BY JOCELYN MENDOZA

Directed by Stacy Title, “The Bye Bye Man” is an American horror movie that leaves viewers wanting to say “bye-bye” to it. Released on January 13, the thriller film fails to truly scare its viewers with a monster who is harmless until you think of his name.

The film first starts with a flashback of a journalist massacring his neighbors in 1969, asking if they told anyone else “the name” before taking his own life. It then cuts to the present and introduces its three main victims: Elliot (Douglas Smith), his girlfriend, Sasha (Cressida Bona) and his best friend, John (Lucien Laviscount); all of whom are college students moving into an off-campus house together. Sasha and Elliot later begin to notice random coins dropping from the house’s nightstand, which Elliot discovers has been crazily scribbled on by the previous owner with the film’s tagline “Don’t think it, don’t say it.” Elliot then reads aloud The Bye Bye Man’s name which is scratched into the bottom of the drawer; bringing The Bye Bye Man into the main plot.

The rest of the film consists of the three characters descent into madness as they learn The Bye Bye Man’s name. However, the plot then goes downhill as the friends begin to act more foolish and scenes become confusing because of the hallucinations that The Bye Bye Man uses on his victims.

Personally, I believe that “The Bye Bye Man” is not worth paying to go see in theaters. Although the film does seem promising in the beginning with the creative idea of a monster that terrorizes its victims by causing them to slowly lose their minds and lose their sense of reality, it loses its potential around the middle of the film with random jump scares, bad acting, and poor CGI effects.

All in all, “The Bye Bye” is a film that had a potentially scary monster, but could not provide a true terrifying experience for its audience because of its bad writing.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars