The Worst Horror Movies of 2017

Horror movies already don't have a particularly good reputation in the film critic world—and it's easy to see why. These movies are often poorly written, overly campy, and at times, will rely on cheap jump scares or splatter to get their "scary" point across.

Truth be told, some horror movies are so bad, they're good. That's why many of the worst horror movies of all time ended up being classics in their own right. Movies like Evil Bong rank among the best bad horror movies for people who want to look for a laugh.

However, this is not the way this list works—primarily because these films weren't bad enough to be good in any measure. If you want to find out which flicks to avoid, check out this list of the worst horror movies of 2017.

Don't be fooled by the sexy actors and the appealing trailer—this remake of a 90s classic was one of the worst horror movies of 2017, by far. Scoring only five percent on Rotten Tomatoes, critics had nothing positive to say about anything involving this film.

The entire idea was that five medical students who were obsessed with the afterlife temporarily die to find out what it'll do to them. They come back, find life to be great, but unfortunately, the dead want them to stay dead.

The writing and effects were what ended up making Flatliners flatline. Empire's John Nugent panned the film, saying, "Starts strong, finishes dull. The original Flatliners should have had a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ order attached to it."

With a name like The Bye Bye Man, you already know you're probably going to get a steaming turd of a film. TheBye Bye Man trailer alone shows what a catastrophe of a film this is—to the point that it's so bad, it's doubtful that it's even worth the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.

Like, really, where to begin? Well, let's start with a list of the worst offenses:

• The villain looks like like a crappy knockoff of The Crow having a bad facepaint day. Not very scary. More emo, than anything. Like, I'm pretty sure most goth guys would just shake their head in disdain and ask why he's using Halloween paint.
• It's literally cliché city. All the biggest horror movie clichés are in this. It's got college students that just moved out of home, a sexy girl in distress, and a monster that gets stronger when you think about him. Yawn.
• The phrase that's supposed to be scary is just annoying. "Don't think it, don't say it?" Really? This is the best you could come up with, writers?
• The dialogue. Dear sweet baby Jesus on a cracker, the dialogue is awful. Seriously, whoever made this, fire your writers.

What's really insane about this film is that it's not a B-rated shtick. It has some big name actresses in it. But dear Lord, is it awful. It's rightfully earned its place as one of the worst horror movies of 2017.

Shocker, right? One of the more respected horror movie franchises ended up crapping out one of the worst horror movies of 2017. Leatherface is the (unwanted) prequel to the classic film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The only problem, aside from people not wanting a prequel, is that no one really cares what's up with Leatherface. He's a slasher villain. Boom. That's all you need to know.

The movie itself really was underwhelming for the franchise. Sure, there's slashing, but the thing is that the killing quickly becomes monotonous. The dialogue is depressing at times—but most often tedious.

The grand reveal of who Leatherface was... just not that good. It was just "there," for lack of a better term. It was not what you'd expect from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, and even fans panned it.

Death Note is one of the most recognizable anime series in history, and if you don't believe it, go to an anime convention. That's why it's so damned heartbreaking that I have to include Netflix's live-action Death Note movie as one of the worst horror movies of 2017.

There are so many issues with this rendition. The melodramatic acting, the heavy drifting from the original plot, the overly "Hollywood" styling... Ugh. Even the trailer says volumes about why this was a bad movie.

Most anime fans will probably facepalm if they see this on their queue.

Say it with me: Clowntergeist. It's a portmanteau of clowns and poltergeists. We're going to assume that this made an effort to be one of the worst horror movies of 2017.

This is a movie about a possessed clown that threatened to kill a girl in two days. It's not Shakespeare. It's painfully low budget, and even more painfully acted. Somehow, it's not even funny how much this sucked.

One Amazon user wrote a review as follows:

"PG scares. A demon possessed clown with asthma teleports around and people die off screen. Borrows heavily from Paranormal Activity and IT and even Killjoy. The title and having a demon clown for a pet are the only interesting things to do with this movie. 2 Donuts out of 5."

Yeah, apparently the worst horror movies of 2017 involved tons of bad writing and clowns. Him might just be the cream of the crap when it comes to bad reviews. This really badly kludged together movie had almost no budget, no writing, and no acting.

Even the movie synopsis doesn't make sense:

"When a businessman fails to keep his end of a deal with the devil, his warehouse becomes haunted. When a group of paranormal investigators decide to spend the night at the warehouse trying to determine if the legends of the haunting are true, they are stalked by a horrifying clown. As evil descends upon the crew, they are forced to fight for their survival or end up the latest victims of Him."

Like, seriously, what do you even say to something like that? A deal with the devil means a scary clown gets free and/or demonically subsidized housing in a warehouse? Like, what is that?

This movie is so bad, it doesn't even bother trying to make a profit on Amazon. It's free. Surprisingly, it's the only UFO film to make it on our list of the worst horror movies of 2017, and the only movie on this list to seemingly have no official reviews whatsoever.

The problem with UFO, aside from it being an ultra low-budget "found film" flick, is that the characters in this film are total morons. So, most of the time, they're doing mistake after mistake—often to the point that anyone with an iota of common sense wants to see them die faster.

Bad (non-existent) special effects, mixed with atrociously bad dialogue makes this a cringefest for the ages.

We all know at least one friend who thinks he's more talented than he really is—and has no problem showing his talents to the world. The Night Watchman is what happens when someone who thinks he's "deep and artistic" tries to make a horror movie.

Basically, it's one of the worst horror movies of 2017 preciselybecause it's some guy's vanity project. Unlike The Room from Tommy Wiseau, The Night Watchman isn't funny-bad. It's just... weird and perplexing.

Like, it's clear that whoever made this wanted it to be an artsy, surreal film that details something really deep. However, what actually came out of the effort was basically a very stupid, very bad fever dream—with acting to match.

We'll stick to The Room for our bad vanity movie of choice, thank you. (Oh, hai doggy.)

I want to point out, before I start this review, how hard it is to get a one-star rating on Amazon. Even among many of the worst horror movies of 2017, it's possible to see a three-star rating. This movie is so foul, so awful, that not a single person could come up with anything nice to say.

I mean, it's easy to see why this is one of the worst horror movies of the year; even the Amazon writeup is riddled with mistakes:

"Two Men steel a doll from a paranormal museum in order to put their footage online but end up in a crazy game as the doll becomes a gateway to hell."

So, just to give you an idea of the plot—the plot doesn't make sense. They basically tell you that in the description. Like, most 12-year-olds would have come up with a better writeup.

The acting is abysmal, the dialogue is (expectedly) bad, and it's not scary. Despite being terrible in the way that Plan 9 is bad, Anna skirts away from the humorous sides of things and ends up being boring-bad.