Review: The Bye Bye Man (2017)

Three students rent a house and stumble across the story of The Bye Bye Man and his link to violent and horrific acts...

What happens when you take elements of Candyman, Ring and A Nightmare On Elm Street? You end up with the mess that is The Bye Bye Man.

The film is based (according to the credits) on a story called The Bridge To Body Island by Robert Damon Schneck. Now, I haven't read the story, but did a brief search to see what the story is about. The has no resemblance to the story at all. The story sounded really interesting, one I may seek out. But the film is a mix of horror cliches taken from far better films and then thrown into the mix.

An example? Well, the tagline is 'don't say it, don't think it.' Of course, once you say his name, he then begins to appear. Sound familiar? Of course if you pass the name to someone else, they then begin to see him. Then of course you get hallucinations and such as The Bye Bye Man plays on your mind...to what end exactly? He appears, but never actually does anything, apart from make people see things then carry out violent acts. But the film never explains how this works at all. Every film, horror or otherwise, needs its own rules for it to work. But when the film doesn't tell you what they are, then how is the film supposed to work?! He has a creature with him, but it too never does anything either, except feed off the dead. Not sure if it was done with CGI or with practical effects, but the creature looks terrible.

Of course, being a film such as this, there has to be a psychic involved at some point and sure enough we get one, the usual cliched goth-looking girl. The three students at the heart of the story make some REALLY stupid decisions in the film. You might try and argue they made them because of what was happening to them, but even that doesn't excuse their stupidity.

The (film) story makes no sense at all. The ending, which sets up the obligatory sequel, includes the old burning down the house ending, which makes no sense at all, as nothing in the finale would have resulted in the house burning down. But then, considering everything else in the film, why would you expect the film to make sense then either? The film's screenplay is credited to Jonathan Penner but it's as if he sat down with a book of horror cliches and picked a few at random. I may be doing him a disservice as it is possible there was some rewriting involved, but as he is the writer credited, the blame will rest with him. I mention the rewriting as there are moments in the trailer, unless specifically shot for the trailer, that hint at a different and frankly, a potentially more interesting film.

Director Stacy Title, who made the very underrated (and forgotten it seems) The Last Supper over twenty years before, has sadly made a horror film that has no scares at all. The music is very generic and forgettable. The three leads, Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount and Cressida Bonas are not good at all. The great Doug Jones plays the Bye Bye Man, but only gets to stand and do very little. Carrie-Anne Moss plays a police detective, but only gets a few brief scenes. Oscar winner Faye Dunaway turns up for a couple of minutes but seems to have wandered in from an old Gothic type of film.

It's not all totally terrible. The opening scene is actually pretty good. But although it's a tense opening of a man on a gun rampage, it's bloodless. As is most of the other scenes involving characters being hurt or killed. Apparently the film was originally an 'R' rated film in the US, before being trimmed to a PG-13 film. In the UK it's a '15' classified film. I'm actually getting more and more annoyed by horror films (and this affects other genres too) being trimmed for a lower rating. Yes, you can make a film that is genuinely scary film with a lower rating. The Hammer version of The Woman In Black is terrifying despite it's 12A classification in the UK. But because studios are chasing the money, they seem to forget that there are adults who would like to see higher rated films, with blood and violence in them. To remove it all for the lower rating might bring in a bigger audience, but it will turn off some of the (in this case) older horror fans who want to be scared and thrilled.  Treat the audience with intelligence, damn it!

Anyway, back to the film.

Had this film been based on the original story, then I thin it would have the potential of being a better film. But it's not. Instead what we have here is a film with no original ideas in it at all.

The Bye Bye Man is the first (so-called) horror film of 2017. The genre does not get off to a good start this year. But there will (better!) be much better horror films to come.

As for what to say about The Bye Bye Man, it is in the title.

Rating 1/5