I haven't done one of these in a while, but I have a lot to say about this movie.
***Minor spoilers***
The Bye Bye Man (2017)
"Three friends stumble upon the horrific origins of the Bye Bye Man, a mysterious figure they discover is the root cause of the evil behind man's most unspeakable acts."
The Bye Bye Man actually started out pretty decent. The opening scene was alright, and there were a couple of scenes with legitimate suspense, even though the acting wasn't very good. I thought it would be a pretty good teen thriller at first. After the first act though, it devolves into the usual bad jump scares and nonsensical plot. This could have been a decent movie if they kept the simplicity of the first act and didn't try to get too loud and flashy with the scares. The editing was also some of the worst I've seen. Several scenes ended halfway through conversations or awkwardly cut away from the violence to secure a PG-13 rating which was noticeable throughout the movie. Another glaring issue was the writing. The dialog was so awful in some scenes that it killed any tension and made that scene unintentionally funny. The characters seemed to forget everything they learned about the Bye Bye Man whenever they need to use that information. One big frustration was that Elliot, the protagonist, learned that if you realize you're not afraid of the Bye Bye Man, then you take his power away (yes, it's exactly like the Babadook.) However, instead of a harrowing climax where Elliot saves his friends by showing no fear in the midst of evil, everyone is just running around screaming acting like they have no clue what to do. The vague and shoddy backstory of the spirit, which is really just a couple flashbacks to some guy in the 60's who said the name and killed a bunch of people, is never used by the characters to their advantage and just seemed like an excuse to put in a bunch of gun violence. Because that's the REAL horror!
The Bye Bye Man did have glimmers of hope early on, but it's just a sloppy effort to create a boring new horror villain.
3/10