-production. Stunt performers and the cast navigated a controlled but physically intense filmming environment.
Beyond the fire and technical wizardry, the scene needed the appearance of total disorder even though everything was carefully designed.
“It was a challenging sequence to film, because you’re trying to convey chaos and panic and a lack of control. But of course, you had to choreograph every single second of it, and that’s what we did.
“The choreography took us probably two days of designing the whole sequence. The oner was a very challenging shot to achieve, because it basically starts with the first Molotov cocktail that sets the fire. Then people panic.
“They start running in all directions and the camera has to follow certain characters and then transition towards the action of other characters and then pan out to the ceiling, where it’s on fire before we fall back and someone takes us to another corner.”
Despite the precision, moments of spontaneity still snuck through. “Of course, there are moments of improvisation. Because it’s a scene with heightened emotion, people do things that were not planned.
“There were things that didn’t happen as expected, but then everything fell back in line. It’s a great thing about making movies: accidents happen. I don’t mean accidents like something bad happens, but something unexpected.”
The team shot the sequence over four to five days, pushing themselves to capture the visceral, unrelenting experience Muschietti envisioned. And it all builds toward a thematic message at the heart of Welcome to Derry.
“We shot this in a very visceral way. It’s a very first person experience. We wanted to get the audience to feel what being trapped in this place would be like. Dramatically, that was the intent.
“Thematically, we wanted to convey the idea that the worst things that happen in this world are often caused by us humans and that we are capable of inflicting pain and hate and horror in each other, just as much or more than the monster is.”
The result is the series’ most staggering set piece to date, a terrifying portrait of cruelty that makes Pennywise look almost secondary. It reminds viewers that in Derry, monsters don’t just crawl out of the sewers.
Via: Variety