Title: The Bye Bye Man
Release date: January 13, 2017
Studio: Intrepid Pictures
Director: Stacy Title
Release Format: Theatrical (Limited)
Don’t Think It, Don’t Say It and for the love of god don’t watch it.
The Bye, Bye Man was a horror film released in January. That’s right, January movies are back and god help me. It is a film about three college students who move into a home and discover the name The Bye Bye Man. Pretty soon after saying his name, bad things start to happen. Of course, by bad things I mean that both figuratively and literally. First of all, let me say that The Bye Bye Man is an early contender for the worst film of 2017. I know it sounds weird saying that so early in the year. However, based on the track record of horror movies released in January, at the very least, I don’t see this escaping the worst list. This film was to horror what the Dungeons & Dragons movie was to fantasy.
The movie starts off with a horribly edited and put together flashback scene of a murder. A guy constantly repeats the words “don’t say it, don’t think it” as he guns down some of his neighbors. If you want an example of how horrible this movie is, look no further than this opening scene. I mean, a woman is blasted by a shotgun at point blank range and there’s no blood. Let me repeat that; Point blank range by a shotgun and there’s NO blood. No blood on the wall behind her, not on her body and not even on the floor when she falls. This isn’t just shoddy production values, this is incompetent filmmaking. How hard was it to get some red paint from the hardware store? The second I saw that opening scene, all I could think was “Oh Christ, this movie is gonna hurt”.
The Bye Bye Man himself is an entity that feeds off people’s fear of him. He can only attack you if you fear him and spread his name around. The Bye Bye Man makes you see things that aren’t there and he looks like a burned up homeless man. To the writers, Wes Craven called, he’s suing you from beyond the grave. I mean, if you put a Christmas sweater on The Bye Bye Man, there would be no difference between him and Freddy Krueger. Their reasons for revolving around the same logic. For the love of god, The Bye Bye Man even has razor fingers. The only way you could make this ripoff more obvious is if you had Robert Englund himself playing The Bye Bye Man. There’s paying homage and then there’s plain ripping off. This was the latter.
There is not a single creepy, suspenseful or scary moment in this entire film. The whole plot moves at a snail’s pace to the point where the boredom feels inescapable. Nothing happens in the first half of this movie. I was so desperate for anything remotely scary to happen, I would have settled for a jump scare. That’s how desperate I was. I hate jump scares but it would have been something. This is an hour and a half long movie that feels well over two hours long. The film can never seem to get on with itself and when it does, it’s all done through boring exposition and horrible camera work.
The characters are idiots. The main character is Elliot (Douglas Smith) and I only know the character’s name because they literally say it in every other sentence of this movie. They scream his name constantly to the point of annoyance. But this character knows that The Bye Bye Man is causing him to see things that aren’t actually there. Yet, he is adamant that his longtime girlfriend is sleeping with his best friend. This is supposed to be a guy on a college scholarship. You’d think he’d actually take two seconds to analyze the situation. But not only are the characters terrible, these actors are as well. Every time one of them said a line that was supposed to be serious, I was laughing.
Whenever the female lead, Cressida Bonas, opened her mouth for anything, there was gut busting laughter in the theater. I’m sure she was trying so hard but she was so bad. However, to her credit, so is the dialogue and the direction. As a result, the dialogue in this movie is painful to listen to. In addition, Carrie-Anne Moss, what are you doing in this? Yeah, Trinity from The Matrix is in this film and I can only assume it’s to pay off a condo. When she showed up, I was legitimately heartbroken. This is what your career has come to, Carrie? Playing the dumbest cop in the world? How did you get here, sweetheart? Did The Matrix Revolutions do that much damage to your career?
Overall, there’s no atmosphere, there’s no tension, there are no scares, the acting is awful, the writing is awful, the direction is awful and the big bad of the movie is named The Bye Bye Man. That sounds like something a five-year-old comes up with to describe the UPS man sleeping with his mom.
Little Boy: “Daddy, the bye bye man came by today and him and mommy were upstairs for hours. But I’m not supposed to tell you about the bye bye man or else I get in trouble.”
Dad: “Why do you call him the bye bye man, son?”
Little Boy: “Because he always says bye bye when mommy’s done screaming.”
As a result of all of this, The Bye Bye Man is the first one-star review of the year. Congratulations, you piece of garbage. Guys, listen, I understand when you have no budget and limited resources, you can only do so much. However, if you’re making me sit through it, you better make damn sure it’s something resembling entertainment. This was entertaining but for all the wrong reasons. I find it sad that this movie is actually beating Silence at the box office. Yeah, you read that right, The Bye Bye Man is beating Scorsese. People, we are failing. We’re just failing. So did you see this movie? Please comment below and stick around for more reviews and articles at TheNerdStash.com.
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