Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 2017. That movie is "The Bye Bye Man".
I'm gonna tell you, guys, the only reason why I'm even covering this movie at all is simply because of it's title. It just sounds incredibly stupid, and every time that I have to either look or read this stupid title, it just sounds even dumber than what it already sounds. Now I don't know anything about the movie, content wise. I really just have to find out and see what the hell this thing is all about.
Now as much as I'd like to tell you that I'm hoping for this movie to be good, I have my doubts about that. Because I've heard almost nobody saying anything positive about this movie. But then again, I've also went into a lot of movies beforehand that had a horrible reputation, and some of them didn't turn out as bad as everyone made them out to be. Now I'm not trying to say that this movie will be so bad, it's good, I'm just saying that it might be watchable. But the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is watchable at all, is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Bye Bye Man".
5 minutes later
All right, I have a really dumb question here, and I know it'll probably be explained later on, but I want to ask this. So, we just had our opening prologue where some guy, during the late 60's, asked somebody if they said the 'name' before he killed them with his shotgun. And he also did the same thing to a bunch of teenagers across the street after discovering him with his fucking shotgun. I'm going to assume it's suppose to be our titled killer that the crazy shotgun-wielding dude was talking about, but what I want to know is how exactly does he know about the Bye Bye Man? I'm asking this, since he's obviously never mentioned him in the opening prologue, and it could be possible that the guy is just fucking nuts. I'm just saying that I think we're being left in the dark here without any details, and I'm hoping for something resembling an explanation soon as to what the hell the guy was referring to.
19 minutes later
So...upon Elliot first mentioning the Bye Bye Man's name, the lights go out for a moment, and when they come back on, Kim's on the floor holding her leg in pain. Question: Was that suppose to be frightening in some way? Because, I'm gonna tell you, guys, that was probably the weakest fucking attempt at a jump scare I've ever seen from a horror movie in a long time! Good god, I *really* hope this movie actually gets better soon, otherwise, I may be already wishing for too much here.
16 minutes later
Wow, that was...even lamer than the previous attempt at a jump scare, and that one didn't even try. This one was just bad. And it's not even bad in a funny way, it was just horrible! Guys, these jumps scares are getting worse, and I really wish this movie would cut this shit out, because it's not getting any better. And if this is the best this movie has to offer, then the next hour is gonna be fucking painful to get through!
6 minutes later
Wait, so let me if I understand all this. Larry Redmon, the guy who we saw in the opening prologue with the shotgun, wrote an unpublished article about some teenager who killed his family members and a few other kids, probably his own age, not totally sure. And when it was stated as to why this kid was doing all this killing, his answer was that the Bye Bye Man "made him do it". So essentially...this origin story of the Bye Bye Man is a fourth-rate knock off of the fucking Slender Man! All of a sudden, I now have no real interest in this story anymore, because this movie is essentially a half-assed, retarded version of a shitty myth that I never had any interest to begin with. I hate this movie, guys, and I can't shut it off early, as per rules of Reaction & Review, since I have to watch the whole thing through until the end credits pop up. This is really gonna suck...
9 minutes later
OK, I have a dumb question here, and I know it's probably not important, but I'm curious about something. So, first of all, Kim's dead, whoopie. And she died after seeing illusions of a family car wreck near the railroad tracks from the train. That part I can sorta buy. But what I want to know is why the hell was Elliot chasing after her with a hammer in his hand? I really don't understand the logic behind it, unless if he was gonna knock her out for a spell. But other than that, I don't see why he would be carrying that with him. It just doesn't really make any sense to me, you know what I mean?
19 minutes later
So, guys, do you happen to remember back in my review of the "Slender Man" film where I mentioned that the mythos of Slender Man was basically just a mute version of Freddy Krueger from "Nightmare On Elm Street"? Well, it's the same fucking thing here. The more you think about the Bye Bye Man, the more power he supposedly gets. But if you don't think about it or say his name, then his powers get taken away, I guess. Yeah, this movie is dripping with "creativity". And I'm only hating this thing more and more with each passing minute. God, I seriously cannot wait until this piece of shit ends, and that's when I'll *really* have fun tearing the shit out of it!
The Review
Oh, thank you god it's over. Well, guys, that was "The Bye Bye Man". Let me go ahead and shut this garbage movie off...OK. Well, I suppose I can get this stupid pun out of the way so that I may never have to say it again. I can officially say "Bye Bye" to this stupid movie now that I never have to watch it ever again. Good lord, that movie was torturous to get through...
Well, I may as well just get my misery out of the way and tell you guys why this film is so bad. And I want to start with the writing. To summarize it perfectly, the writing here is horrible. And it's not just horrible, simply because of the fact that it's badly written. It's horrible because there's no real creative thought put into this movie. Now yes, I totally understand that creativity in movies isn't really something that Hollywood is known for, especially within the last decade or so, probably longer than that. However, even if your movie isn't really all that creative, you could still at least make it interesting. And unfortunately, this movie has all of the interest of moldy bread. There is not an ounce of it here. And to make matters worse, it's *painfully* predictable, too. I could tell you a lot of things that happen in this movie at what points, along with the ending. None of it is new, none of it is interesting, and it's not even scary at all. Granted, the latter could be because I've been somewhat more immune to the horror aspects of horror films, but even if that wasn't the case, even lamer shit like the "Slender Man" movie at least somewhat tried to be interesting with it's horror aspects. This movie just feels like the same shit I saw in that movie, and decided to be even more half-assed than what it already is.
