Director: Stacy Title
Writer: Jonathan Penner (Screenplay) Robert Damon Schneck (Book)
Starring: Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount, Cressida Bonas, Doug Jones, Michael Trucco, Carrie-Anne Moss, Faye Dunaway, Jenna Kanell
Plot: Three friends stumble upon the horrific origins of a mysterious figure they discover is the root cause of the evil behind unspeakable acts.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Well This Sucked
Story: The Bye Bye Man starts in 1969 as we see a man Larry (Whannell) going on a killing spree in a small neighbourhood asking each person who they told about something before someone arrives.
Move to modern day times we meet Elliot (Smith), John (Laviscount) and Sasha (Bonas) three students who find themselves getting a new house to stay in for their time in college. When noises happen, Sasha gets scared and calls for Kim (Kanell) a fellow student who claims to have psychic abilities, but what she witnesses in her visions strikes fear in her as she gives the three a warning about what Elliot had discovered earlier that night about the Bye Bye Man, Don’t Think it, Don’t Say It.
When the three friends start seeing strange events it becomes clear the Bye Bye Man (Jones) is haunting them, forcing them through horrific visions that make them all question themselves on everything they see or hear, can they figure it all out before it is too late?
Thoughts on The Bye Bye Man
Characters/Performance – Elliot is your typical leading character, he has had emotional trauma in his past but that doesn’t play into where the film goes, he does fit the paranoid boyfriend but we never learn what he is studying to be at this college, John is the best friend and that is all we learn about him. Sasha is the girlfriend who spends most of the film sick and nothing else. The figure of the Bye Bye Man looks creepy but doesn’t get used well. The rest of the character are also from the generic textbook of strange friend, family, person from the past and smart person that dies quickly.
Performance wise, well, there isn’t much to say here, Smith is solid without excelling with Lucien and Cressida also doing nothing fancy in this role. Faye Dunaway turns up, good for her same goes for Carrie Anne Moss. The only good performance in this film is in fact Doug Jones as the creepy looking Bye Bye Man.
Story – Story time, well you know how certain films do ‘the don’t read something’ but they do and spend the whole film getting haunted by a ghostly spirit or vision. That is this films story borrowing heavily from Nightmare on Elm Street and the Slender Man or Grim Reaper. This is nothing fresh and by the end you will not be surprised by what happened.
Horror/Thriller – There are easy jump scares going on here but the most part comes from the creepy coat in the corner, doors slamming and the old favorite BOOM sound effects, we are also not kept guessing because the story doesn’t make us care enough.
Settings – The film doesn’t offer any memorable settings for anything to take place that you will remember.
Special Effects – The special effects are nearly all bad CGI which disappoints when we see them.
Final Thoughts – This is just another bad horror film with lazy scares and poor character development.
Overall: Just a simple but boring horror film.
Rating
