15 Horror TV Shows Like IT: Welcome To Derry

For decades, Stephen King has been gifting the world with some of the most terrifying horror stories in fiction, and many have been adapted to the screen. In 2025 came the prequel to one of his greatest, "It: Welcome to Derry," which explores the small town and its connection to an ancient evil, with a story told in different time periods. But the HBO series is much more than a story that takes place before the 2017 "It" movie and its sequel.

In a clever twist, the series brings together multiple stories from the world of Stephen King, with characters from classics like "The Shining," and elements drawn from "The Dark Tower" and others. It's a sweeping, epic horror story that explores the spine-tingling history of the demonic entity known to residents of Derry as Pennywise — again played by Bill Skarsgård, reprising his role from the films.

With Season 1 of "It: Welcome to Derry" winding down, fans are going to have to wait to continue the story in a second season. In the meantime, though, there are quite a few other horror shows that fans of "Welcome to Derry" can sink their teeth into.

If there were ever a TV show that feels based on a story by Stephen King, but isn't, it would have to be "From." Like "It: Welcome to Derry," the series is set in a small town and centers on an eclectic mix of ordinary people with King-style quirks, from surly neighbors to precocious kids. And like "Welcome to Derry," there is a terrifying menace lurking in the darkness that comes out to feed on them.

"From" stars Harold Perrineau as Boyd, the de facto sheriff of a small town that seems to exist outside of our reality. Its residents mostly stumbled upon the town by mistake, but an unseen force makes it impossible for them to leave. And at night, bloodthirsty monsters of unknown origin descend upon them in the guise of smiling townspeople who rip their bodies apart and devour their flesh. But when a new group of visitors arrives, Boyd has renewed hope of escape, even as others have given up hope.

A visceral and unnerving horror story, the small-town vibe and ongoing mystery in "From" provide the same chills as "It: Welcome to Derry."

Considering how much influence that the works of Stephen King have on "Stranger Things," it's easy to see why it fits perfectly alongside "It: Welcome to Derry." Additionally, the two-part film that the HBO series spun out of even stars one of the main actors from the Netflix series, while the "Stranger Things" logo font makes it pretty clear where the show's creators found inspiration.

With a similar '80s setting to the film "It," the 2016 supernatural horror series centers on a group of young kids in a small town whose friend Will (Noah Schnapp) disappears, leaving them searching for answers. But what they find is nothing they could have expected, with horrors from another realm threatening to invade their own. At the same time, a mysterious girl named Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) comes into the care of local Sheriff Hopper (David Harbour), and her strange background may have something to do with the Upside Down.

One of the biggest shows of the last decade, "Stranger Things" is the rare cultural phenomenon that might be even better than its stellar reviews give it credit for. And with it airing its fifth and final season in 2025, there's no better time to check it out.

Conceptually, at least, there might be no better show to watch after "It: Welcome to Derry" than the 2014 gothic horror series "Penny Dreadful." Like the Stephen King series, "Penny Dreadful" isn't based on a single work and is instead an amalgamation of multiple literary horror works. It fuses together characters from Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," Bram Stoker's "Dracula," and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." But it's also more than just those iconic monsters, as it includes characters from the works of the Marquis de Sade and Oscar Wilde.

Tying together all of these different stories is the character of Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), a supernatural investigator and supposed medium in 19th-century London. She works alongside Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), a man in search of his missing daughter, Mina (Olivia Llewellyn). The series, largely an episodic procedural, draws the literary icons into grandiose mystery stories filled with spine-tingling scares and psychological terror similar to "It: Welcome to Derry." 

After watching "It: Welcome to Derry," you might want to dial back on the supernatural and look for something more grounded, but with a similar tone. The answer, then, is "Hannibal," created by Bryan Fuller, and adapted from the works of Thomas Harris. Like "It: Welcome to Derry," it weaves together multiple books from the same author, but at the same time also serves as a prequel of sorts to a big-screen horror movie.

Set years before the notorious serial killer Hannibal Lecter was put behind bars, "Hannibal" follows the forensic psychologist — here played to perfection by Mads Mikkelsen — as he assists the FBI in some of their most gruesome cases. His liaison with the bureau is troubled FBI agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), and the two form an unexpectedly close bond. Of course, Graham has no idea that under his very nose, Lecter is an insidious and terrifying killer, capable of the most unspeakable horrors.

Pushing the boundaries of stomach-churning gore on television, "Hannibal" was a critical darling. Sadly, it was canceled before it could finish adapting all of Lecter's stories.

If you're looking for a show like "It: Welcome to Derry" that you can watch with your kids, the answer is "Eerie, Indiana." A cult sci-fi/horror series from the early '90s, "Erie, Indiana" mixes the kid-friendly fun of shows like "The Adventures of Pete and Pete" with the mind-bending fantasy of "The X-Files." Better yet, think of it as a spiritual sibling to R.L. Stine's "Goosebumps."

