Review: The Bye Bye Man BD + Screen Caps

THE MOVIE — 1.0/5

Don’t think it. Don’t say it. For the love of god DON’T SEE THIS INSEPID MOVIE!

The Bye Bye Man actually starts off well enough in 1968 when a seemingly normal guy goes on a killing spree demanding if they repeated the name to anyone. It had an Insidious vibe. And that’s where the praise ends, however.

Present day, college students Elliot (DOUGLAS SMITH), girlfriend Sasha (CRESSIDA BONAS) and best friend John (LUCIEN LAVISCOUNT) move into a creepy and creaky old house off-campus. The home’s furnishings are in the basement and one such piece is a side table and when Elliot examines the drawer, discovers the circular writing “Don’t think it. Don’t Say it”, underneath was the word “The Bye Bye Man”. Why it was inscribed, no f**ng clue. Soon enough strange things begin occurring amplified by a séance conducted by Sasha’s friend, Kim (JENNA KANELL) and Elliot blurts out the name and now the others are, I guess, infected.

There’s really not much more than that to this thin plot. They begin seeing things that aren’t actually happening, including Kim believing she’s seeing a car accident across train only to be hit and killed which brings in Detective Shaw (CARRIE-ANNE MOSS); Sasha becomes incredibly weak; and Elliot starts thinking bestie John and Sasha are having an affair. Through all this, ever so briefly at times, we get to see this “Bye Bye Man” as portrayed by Doug Jones (Hellboy), a character that not only as no back-story (I guess they’re saving it for an inevitable sequel which will be DTV no doubt) but isn’t all that interesting even on a superficial basis.

The trio to begin playing Scooby-Doo investigating and discovering the man in the opening was a reporter, Redmon, who himself was investigating the mass murder by a teenage boy and that leads to the “Bye Bye Man” name where upon Redmon must kill those who know the name. Well, as it happens the side table belonged to him, which begs the question why wouldn’t he at least burn it (I suppose the excuse is, he didn’t remember writing the name). Oh, and the now infamous Faye “La La Land” Dunaway makes a cameo appearance as the reporter’s widow.

The acting isn’t great but given the material, I can’t fault them too much. Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount and Cressida Bonas carry themselves well enough I suppose though I have to wonder what Carrie-Anne Moss was doing and even Doug Jones never utilizes his full potential with such a bland, albeit supernatural, villain.

The Bye Bye Man was helmed by Stacy Title based off of a chapter entitled “The Bridge to Body Island” from the novel “The President’s Vampire” and adapted by Jonathan Penner who happens to be Title’s spouse/husband. Not surprisingly, neither have very much experience outside of a few shorts and indies (probably most notable, The Last Supper starring Cameron Diaz).

Now, in fairness, perhaps this just wasn’t a story that was made for the feature film platform (I actually think it’d been suitable for the revamped Tales from the Crypt series) but as it is, it’s not at all scary and if I hadn’t watched alone, this might’ve been a hilarious blast viewing with friends, particularly the finale which was a hoot.

But in the end, The Bye Bye Man should’ve gone the direct-to-video route, although even then it’d still been a crappy horror movie.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 0/5

This release comes with a title-embossed slip cover. Inside is a redemption code for the Digital HD copy. No features were included.

There is the Unrated Cut which runs a little over three minutes longer and based on what I could tell, this likely was the original R-rated version before it got edited down to the watered-down PG-13 rating. The two big takeaways were there’s more violence in the opening and a more explicit sex scene (albeit still short). There were little odds and ends that were toned down but those were the two noticeable ones.

VIDEO – 4.0/5

AUDIO – 4.5/5

OVERALL – 1.0/5

Overall, The Bye Bye Man is an all around bad movie that somehow got a theatrical distribution (though it was out of theaters within 5 weeks). The young cast isn’t particularly special, and Carrie-Anne Moss’s talents were underutilized, but get the most out of a bad script and a supernatural villain who was anything but scary. This Blu-ray release offers good video/audio transfers but sadly (or not) no bonus material.