First off, like I mentioned earlier, the origin story of the Bye Bye Man is essentially almost beat for beat the same origin as the Slender Man. Where some kid killed his family and others because the Bye Bye Man "told him to". And thanks to that, it got Larry Redmon's attention to where he asked the kid in an interview about it, and Redmon himself eventually grew fucking nuts ended up killing anyone who might've also said the name. And the only way he got out of it was by killing himself before the Bye Bye Man got to him. And since then, the secret of the Bye Bye Man has been kept hidden because he was the only one who knew about it. It was then, until later on, that our main character Elliot ends up discovering the origins of the Bye Bye Man after he, his girlfriend, and best friend move into a big house together. And once Elliot discovers the writing that Redmon wrote onto paper in his little drawer that repeatedly wrote "Don't Think It. Don't Say It", he eventually says the Bye Bye Man's name in front of his girlfriend and friends, and they all start to descend into madness as the Bye Bye Man starts to get into their heads while they see illusions that fuck with their minds throughout the movie.
And to be honest with you, guys, in the hands of a competent writer, it probably would've been done better. However, seeing as how I now watched this and "Slender Man", both movies that play out almost the exact same way, I'm not convinced that this sort of story will ever work out in the proper way, even if you had a halfway decent writer. And on top of all that, our characters are all shallow and lifeless. There is not a single character in this movie who I could give a single fuck about, both in personality and background. At the very least, though, I can give this movie some small credit in which they were able to establish character names early on, unlike the "Slender Man" movie where that thing took over about a half an hour in trying to establish even a *single* name. That said, none of these characters are interesting, or even likable. One other thing I need to mention about the Bye Bye Man himself is that for some reason, whenever he's close to you, you will either hear coins drop near you, or you see his dog nearby. I kinda get the dog reason, because John kinda glimpsed a little of the Bye Bye Man's backstory through an old video where he use to own a dog, but what do the coins have *anything* to do with the Bye Bye Man? I'm really curious about this, because I don't recall the movie ever explaining that very well. And if they did, well, then I must've missed it in some director's cut of the movie, which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist.
But overall, guys, the writing here is just fucking horrible. There is nothing here I could even say that was a genuine positive about this movie's writing. It's basically Slender Man 2.0, except it feels worse than that movie was. So yeah, writing here is just horrible across the board. Same goes with the acting. Almost nobody here actually put in any sort of effort with the *one* lone exception being Faye Dunaway. She's only in the movie for about 5 minutes or so, and it's probably the best 5 minutes of acting you'll get out of this movie from her. Then again, she's the only actress I recognize in this movie by name, but regardless, she turns in the best showing in this entire movie. The rest of the cast, I can't say the same. Like I said, everyone else turned in a piss poor showing. Which makes sense, considering that they were not able to make this script work at all in their favor. Well, again, with the exception of Faye Dunaway, considering she's the only one who was able to polish this turd of a script just enough so that it could like a diamond. However, it's still a fake diamond in the end, considering how awful this movie was, along with rest of the cast's acting.
Special effects are also kinda terrible. The worst offender of this has go to this movie's CG. Do you guys happen to remember that dog I mentioned earlier in regards to the Bye Bye Man's backstory? Well, it shows up here as a literal demon dog, and the CG on this demon dog looks like shit! This is probably some of the worst CG I've seen in a modern horror movie in quite a long time. It looks amateurishly bad that it probably looks like CG that would've came from a movie from 1997. But the very fact the CG here came out in 2017 is fucking sad. This movie didn't really have a big budget either, since it's between 6.2 to 7.4 million dollars. My theory is that most of the budget went into getting Faye Dunaway casted for this movie, and the rest they just hired a bunch of random actors posing as late-teenagers. I could totally be wrong on that, but that wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. But regardless, the CG here is fucking terrible. The blood effects are just average at best. The costuming here is passable at best. And the makeup effects on the Bye Bye Man look OK. Though honestly, every time I look at the guy's face, he honestly looks like the bastard child of Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars. And I'm not joking about that either since they do show the guy's face towards the end of the movie. But anyway, guys, the special effects here are mostly terrible.
Camerawork here is fine, the lighting here is fine, the sound-mix is mixed fine, and the score here is just forgettable. It's just a typical horror movie score that's been many times beforehand, and is not gonna be remembered by anybody. So yeah, for the most part, the technical stuff works fine, but nobody's gonna watch this movie for this film's technical work.
So...I guess that pretty much solidifies my thoughts on this movie. So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "The Bye Bye Man"? What the hell do you think? No. Fuck no! This movie is puerile garbage. It is, by far, one of the laziest horror films I've seen in a quite long time. And mind you, again, I suffered though that "Slender Man" movie not too long ago. The very fact that this thing tried to copy a shitty movie, and failing to do so at the same time makes me question who at Universal thought it was a good idea to green-light this shit? If you guys see this movie anywhere, be on DVD, Blu-ray, or even on any streaming service, avoid this thing. It'll save you an hour and 41 minutes of your life, to which you could watch *anything* else better! And after sitting through this awful thing, I'm in kinda in the need to watch something better as well. I honestly don't know what at the moment, but I'll definitely find something that'll hopefully cleanse me from ever having to waste the time on this thing ever again.
Christ almighty, was that ever bad...well anyway, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I'll see you all later. Peace.
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