IT (2017), IT: Chapter 2 (2019) and IT: Welcome to Derry (Season 1)

Where Bill Skarsgard puts on a wonderful perfomance as an evil clown.

IT (2017)

The town of Derry in Maine USA has a problem, and no it's not a killer clown. It's that people there are stupid and/or cruel, and everyone enjoys splitting up and doing ridiculously stupid things like... reaching into a sewer where there's a freaking creepy clown talking to you? Yep, the standard horror stupidity-fare then. That aside, we've got a bunch of kids, bonded together from being bullied by the same bullies, who decide to go up against this evil (because adults don't care enough I guess [or are complicit, but the film failed to that clearly]), and this unlikely quest is pretty freaking cool and gross at the same time. Other than people passing the idiot ball around I did quite like this flick. Thumbs up!

IT: Chapter 2 (2019)

The surviving heroes from last time are now all grown up and are called back to Derry to face the killer clown once again, only this time most of them forgot what happened last time and its kinda frustrating to see them make the same damn mistakes over the course of this film. Still good effects and evil clownliness, but it feels like they toned the horror down here and added comedy instead. A segment in the middle which adds a lot of runtime possibly could have been handled better and yeah, I'm feeling the first movie was much stronger than this one. Nice of them to get the kid versions of the heroes back in here though.

IT: Welcome to Derry (Season 1)

Set years before the first movie, we get to learn more about the town with a different group of heroes. I must admit the first episode had me doubting that it would be as good as the movies, until I got to the end of the episode that is. Then it just dials up and up and actually becomes on par if not better than the first flick! With gore and a decently high death count this gets a big thumbs up from me here, and I can't wait to see the next season. 

More than Nothing: The Hollows

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The crew depart Flotsam and sail for the haunted isles of the Hollows. En route the superstitious crew start seeing a mysterious figure on deck at night: a woman! And they blame it on Kenny Z for accidentally breaking one of the laws of the sea: Farting against the wind, for which they demand his most painful death. Raah-min convinces them it was her on the deck and Kenny Z is off the hook. 

They then come across a number of mysterious vessels: the first ghost ship being an explosive trap, the second seemingly conducting its own lightning storm (so they sink it at range), and then a fleet of five enemies: one galleon and four turtle looking like ships that submerge on their first go! These subs use hidden movement but still move like ships, are very weak HP wise and have to surface to fire which doesn't make it so bad. Also easy to defeat is the giant acid spitting centipede guarding the island, but the crew really gets wrecked when they set ashore to hunt for a puzzle piece at a destroyed shrine and are ambushed by a large group of ninjas! 

Raah-min's shotgun comes in handy here, as its a close fight with only the players and Kenny Z surviving the encounter (the rest of the crew died) then hobbling back to Flotsam to rest and DRINK! This time it is Jerghon G waking in the gutter missing a one shot pistol, while Moomba and Raah-min argue with Kenny Z who leaves the crew while Ughhh beats a drinking rival Kenny B and becomes friends with him, recruiting him to the crew along with his other mates who happen to all be hard of hearing.

Plot armor was used in the ninja fight, and these flashbacks are set after the Crusades but before they were arrested for witch craft...

Ughhh used to make wooden dolls for the village children, and when one of them got sick the villagers questioned him why the doll under the bed looked a lot like the local numerologist priestess. Ughhh admitted he had the hots for her.

Sometime later a local gravedigger asked Ughhh to melt some unclaimed rings at his forge and he did so, but villagers seeing the green flames took it as a sign of witch craft! Ughhh convinced them it was the gravedigger who was the witch as he was just doing him a favor.

Ughhh then awoke buried alive in a coffin but luckily could ring the "death bell" for a passerby to dig him out of there. Witnesses to his returning to life accused him of witch craft but again he explains this is just proof that the gravedigger is a necromancer!

Discovering his tools were confiscated by the local guard while he was "dead", Ughhh tried to get them back the legal way but after getting constantly denied he simply went and stole them back. When the villagers discovered he had his tools back he was again accused of witch craft. This time he explains the Gravedigger took it, as pay back for him.

That night he awoke to an angry mob setting fire to his house chanting "burn the witch". Ughhh used the grave digger's shovel previously to dig an escape tunnel out of there.

Moomba always had an interest in herbs and brewing teas that she knew people could percieve as witch craft. One day a stranger appeared on her doorstep asking for help, which she did - regardless of the taboo.

Raah-Min always had to hide a part of her body because she knew the locals would see it as a sign of witch craft. Her toes. When accused by strangers that she burned their homes she proclaimed innocence, showing her toes (not the bad ones) so that they believed her.

Two tatletale youths then saw her talking to her pet cat which they took as a sign of witch craft. In exchange for their silence, she helped them ask Ughhh to make those dolls for them, but Ughhh was buried at the time.

The fathers of the tatletales and their guards then took Raah-min and her cat out to the forest, commanding she prove her non-witchcraftiness by burning her cat alive in front of them. She refused, instead pulling out dolls of their likeness and began to stab them, causing them to flee.

[Inspired by The Plunder of the Stormcopper and Jaws the Board Game]

More than Nothing: Pelican Rockers

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Due to their victorious return last session the crew again goes drinking at Pelican Rock where Raah-Min and Ughhh led the tavern in a wildly insulting song about Segambans gaining a bard friend named Kenny F, but Jerghon G got into a jazz duel with him and sent Kenny F away while Moomba was fined for instigating the brawl - losing her riches. Still they get a crew of old Saltbeards, looking for one last adventure to die in.

They then get a quick sailing lesson (to get them into the chess type sea combat I had devised where ships move like knights, sea creatures move like queens and each round they can only apply their skill rolls to stations they are manning such as the deck for boarding, the guns for shooting, or the helm for driving and evading attacks) which involves catching fish (that happen to have another "talking puzzle piece", sinking some idiots on a raft and running away from a leviathan, they return to Pelican Rock for yet another round at the tavern!

This time Moomba was locked in stocks for the destruction of property, Jerghon G and Raah-Min led the tavern in wildly insulting songs about Segambans earning a bard friend Kenny Z, and Ughhh came to his senses robbing a docked ship of its treasure - successfully escaping capture and using the funds to upgrade the Undaunted (for a few more HP).

Afterwards they head out, accepting Cillean's request for a ride back to his own clan's colony of Flotsam with Raah-min cleverly refusing to do an added "delivery" of a glass eye to the same location, as she rightly determined it was a bomb being sent by the rival clanners here at Pelican Rock.

On the ocean they discovered a young woman stowaway in the lower decks, fleeing from her debt owed to some Pelican Rockers whose ship shows up right on queue. They opt to defend her and sink the enemy after it fails a ramming maneuver, then proceed to defeat a three ship pirate fleet that was looking for an easy win right after. 

Finally they arrive at Flotsam, a floating city made from an armada of small ships lashed together and their one eyed leader Captain Siobhan thanks them for returning Cillean, rewarding them with another puzzle piece, the same reward their stowaway gives them for getting her there safely. With more pieces now the voice speaks to all of them, suggesting they find the pieces at the haunted Hollows and the outskirts of Segamba before coming to free it at the jungle island of Carroway.

Before they can set off though they first need to DRINK, and Moomba is again fined for instigating a brawl, Raah-min woke in a gutter missing her shotgun, Jerghon G survives a blindfolded knife throwing demonstration and Ughhh continued his tavern song of insulting Segambans making another bard friend in Kenny C, and buys back Raah-min's shotgun from the leftover stolen money he had.

[Inspired by the Sea of Dead Men and Chess]