Writer and Director CLEARLY NEVER READ THE BOOK

Rating: 1/10 (16 September 2017)

It has become ritual for me to read the novel "It" once a year every year since it was released in 1986. The story is more than a gore-fest, it's a story about love and hope and friendship that is still meaningful to me to this day.
The only thing this movie has in common with the beloved book, is its name and the characters names. IT is a literal disaster and a slap in the face to anyone who actually read and cherishes the book. There are NO character backstories, nor character development at all. You are literally thrust into the movie expecting to know everything about everyone and why they are the way they are. IE: Henry Bowers and why he hates the "Losers Club" - He LITERALLY starts the movie trying to kill them. This is sad, because a large portion of the novel was meticulously spent doing quite the opposite and made you relate to and fall in love with the characters.
Editing? What editing? This is the worst edited movie I've ever seen in my life and I've seen a lot in 41 years. It was literally like the film makers shot 100 scenes, put the film in a hat, and took out said scenes and spliced them together at total random. I can't describe it any other way than saying, at one point, one of the characters (I can't tell who, because they all share the EXACT same personality) says, "I banged your mom last night", or something similar, and before the audience can even react, the scene changes to a jump scare happening in ANOTHER PART OF TOWN INSTANTLY and with no rhyme or reason. You don't have time to laugh at jokes, because they aren't funny (unlike Stephen King's jokes in the book) - and you don't have time to be scared, because you're still trying to process the dick joke that was still being told when the scene abruptly ended.
While the filming location for the town of Derry was suitable, having the movie take place in the 1980's instead of the 1950's JUST TO APPEASE the "Stranger Things" crowd was simply a terrible decision. The 1950's were a totally different time, and much of the characters' reasoning and mannerisms that you need to make this movie work are lost to a time and cultural difference. These guys call themselves "THE LOSERS SQUAD" in this movie for god's sake! Kids didn't start calling themselves a "squad" until the 1980's (IE "The Monster Squad) So, you love the book like me and are still reading? Thank you! Now let me list just SOME things that we both LOVE about the book that you will NOT find anywhere in this movie: The Deadlights, The Ritual of CHUD, The Mummy and the bridge, The Loser's Club Dam in the Barrens, the moving picture book (now its a slide machine), The Smokehouse, "This is battery acid", The Werewolf, Making the silver bullet after a game of monopoly, The stand pipe, Bower's hair turning white, "beep beep Richie", the giant bird, the 50's racism against Mike (actually Mike Hanlon himself is missing. The writers just made arguably the most important character an afterthought in this movie), character backstories, "Hi Ho Silver-AWAY!", Haystack... I could go on and on and on.
With god awful editing, absolutely no character backstories, cheap teen jump scares, not being faithful to the book, and too much CGI usage: Simply put - if you want to know how this movie is like the book, read the first 10 pages of "IT", and burn the other 1077 pages because that is exactly what the screenwriter and director did to this failed abortion.