Bye Bye Man, The (2017)

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Bye Bye ManStarring Douglas Smith, Cressida Bonas, Lucien Laviscount, Jenna Kannell, Doug Jones, Carrie-Ann Moss, Faye Dunaway

Directed by Stacy Title


Gadzooks! Where to even begin? I’m so torn on this hokey hodgepodge of horror ideas. It’s like a tale of two movies. The first half is an annoying retread of damn near every horror movie cliché of the past five or so years, complete with all the prerequisite cheap jump scares masquerading as actual suspense. Then there’s the second half, where it actually starts to go someplace interesting, only to completely derail into silliness during the overwrought/poorly thought-out third act.

At times I was bored. At times I was rolling my eyes. At times I was intrigued. At times I was laughing unintentionally. The one thing I never was: scared.

If reports I’ve read are correct, The Bye Bye Man has been delayed for some time, during which it was trimmed down from an R to a PG-13. It did feel like the movie was tripping over itself to avoid getting gory in scenes that sure seemed like they were intended to be gruesome (bloodless point blank range shotgun blasts), and early on there’s indication that something creepy happened during a sex scene that was not included in the final cut. Trimming this down to PG-13 actually makes sense since I have a hard time imagining too many people over the age of 13 being scared by any of this hokum.

Who or what the Bye Bye Man is, his origins, the significance of the train, his coins, or the big skinless dog that accompanies him: all of it is practically irrelevant to the plot. The Bye Bye Man is merely a boogeyman with a series of gimmicks in desperate need of a purpose. Once you’ve said “Bye Bye Man,” he gets in your head; and anyone who hears, says, or writes down the name becomes a potential victim that he begins screwing with via a series of hallucinations, lost time, and loud noise jump scares. Muttering “don’t say it, don’t think it” is a technique to ward him off that proves not particularly effective since that, too, is more gimmick than purposeful. You would think his ultimate goal would be to trick or terrorize his intendeds in order to spread his name like a supernatural virus to as many people as possible; that doesn’t appear to enter his head until the very end.

Even when Bye Bye Man does make his physical presence known, looking like the cloaked lovechild of Mason Verger and Voldemort, he actually doesn’t do much of anything other than stand there menacingly pointing or wagging – yes, wagging – his bony finger at you. As if the movie was Bye Bye Man competing on a TV game show called “America’s Next Top Boogeyman,” I kept waiting for top judge Bagul to go all Simon Cowell for stealing his shtick as this week’s special guest judge The Babadook furiously mashes the X button out of existence.

Given how he comes into being, it’s entirely possible Bye Bye Man might be related to The Grither from that holiday-themed episode of “Tales from the Darkside.” If you see this movie and have seen that episode, then you’ll know exactly what I’m getting at.

Things open up promisingly enough in 1969 as an average Joe runs around a neighborhood with a shotgun demanding to know who has told the name Bye Bye Man to someone else before killing them to prevent the evil from further spreading. There will be more flashbacks to this event later on. Given how much more effectively staged and performed this backstory is to the modern stuff built around the stereotypical assortment of photogenic millennials contending with the usual boogedy boogedy tropes, I would have preferred it if the entire film had been about the 1969 events. Then again, a horror movie about a writer experiencing lethal supernatural madness brought about by a sinister figure while investigating a true crime case already exists. I don’t have to tell you it was called Sinister. Told you Bagul would be upset with Bye Bye Man stealing his shtick.

College student Elliot (Douglas Smith, Dane DeHaan-ing the shit out of his performance) has just moved into an off-campus house with the love of his life, Sasha (Cressida Bonas, whose every line sounds like she’s zonked out on cold medicine, fitting since she may be the first horror movie victim in history whose primary affliction is evil has given her a bad cold – not joking), and his best friend, John (Lucien Laviscount, who I suspect has a heck of a career ahead of him whenever producers want but cannot get Michael B. Jordan). Sasha and John appear a little too chummy, leading to Elliot’s increasingly homicidal state as he suffers jealous delusions brought on by “He Who Cannot Be Named” and his faithful demon dog companion, “Cenobite Beethoven.”
In all seriousness, I loved the idea of a supernatural psycho with a paranormal pet. I wanted less Bye Bye Man and more of his hound of hell eating the bodies of his victims. I want that dog to have its own spin-off movie, and I want the title of that movie to be Beethoven’s 666th.

Immediately, like within mere moments of moving into this house, they experience creepy noises, doors that thunderously slam on their own, and other assorted clichés you’ve seen a million times before. They discover an old nightstand with “Bye Bye Man” scribbled in it, and that’s when their luck really begins to run out. Luckily, they have a friend who claims to be psychic, so, you guessed it – they decide to hold a séance. Now the Sinister meets The Ring meets Final Destination meets The Shining meets A Nightmare on Elm Street meets Insert Supernatural Horror Movie Title Here and You’d Probably Be Right kicks into full swing as characters go mental/commit murders/get killed because of how Bye Bye Man messes with their minds. You can pretty much guess where this one is headed fairly early on and not just because you’ve seen all those other horror movies I listed.

Carrie-Ann Moss doesn’t make her presence known until nearly the hour mark in the totally thankless role of the cop grilling Elliot after she suspects he’s behind the deaths. Her character should have been named “Detective Thankless.”

Then it’s Faye Dunaway’s turn to cash a check with her cameo as the wife of the 1969 reporter/killer Elliot seeks out for further flashbacks. Something happens to her towards the end of their scene that’s meant to be horrific but was actually so inexplicable and cheesy it made me laugh out loud. That pretty much set the tone for the remainder of the film.

We are talking about a movie where Elliot realizes he has to erase anything pertaining to the Bye Bye Man’s name, and that means doing away with that nightstand. Obviously, he destroys it, right? Wrong! He simply carries it out of the house and chucks it into the woods out back. He doesn’t burn it or chop it up or anything else that would actually make it impossible to ever open the drawer and see what’s written.

That’s a perfect example of so many aspects of The Bye Bye Man that are off-kilter. Like you can tell everyone in front of and behind the camera are trying really hard to make it work, almost succeeding if not for performances, writing, and directing being just wonky enough to make it not work the way they intended while still being somewhat entertaining in a schlocky b-movie sort of way. I hate that I even have to assign a star rating to this because how does one score “this movie sucks, but there’s stuff I enjoyed yet at the same time I didn’t, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.

We are talking about a movie where during what is supposed to be a moment of high terror, the Bye Bye Man pokes a guy’s forehead with his finger, and they cut to a doorbell ringing.

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