The Bye Bye Man - Movie Review
January, the infamous dumping ground of Hollywood trash. In recent years, the month of January has had its dose of bad horror movies every year, so was The Bye Bye Man the one to break that garbage streak? Let’s break it down.
The Bye Bye Man is directed by Stacy Title and tells the story of four college students that move into this big, off-campus household in Wisconsin where one by one, they find out the name of a supernatural entity known as The Bye Bye Man. Once they learn the name, they’re haunted by him throughout the film and have to find a way to cut him out of their lives before he completely takes their sanity.
I didn’t go into this movie with the highest of expectations. The trailers weren’t anything mind blowing, but the interest was there for me. I liked the concept behind this entity that you can’t say it nonetheless think its name, that’s almost impossible to do. There's potential there.
That all said, how was the execution? Poor, it’s handled incredibly poor. No need to keep you in suspense because this film won’t do it either. This movie is a load of crap.
Let’s just start with the acting. It’s bad. These actors are trying their best I’m sure, but all the performances come off as flat and wooden. The script failed to make any of these characters interesting in the slightest. If you don’t care about the characters in a movie, then there’s no investment when shit starts hitting the fan for them. Not to mention the script makes these characters come off completely stupid, as in they make the dumbest decisions you could think of in a horror movie situation. How am I supposed to root for these people to live if they’re making it seem like they want to die? There’s no rhyme or reason.
The Bye Bye Man himself is completely squandered. He’s barely in the movie and hardly does anything of note. He’s not scary, he creates no suspense, and he’s incredibly predictable in his scare tactics. I can’t really blame him or the actor in makeup because the concept of the Bye Bye Man is just underutilized by this bland screenplay.
It also doesn’t help that this movie is a very, slow burner and not in the good way. Clocking in at almost 2 hours, this film is so dragged out and 30-45 minutes in, I was bored out of my mind. Nothing of real interest or tension was presented, no effort looked to be put in to keep the audience engaged after the first act. It’s just predictable horror tropes through and through, it’s the same old, dull song and dance.
Final Take
Worse of all, the third act of this film seriously jumped the shark in the most cliché, horror cop out ending you could imagine. Honestly, I bet 9/10 people could guess the ending of this movie just by watching the trailer. It’s the kind of ending that makes you question the whole movie from beginning to end. That question is “what was the point of all that?”
Let’s wrap this up because I really can’t think of anything redeemable about this film. Bye Bye Man was a cool idea in theory, but in execution, this movie falls short on every level for a horror movie.
I’m going to give The Bye Bye Man a solid “F” on the movie grading scale. Not the way I would’ve like to start the new year, but it is what it is. In the words of NSYNC: “Bye Bye Bye” to this hot garbage.
As always, thanks so much for reading and make sure to stay posted to Frank’s Takes for more reviews. Until next time, keep it 100.
– Frank
