For “It : Chapter 2” the money was there from the first installment “IT” – released in 2017. When the box office is there from the first IT – the producers can hire well known actors including Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy and Bill Hader, knowing that there is a certain amount of guaranteed money because of the first movie. What is missing here, unfortunately, is a good screenplay.

This sequel starts almost full 30 years after the first one ended, where 7 friends that call themselves “The Losers” reunite because of a pact they made after they killed Pennywise the Clown, played very well by Bill Skarsgård. The pact was, “should Pennywise ever return again, we will come together again to kill him”. The first problem here was the horrible way Pennywise comes back again, in the aftermath of a gay hate crime that was way too violent and unnecessary – especially considering the overall story. This movie has several gay bashing scenes that are bad enough to create some backlash from the gay community. Why have so many scenes like this in a horror movie, what is the point? There are also horrendous scenes of extreme violence and death with small children, also part of the first film – and once again should never have been included in this sequel.

The rest of this film seems to be a series of visual and very violent excuses to show each one of the friends as they retrieve tokens from their past to kill Pennywise with some strange final ritual and the final conclusion is way too similar to the one in the previous movie.

The ratings for IT: Chapter 2 are a below average 66% – and because of the bad story and horrendous unnecessary violence, my rating is only 50% and I do not recommend this film.