An interminable conclusion to 2017’s It, adapted from the Stephen King novel, It Chapter Two has structural problems, character problems, and aesthetic problems (aside from that potent red balloon, the arresting imagery that director Andy Muschietti managed in the first film has given way to hokey CGI creatures). But the movie’s main issue is an unexamined streak of cruelty. It Chapter Two opens with a gay-bashing incident that’s brutal far beyond what’s narratively necessary; similarly, when we catch up with Bev, the sexually abused girl from the first film who is now an adult (Jessica Chastain), it’s for an equally elongated and savage instance of domestic violence. Both sequences—as well as the endless setpieces that take place once Bev and her childhood friends reunite in Derry, Maine, to take on Pennywise the evil clown (Bill Skarsgard)—fail to recognize the potency of the trauma being depicted. It’s just the setup, or punchline, to yet another gross-out jump scare. (This could have been called Jump Scares: The Movie.) With James McAvoy and Bill Hader as two of the other clown-averse adults, both struggling with the film’s uneven balance of horror and humor.