Tonight at the premiere for HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry , Andy and Barbara Muschietti , the Argentina-born, producer-director siblings, offered insight into the real-life relevance of the horror genre and Stephen Kings’s novel, specifically.

The Muschiettis developed the series with Jason Fuchs who, along with Brad Caleb Kane, serves as showrunner. Andy directs several episodes. He and his sister exec-produce through Double Dream.

As with the films, the inspiration is Stephen King’s 1986 novel IT , about a group of kids terrorized by IT, an evil entity that transcends generations and manifests itself in the form of Pennywise. The series was shot in Maine but, according to the director, it has echoes of Argentina’s Dirty War.

“My sister and I grew up in a dictatorship, and guess

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