Also saw one of those quintessential January releases, the Bye Bye Man. Yes, it’s a horror movie called The Bye Bye Man. Why is it called The Bye Bye Man? Because the spooky creature in it is called The Bye Bye Man. Why is he called The Bye Bye Man? Because, shut up. He’s called The Bye Bye Man, that’s why.
The Bye Bye Man is a creepy ghost (?) in an overcoat who has two coins and a skinless dog and there’s a train involved? What this iconography has to do with the character is never once explained. And, yes, why is he called The Bye Bye Man? Literally no explanation or even an attempt at an explanation. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie with so little explained.
This is a movie about dumb college kids who rent an impossibly off-campus house. They find an end-table scrawled with the words, “Don’t think it, don’t say it” and the name “the Bye Bye Man”. As soon as you say his name, he haunts you. If you say the name to anyone else, he haunts them.
And this is the only interesting thing this movie has going for it – the idea that the creature is a virus that infects the mind. The only way to end the infection and stop it from spreading is to kill anyone you said it to, anyone they said it, and then yourself. Because as long as people are thinking of the Bye Bye Man, he will continue to… hmmm… not sure what he does… Mainly he just messes with your mind, making you see things that aren’t there. Yeah, sometimes that’ll make you run in front of a train but mainly it just seems to make you dumb and/or jealous of your best friend and your girlfriend or something. It’s kind of unclear what he wants or why he wants it which bring me back to the fundamental weirdness of the flick.
On the one hand, there’s a possibility this movie decided to just not reveal a bunch of backstory that doesn’t matter. And maybe that’s to their credit. But the movie was also clearly rated R at one point and was hideously cut down to a very obvious PG-13 and maybe in that process, it lost some dearly needed story.
Then there’s the acting – I’m not kidding when I say this is some of the most shockingly inept acting that I’ve ever seen. The three leads are all bad but special attention needs to be given the lead actress. She’s terrible. She has no emotion… she can’t even be depended on to convincingly cover her face in horror. She has a low-level cold (maybe brought on by the Bye Bye Man) and she can’t sneeze convincingly (she literally says, “Achoo” at one point.
On the other hand, they somehow dragged Carrie-Ann Moss into this mess and she is startlingly good. She brings her A game to a movie that doesn’t deserve it. She’s not in the movie enough to make a big difference though. Oh, and Faye Dunaway of all people has a single scene… how did either of these ladies wind up in this? I suspect favors were owed.
So, yeah, there’s no reason to see this movie for most people. The only reason to see this movie is to laugh…. and honestly, I laughed in amazement and amusement at a number of occasions (“Achoo”). This is a legit so-bad-its-good movie – if you like that kind of flick, this is kind of a movie worth seeing…. on video… late at night… when the DVR is empty.
Score: 64