Blessed be the Netflix gods that have stocked me with horror movies, and Ashwee who suggested we watch this nutty movie.
So Bye Bye Man is about Elliot, his girlfriend Sasha and their friend John who move into this spooky old house. Elliot starts finding old writing in the house with the phrase, “Don’t think it, don’t say it” and “Bye Bye Man”. This unleashes an evil, couldn’t tell you if it was ancient or not, that starts psychologically fucking with the three of them–Elliot starts hallucinating Sasha and John are having an affair, and Sasha gets sick with this mystery illness. If you tell anyone about the Bye Bye Man or think about him too much, these people too start to hallucinate and hurt other people around them, all of which they blame on the Bye Bye Man. The movie even opens in 1969 during a shooting spree, where a man is killing everyone in his neighborhood who has even mentioned the Bye Bye Man to anyone else, all while muttering “don’t think it, don’t say it”. This harsh and dark opening sets a really cool tone the rest of the movie fails to execute.
The idea of this supernatural force fucking with people psychologically is cool, and in some scenes it pays off — the climax being pretty compelling and haunting (until the Bye Bye Man is revealed — what a bad costuming job.). It creates an eerie atmosphere for audiences who can’t tell whether they are watching a hallucination or the real thing, and I think some portions of the film are effective because of it. But the scenes in the middle are kind of goofy. For instance, the gang initially has a seance with their psychic friend Kim to try and find out who the Bye Bye Man is. Once he starts unleashing hell on them, Elliot decides to have another seance to try and end this once and for all. He picks up Kim, who is visibly distressed, and they start the drive to the apartment. They have a conversation where they discuss how Bye Bye Man makes them hallucinate — only for Kim to then hallucinate a family on a train track, jump out of a moving car to help them, and not even THINK this could be fake. And then to help, Elliot chases after her — WITH A BLOODY HAMMER. FOR SOME REASON! And you’re just sitting there, thinking — why is this happening? And there is no reason except they need a catalyst for Elliot to go to jail later. And the cop arresting him is definitely a hallucination at points, but then also seems to be a cryptic weirdo at others. The inability to discern reality, as cool as it can be, also can be frustrating when they refuse to say exactly what they mean or what is actually happening while the audience is also looking to solve a mystery. This is a high end concept and they’re making it like it’s a normal slasher — that doesn’t work.
In another part, Elliot decides you can beat Bye Bye Man with positive thinking. And it works, somehow — the Bye Bye Man tries to make him hallucinate, he takes a deep breath, and realizes he’s fine. But this works ronly for a scene, and then they drop it and it doesn’t come back. And the audience is left not with eerie confusion, but genuine ‘what the fuck am I watching?!’ I don’t know whose idea it was to present solutions only for those solutions to be just completely ignored and discarded. The bones of The Bye Bye Man are there, but the meat is really weird and convoluted and just bizarre. The characters are okay, but watching the most frustrating dialogue with melodrama was so weird. And the cheating subplot brought out some really gross behavior from Elliot, making the main character kind of unlikable. And by kind of, I mean really.
I think this concept works and in an era of remakes, I think we should remake movies with bad execution but good bones. While this movie is only 6 years old, I feel like it could really find an audience in psychological horror today.
But as it stands, Bye Bye Man is really not up to snuff.