The Bye Bye Man (2017) Review

I first heard of this film a while ago and after seeing the trailer and therefore knowing the concept of the film I was intrigued. It sounded a bit like the “real life” cases of the Slenderman and the killer in this seemed like a kind of bastard child of Freddy and him.

Director: Stacy Title

Writers: Jonathan Penner (screenplay), Robert Damon Schneck (based on “The Bridge to Body Island” by)

Stars: Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount, Cressida Bonas

Budget: $7.4 million estimated

Run Time: 96 minutes

As I mentioned this film has been massively slated scoring a 4 on imdb, 23% on Rotten Tomatoes and 37% on Metacritic. I didn’t see these ratings until after I had watched the movie which was a good thing but isn’t always possible, hell I imagine a few of you are reading this having not seen the film!

The premise is simple but quite unique(ish) three annoying teenagers move into a house after we’ve been shown a clip of a man killing a lot of people with a shot gun. Upon moving into the house some creepy things start to happen and we’re shown that Elliot has a slight fear that his girlfriend Sasha fancies his best friend and house mate John.

After a coin, yes a coin, drops behind a bedside cabinet Elliot takes the drawer out and discovers these words scrawled all over the drawer: don’t think it, don’t say it under the scrawling is written Bye Bye Man. Now this is where things turn to crap for everyone, you see once you know his name it gives him the power to haunt you. Worse still if you tell someone or they stumble on his name he can also go after them.

The Bye Bye Man’s power involves making people see things that are not there and the fact that the person he’s haunting knows no one else can find out his name they tend to try and kill everyone that knows it. Elliot investigates what the hell is going on with the Bye Bye Man and this links us to the massacre we see in the film’s opening scene.

Eventually everything leads to a final battle with the Bye Bye Man as he plays with Elliot’s fear of his girlfriend porking his best mate. The eventual final scene is reasonably well done and the fate of everyone is pretty final.

The Good

• I loved the concept of The Bye Bye Man, how knowing his name spreads is a nice idea.
• There’s some creepy scenes, sure it’s stuff we’ve seen before but eyes in the darkness, shapes in the shadows, the movement of Bye Bye Man is all really cool.
• The flashbacks to the past and where the haunting came from.
• I liked the pacing of the film, the scatterings of strange events, the seance that scares some half to death leading to the end scene all had a good feel.
• The house is typical haunted house but the atmosphere is pretty good, I’d probably have moved out quicker though!

The Bad

• The acting is average at best but the acting and character development of Sasha the girlfriend is pretty bad.
• Not sure why they’d have Carrie-Anne Moss in this film and use her in such a small role, it feels like a pointless casting. A detective investigating the case could have added another layer to the film.
• One scene really annoys me, after Bye Bye Man makes someone see something they jump from Elliot’s car to go see the illusion. Now call me old fashioned but if I was chasing a woman in broad daylight to try and save her I wouldn’t pick up something like a pair of scissors and wave them around whilst trying to catch up with her.
• If Bye Bye Man’s power comes from knowing his name why would someone write it down on a freakin’ desk.
• Once Bye Bye Man is revealed I wasn’t keen on his look at all.

Now I realise that’s quite a few bad points but this film really isn’t as bad as people seem to review it as, it has flaws but it’s also a very decent concept not quite executed correctly. The atmosphere is good but as I mentioned they should maybe have kept Bye Bye Man’s face in the shadows, once they showed him he looked like a vampire from The Strain they should have retained the mystery to him. Now this isn’t the best horror film you’ll see but it’s nowhere near as bad as what people seem to be making it out to be, maybe I’m in the minority but I quite liked it!

Overall Rating – 6.5/10