Just as in "It: Welcome to Derry," we meet good friends in a small town — this time, the eponymous Eerie, Indiana. This small town, while it may look like any other suburban American burg, is anything but. Beneath the veneer of its carefully manicured front lawns and cheerful neighbors is a darkness that only the likes of Stephen King could imagine. Each week, neighborhood friends Marshall and Simon (Omri Katz and Justin Shenkarow) investigate the strange goings-on in the town, from horrific hauntings and immortal twins to artwork that can steal souls.

The only entry on this list we can recommend to kids under 12, "Eerie, Indiana" is the perfect family-friendly companion to "It: Welcome to Derry."

The good news, if you liked "It: Welcome to Derry," is that there's no shortage of TV shows or movies out there based on the works of Stephen King to check out next. If you're looking for something similar to "It," one of the best places to go is the TV adaptation of his iconic story "The Mist," elements from which are included in "It: Welcome to Derry."

Just as in the Pennywise prequel, we meet a group of otherwise ordinary townspeople who must face a terror from beyond that upends their quiet existence. In this case, it's a dense mist that envelops the entire community, preventing them from leaving. But within this mist is not just water vapor, but a supernatural force that can reflect their darkest secrets and most soul-wrenching terrors — and take their lives. 

A show about a community under siege from their own fears — and an unexplainable and deadly force — "The Mist" is pure Stephen King from start to finish.

The next best place to visit, if you're done with "The Mist" and looking to explore more worlds from the mind of "Stephen King," is his sprawling post-apocalyptic drama "The Stand." Once adapted into a TV movie — much like "It" — "The Stand" more recently became a streaming series, airing on Paramount+. Though it received mixed reviews from critics, it's a strong adaptation with a phenomenal cast that includes James Marsden, Whoopi Goldberg, and Bill Skarsgård's brother, Alexander.

Premiering in 2020, "The Stand" is set in a dark future where the world has been ravaged by a pandemic that slaughtered much of the population and left survivors with little hope. But what hope they have falls on Mother Abigail (Goldberg), an aging woman who seems to be the only one able to stand against the dark forces led by a powerful sorcerer named Randall Flagg (Skarsgård).

Deliberately paced and with a sinister tone that will tingle the spine, "The Stand" is a very different series than "Welcome to Derry," but it serves as a good companion piece. Plus, even King himself has suggested a direct link between Flagg and Pennywise.

Sure, Stephen King adaptations like "The Mist" and "The Stand" will give you plenty of similar scares if you loved "It: Welcome to Derry." But the best and most direct relative to the HBO series is without question the 2018 Hulu drama "Castle Rock." In many ways, the series is a precursor to "Welcome to Derry," another series that pulls together elements from across the vast landscape of Stephen King stories, combining them into something new and unique. In fact, some even theorize that the two shows might be connected, especially as "Castle Rock" was released to coincide with the "It" films and also features Bill Skarsgård.

"Castle Rock" is set in the titular town that appears in many of Stephen King's works, and explores the region across multiple time periods. We meet characters from numerous different King novels, like Sheriff Pangborn (Scott Glenn) and Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan), while much of the action takes place at the iconic Shawshank Penitentiary. It's there that we uncover a dark, sinister secret: A young man (Skarsgård) who has been kept isolated beneath the prison, and who sits at the center of a diabolical mystery.

Though "It: Welcome to Derry" is a singular story, its blend of disparate subplots and use of multiple Stephen King stories makes it a sprawling and complicated narrative. If it's the variety of characters and different stories you're looking for, then you should watch "American Horror Story" next. While it's not an episodic anthology, each season of the series tells a different story, often in a different time period and location, and often pulling from the same ensemble cast of actors in different roles.

Season 1 of the series, subtitled "Murder House," centers on a couple who, after a personal tragedy, move into a new home that is haunted by the ghosts of its former residents. Later seasons are set at diverse locations, including a circus, an asylum, and a hotel where a psychotic killer delights in torturing his victims. There are stories set in the 1980s and even as far back as the colonial era, but later in the show's run, evidence mounts that these stories aren't as disconnected as you might at first believe.

Supernatural evil isn't the only genre of horror, and on the other end of the spectrum are monster movies like "Godzilla" and "King Kong." Those two franchises combined around the same time that "It" was hitting theaters, and in 2023, the cinematic universe came to television for a connected story that works just as well as "It: Welcome to Derry." And like the Stephen King series, it also takes place in multiple time periods, with a confusing timeline that helps it serve as both a sequel and a prequel to the big screen adventures.

