The first horror movie to come out in 2017 has already come out to be a disappointment. With a promising premise of a supernatural villain that can't be said or thought without guaranteeing your death, the meta idea could've been very terrifying. However, with a lack of good acting, a poorly written script, and ineffective jump scares, The Bye Bye Man is just generally lacking.
The first thing about the movie that took me out of any possibility of being scared was the poor acting. Granted, all horror movies are known for having poor acting, the acting in The Bye Bye Man was about as good as if they put a potato on screen. The actors never showed a hint of emotion of real fear. The lack of emotion coming out of the actors caused a lack of emotion to come out in the audience, taking away most of the fear that could've been created with better actors, or potentially, better direction.
Potentially the biggest problem with this movie was the poorly written script. The script took a good concept and just created stupid characters and unexplained plot holes. The stupidity of the characters was the thing that really made me angry when watching this movie. The main character was claimed to be the "logical" one by both himself and his friends, but never once did he make a decision that was logical. In fact, had he actually been the logical friend, none of the movie would've happened. And once the main character does something stupid that creates the problem, I have lost all care about whether or not this stupid kid dies or not. On top of that, the movie was littered with unexplained plot holes. The rules of the supernatural villain was solidly placed in the world of the movie--if you say or think the name "The Bye Bye Man" he will come after you until you die. However, the main character, when prompted by the people around him to explain the situation at hand, he refuses to tell them what's going on because "it'll make him come after them." However, there was a way that he could've explained the situation to people without ever saying "The Bye Bye Man." Also, a whole fifteen minutes of the film was spent talking about how to defeat The Bye Bye Man, but then never get it used again.
Lastly, the film lacked a massive scare factor, simply because none of the jump scares actually landed. A main factor in any scary movie is the effectiveness of the jump scares, but when a movie lacks the writing to be scary, and the jump scares don't land, it doesn't really do much of anything.
This horror movie was very much not a horror movie at all. At best, it was a slightly humorous experiment in how not to make a horror movie scary at all. The only time I would actually recommend seeing this movie is if you want a laugh with your friends, but if your looking for a scare, I wouldn't recommend it.
