Completely misses the boat on what a genuine horror movie should be

Rating: 1/10 (16 September 2017)

Not sure what to say about this particular box-office hit that's smashing records in the horror genre. But after having watched a late night showing and going in with a lot of hope and positive thoughts, it seems this movie relied on the clichéd jump-scare style of horror film-making and an over use of CGI which I feared would happen. It's unfortunate that it completely lost an incredible opportunity to be a truly nerve-wracking and genuinely scary flick. From the looks of it, it's been targeted more so towards very young people in the 12-16 range despite the rating being R.
On the positives, what we have is amazing cinematography, some fairly skilled young actors, and an antagonist who happens to be a monster dressed as a clown that kills children. Basically all the ingredients to serve up something brilliant on screen. It misses the mark there completely which is a real shame.
To compare like to like, the 1990 television-movie was a lot more frightening. Mainly because Tim Curry was brilliant in the role and the child-actors seemed a bit older and had more character development and more chemistry among each other as a group than these new young actors.
The first 7-8 minutes is top notch from the introduction of Bill and Georgie up to the intro of the monster. It's done brilliantly but then flat lines and falls from there.
One thing this movie doesn't rely on is silence at any time outside of the opening segment. There's an underlying score playing in almost every single scene. It might be more apparent when watching the movie in Ultra AVX Atmos surround sound but it goes against the powerful method of film making where sometimes less is more and damages the impact that silence can have during very intense scenes. Sort of like the use of almost no music during the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You can just feel the intensity and seriousness of the situation in many parts of that film and unfortunately that's spoiled here with far too much background score playing for no reason whatsoever. It's Hollywood's way to try to make things more epic and Hollywoodesque I suppose. Just way overdone which kills the mood and atmosphere. But that's just my personal gripe. Others may not care as much.
Obviously I can't throw in spoilers but this is a movie you'd be better off watching on TV whenever it releases and saving your money and time. Whatever you're expecting from this, forget it. It's a huge disappointment unless you're 12-16 years of age and have seen very few to no horror films in the past.
Too much CGI, too much unnecessary music overplaying to the point of ruining the atmosphere, too much reliance on jump scares that are overused in horror films nowadays, a clown that isn't all that scary, and a lack of character development overall. Save your money for something better.