Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'The Bye Bye Man' (2017)

I have to admit, I was shocked to see a "Not Slenderman" movie produced by someone other than Gravitas. But Jesus fuck! How the hell did they land Carrie-Anne Moss?! Come'on Carrie, you're better than this garbage!

Look, all joking aside, outside of Carrie-Anne Moss, the acting was... acceptable for horror. So yeah, the acting is pretty bad, but it's pretty on-par for what you'd expect from horror. Then Ms. Moss steps on the scene and immediately upstages everyone. You have to ask yourself why she isn't the main character? Her story is far more interesting than the random douche-bags getting themselves killed. You know what would have made for a marvelous story? "Carrie-Anne plays Detective Shaw. A local investigator trying to figure out why one young fellow killed all his friends and then himself. And what does this murder suicide have to do with a murder suicide from from over forty years ago?"

Tell me you wouldn't wanna watch THE FUCK out of that movie. Hell, I wanna watch that movie right now, but sadly it doesn't FUCKING exist! This one does and that just makes it harder for me to like this movie. An obvious missed opportunity from a great fucking story in horror is always a letdown.

But, that doesn't mean that the story they gave us was all that bad. It was... okay. It had a really interesting spin on the usual "Not Slenderman" mythos and there was a lot to really captivate the audience about the story. More on that in the spoilers.

The atmosphere was spot on—save one glaring fucking problem that was really pissing me off. They did not need CGI for one particular series of FX and I find it highly unacceptable that, rather than going for practical FX where they'd be stunning, we got sloppy CGI.

So, the acting's acceptable for horror, the story is interesting, the atmosphere is perfect, and the FX were garbage...

*Sigh* I can't recommend this movie for one reason and one reason only. If I see talent like Carrie-Anne Moss' wasted, missed opportunities for a better plot, and shit CGI, it's just a wash in my book. You may, and I really have to stress this, MAY be able to look past that, but I just can't and because of that I can't recommend this movie.

SPOILERS!!!

So, The Bye Bye Man works much the same way ol' Slendy does. If you learn about him, you're essentially ensnared by his power. Unlike Slendy, learning more about him cannot help you defeat him. So, with Slendy you have to run the gambit of learning more and risking him getting closer. However, with The Bye Bye Man you have to fight to forget him and erase any evidence you can of his existence. What makes The Bye Bye Man just as interesting as Slendy is the idea that you have to stop thinking about something that's trying to get into your head. It's like trying not to think about taking a piss, when you're to the point of busting. Even worse, the way The Bye Bye Man works, it's the equivalent of giving you a tour of all the local water falls, while you're trying not to think about pissing yourself.

The Bye Bye Man succeeds at something the demonic Oculus mirror failed miserably at. Yeah, he's kinda playful at first, but once he gets going, he fucks with your perception until you kill everyone you know and love. There's none of this "making you think you took a bite out of a light bulb, but it was just an apple and it's all in your head." Fuck no. If The Bye Bye Man wants to trick you into eating a light bulb, you're eating a fucking light bulb. There's this one scene where it convinces the male lead to run over a librarian that's been helping him. It does so by convincing him that "he's not really running over his best friend" and then he plows right into the librarian. That's some mind fuckery right there.

And there's none of this, "fuck with one person, then inexplicably fuck with another person to prevents the first person from killing anybody," bullshit, like in Oculus. The Bye Bye Man has everyone at everyone's fucking throats from the get-go.

And really, The Bye Bye Man is just a responsible pet owner trying to feed his hell hound. By the way, FUCKING SHAME on the director for doing a CGI hell hound.

I digress. As interesting and brutal as The Bye Bye Man mythos is, the movie just didn't get it quite right. I'd give this one a pass.