One of those time periods is the early 1950s, when scientists Bill Randa (Anders Holm) and Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto) are working for Monarch, a secret organization that tracks monster activities around the globe. In 2015, meanwhile, a pair of young siblings, Cate (Anna Sawai) and Kentaro (Ren Watabe), discover that their parents may have worked for Monarch decades before — and go on a mission to find them in the wake of a monster attack on the mainland.

There are few authors in the realm of horror literature who could be considered masters of the genre, with the likes of Stephen King and Clive Barker being two such luminaries. But long before them both, there was one name synonymous with horror: H.P. Lovecraft. Just as "It: Welcome to Derry" turns the stories of Stephen King into a sweeping saga, pulling together different works into one narrative, "Lovecraft Country" does something similar with the work of H.P. Lovecraft.

As much of a dark fantasy as it is a horror series, "Lovecraft Country" is set in the Jim Crow American South of the 1950s. Segregation is alive and well, and racism is the law of the land. That's where we meet Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors) and Letitia Lewis (Jurnee Smollett), as they take an extended road trip on a journey to search for Freeman's lost father, George (Courtney B. Vance). But along the way, they're forced to deal with not just the region's prevailing bigotry, but ancient horrors that defy all imagination.

"American Horror Story" is the season-long anthology series, but if it's something more episodic you want after "It: Welcome to Derry," check out "Midnight Club." The series tells a different horror story each week, but by the end, there are connections that slowly become clear. It's an eerie series with a meta twist: The stories are told by a group of teens, but as the series progresses, it becomes clear that these fanciful stories are more than just tall tales.

Produced by Mike Flanagan, the man behind the Netflix horror series "The Haunting of Hill House" and "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Midnight Club" introduces us to a facility that houses terminally ill youngsters: The Brightcliffe Hospice Care for Teenagers. But each teen has a story to tell, and as each episode unfurls a different horror story, the teens also explore the grounds of the Brightcliffe and learn that they may not be alone. A series with multiple layers and stories within stories, "The Midnight Club" will leave you just as much to chew on as "Welcome to Derry."

A big part of the appeal of "It: Welcome to Derry" is its small-town flavor, where a close-knit community is rocked by demonic outside forces. Similarly, the Netflix series "Midnight Mass" takes place in a quiet town that becomes a hotbed of horror following the arrival of a new priest. And like "It: Welcome to Derry," it all hails from the mind of one of the genre's biggest talents — in this case, Mike Flanagan, the producer of "The Midnight Club" who could rightly be described as this generation's Stephen King when it comes to TV horror.

"Midnight Mass" stars Zach Gilford as Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford), who returns to his hometown of Crockett Island after a stint in prison for manslaughter, the result of a drunk driving accident. But at the same time Flynn arrives, we also meet another new resident: Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater). Hill is the new priest in town, and he comes to the local church with big plans to bring godliness back to a people who have lost their way. And Flynn must confront his own beliefs when strange occurrences befall the community.

"It: Welcome to Derry" is a chilling mystery about an ancient, supernatural evil. That's the same angle at the heart of "The Outsider," a horror miniseries which just so happens to also be based on a story by Stephen King. A star-studded cast punctuates the series, led by Ben Mendelsohn, Paddy Considine, Julianne Nicholson, Mare Winningham, and Jason Bateman.

The series begins in the town of Cherokee City, Georgia, and kicks off with the discovery of a child's dead body. As the investigation begins, all evidence seems to point to the perpetrator being a local man named Terry Maitland (Bateman). But before long, as oddities begin piling up, we realize that what at first appears to be another otherwise ordinary murder mystery story is hiding something far more sinister — and otherworldly. Earning Bateman an Emmy award nomination, "The Outsider" received rave reviews upon its release and remains one of the better Stephen King adaptations.

"Them" is a series that takes the supernatural evil of "It: Welcome to Derry" and, like "Lovecraft Country," merges it with darker themes of bigotry and racism in America. As in "Welcome to Derry," the series covers multiple time periods, but not via flashbacks that back-and-forth the action — instead, each season of the series is set in a different era around the same location — Los Angeles.

Season 1 centers on the Emory family, Livia (Deborah Ayorinde), her husband Henry (Ashley Thomas), and their daughters Ruby (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Gracie (Melody Hurd), who move across the country to the emerging community in East Compton from a small town in North Carolina. Facing racial tensions in the pre-Civil Rights era, the Henrys soon find much more than hatred in their neighborhood, as they are haunted by spirits in their new abode. And a strange man in a black hat (Christopher Heyerdahl) is somehow involved in the evil that surrounds them. 

Season 2 of "Them" moves the action to 1991 Los Angeles, where racial tensions are once again at a boiling point. This time, the story revolves around an LAPD detective (Ayorinde) who becomes linked to an evil force after she begins investigating a grisly murder.