Review: “The Bye Bye Man” (PG-13)
Douglas Smith in “The Bye Bye Man”; Courtesy of STX Entertainment(NEW YORK) — Movies debuting in January are bad news. The month is Hollywood’s dumping ground for films that didn’t turn out as hoped — kind of like a boulevard of broken dreams. On the flip side, it’s also not a bad time to release a mediocre, low-budget horror film.
Allow me to introduce you to The Bye Bye Man.
It starts out with a bang — several bangs, actually. It’s 1969 and a middle-aged man in slacks, a buttoned-down shirt and tie pulls into the driveway of a suburban home, seemingly upset about something. When the woman who lives in the house answers the door, the man demands to know whether she told anybody “his name.” When she answer yes, he retreats to his car, grabs a rifle and starts shooting everybody.
Cut to present day, where me meet college students Elliot (Douglas Smith), his girlfriend, Sasha (Cressida Bonas), and Elliot’s best friend, John (Lucien Laviscount). They’re taking the big step of renting a house off campus and, of course, the house is super creepy. Predictably, weird things start happening the night they move in.
At first, Elliot’s skeptical of the paranormal overtones but after a housewarming party, he lets Sasha talk him into participating in a séance with her clairvoyant friend, Kim (Jenna Kanell). That séance really sets the story in motion, inviting the title character into their lives by saying and thinking his name.
The question is whether you, as an audience member, will find the story creepy and/or scary. The answer is yes — at least, at the beginning.
As far as bogeymen go, the Bye Bye Man is decent. He wears a menacing cloak, is tall, has long fingers, gray skin and is accompanied by a demonic hound. He manipulates his victims through hallucinations, causing them to unknowingly murder their friends and family. But the story soon loses steam. The scarier it’s supposed to be, the sillier it gets. It’s as if director Stacy Title wasn’t sure whether a scene should plays as scary or funny. But to her credit, The Bye Bye Man is creepy enough for most fans of the genre to enjoy.
Three out of five stars.
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