To quote the characters of this incredibly bad film, "Don't think it, don't say it" but The Bye Bye Man is officially one of the worst films I have ever had the misfortune of watching. Between the really poor script, hideously bad acting and general lack of any horror to speak of, The Bye Bye Man is as bad as its title might suggest.
The story follows three college students moving into their first home and their discovery of a terrible curse that befalls anyone who says its name which happens to be scrawled on a night stand. 'The Bye Bye Man' could have been a really interesting paranoia-induced deterioration of the human psyche and you can see the influence of surprise horror hit, 'It Follows' all over this film. Unfortunately, the characters are unlikable, bland cliches that you never really root for and the confusing rules around the way the monster works doesn't help matters.
With any monster movie there are always rules. Freddy Kreuger only gets you when you sleep, the Jeepers Creepers movie will stalk certain people for body parts it needs, the demon in 'It Follows' will only go for the one person with the curse and so on and so forth. These rules are established early on to engage audiences so we know the rules and can root for the characters. Unfortunately, this is lost with surprisingly incoherent rules. We learn early on that saying his name or thinking about him means he will appear. The protagonist utters his name toward the start of the film and the lights go out and one of the characters falls to the ground.
This should have been the foundation for a decent set of rules but throughout the film other minor characters say his name and it doesn't appear straight away. There are numerous examples of this throughout until the rules are eventually established through some forced expository dialogue from a pointless character we've never heard of until this point.
Furthermore, the acting is just...bad to say the least. From the character who can't even cough and sneeze convincingly, to the other characters who barely manage to get their cringe-infused dialogue out without looking bored, The Bye Bye Man is a hilarious catalogue of errors from start to finish.
The ending is the icing on the cake here and undoes any of the work that the script looked like it was building up to. I really cannot recommend this film to anyone. Actually, that's a lie. Anyone interested in learning how NOT to make a film should check this out, it really is that bad.
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Film Reviews 2017
De TodoThis year I've set myself a challenge - to watch as many films released in 2017 and review all of them. Don't forget to check out my website for new TV show and film reviews added every day, www.thereviewgeek.com. Thank you to everyone who has take...
