The Bye Bye Man is a great movie, if you want to know how not to make movies.
The Bye Bye Man is about a demon that haunts you, makes you do bad things, and comes to you when you say his name. It’s basically Beetlejuice and The Exorcist mashed together. You would think it could possibly work; it doesn’t. Strap yourself in, because this is going to be a long one.
First, I need to begin with this, The Bye Bye Man is a horror movie. Most horror movies aren’t that good to begin with. All of them follow the same basic format which makes them all predictable and my god does this movie follow the format. Right down from the setting to the characters, it has it all but that’s not it. The movie isn’t even scary and in points when it’s trying to be scary, it’s more funny. I was laughing at the film more than jumping. The times I wasn’t laughing, I wasn’t being scared because of the predictability of the film. When they play the music, you know something is going to happen. There’s no suspense. You can’t be scared. This movie has literally failed on the one thing it attempted to do.
Plot: Okay let’s go more into the plot. Three college students, go to rent a house so they can hangout and have some more freedom. It’s the typical college student, horror movie trio. There’s boy one, or “Elliott” in the movie, smart and main hero. Then there’s boy two, or “John” in the movie, it’s boy one’s cocky best friend. Then there’s girl one, or “Sasha”, boy one’s girlfriend. Elliot finds a drawer with “The Bye Bye Man” carved into it. Then he says the name out loud to his friends, then the three of them get haunted by the Bye Bye Man. Sounds somewhat promising, but it’s pretty dumb in execution. Not only that, the movie forces the fact that the setting is creepy down your throat, by having people say the setting is creepy. The dialogue in general is bad representative of the rest of the movie.
The Characters: These characters are some of the most unlikeable characters in a piece of cinema I have ever seen. I already mentioned before how bland these characters are and how they’re card-board cutouts of horror tropes, but they just suck. There’s a subplot where Elliot thinks his girlfriend is cheating on him and it’s completely justified but she changes from time to time. One second she’s a loyal soulmate, the next she’s flirting with the other boy in the house. Besides, they’re just dumb. Any drama with these characters is uninteresting, and executed poorly.
Acting: The acting sucks. There’s only one good actor, he’s played by a man named Michael Trucco. He’s Elliot’s brother and pops in here and there. Other than that, there is no good actor.
The special effects Though there isn’t enough CGI or special effects to review, the CGI is awful. There’s a CGI dog in the movie that looks terrible. However, the makeup, I do have to say, is somewhat good, especially for The Bye Bye Man. But other than that, it’s not worth mentioning.
What a movie The Bye Bye Man was. I definitely don’t recommend seeing the garbage disguised as film. It’s horrible. I give this movie 2/10 stars only because, as I said before, it has hints of humor but this, honest to god, is my least favorite movie of all time.
