IT: Welcome to Derry Links to Stephen King’s The Mist

IT: Welcome to Derry wastes no time diving into its terrifying world, proving it can stand alongside Andy Muschietti’s IT films. After the bloody and shocking ending of the premiere, Episode 2, “The Thing in the Dark,” takes viewers even deeper — introducing a familiar name from the Stephen King universe: Dick Hallorann (played by Chris Chalk).

It Welcome to Derry

Hallorann, known from The Shining, possesses “the shine” — a psychic ability that once helped him save Danny Torrance from the haunted Overlook Hotel. His appearance in Welcome to Derry initially hints at a connection to The Shining, but the twist reveals something different. The military’s sinister plan to turn the buried Derry entity into a weapon creates an eerie parallel to another King classic: The Mist.

The Military’s Sinister Mission in ‘Welcome to Derry’

In Episode 2, Dick Hallorann is reintroduced while joking with his military friends about a secret mission. The humor quickly fades when he’s shown at a dig site, sick and exhausted, as his commanding officer demands results. The military wants him to locate an entity buried beneath Derry — a being that emits fear itself.

Meanwhile, newcomer Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) faces racism and violence at Derry Air Force Base, only to discover that General Shaw (James Remar) orchestrated the attack as a twisted test. Shaw reveals the truth: with the Cold War heating up, the U.S. military wants to harness the underground force — the same evil tied to Pennywise — and use it as a psychological weapon against their enemies.

Echoes of Stephen King’s ‘The Mist’

This storyline may sound extreme, but it mirrors the events of King’s 1980 novella The Mist. In that story, a government experiment known as the Arrowhead Project accidentally opens a doorway to another dimension, unleashing monstrous creatures shrouded in a thick mist.

Though The Mist’s 2007 film adaptation never explicitly showed the experiment, early versions of the script confirmed it — the military’s curiosity brought about a catastrophe. Just like the Arrowhead Project, Derry’s military officers in Welcome to Derry seem doomed to repeat the same mistake: tampering with forces beyond human understanding.

Could ‘Welcome to Derry’ End the Same Way?

In Frank Darabont’s original draft of The Mist, the story began with chaos inside a military base as glass shattered and something monstrous emerged from an “eruption of otherworldly mist.” Humanity’s hubris — the desire to control the uncontrollable — led to its downfall.

Welcome to Derry appears to be heading down a similar path. The military, obsessed with power, is determined to dig up the entity beneath Derry and weaponize fear itself. As with the Arrowhead Project, their arrogance could unleash horrors no weapon can contain.

Whether Pennywise becomes the Cold War’s deadliest experiment or something even darker, one thing is certain — Dick Hallorann’s shine will sense the coming storm long before it strikes.