The Bye Bye Man

In horror, it's always good to keep your monster a mystery, as being given too much information on the creature at the center of the film can make it appear less scary.   The Bye Bye Man is so vague about its boogeyman, it's almost maddening.  We see glimpses of what he can do, but we're not really told anything about him, or even what he's doing.  I can appreciate building a mystery around your monster, but sometimes you have to throw us a bone of information once in a while.

Here's what I do know about the Bye Bye Man.  I know that he has a silly name, and no, the movie does not clarify why people call him that, or how the name got stuck to him.  I know that he kind of looks like Freddy Kruger if he hit hard times, and ended up living on the streets.  I know that he is accompanied by a CG dog who seems to think it's a lot scarier than it actually is, thanks to some questionable special effects work.  I know that he has the power to drive his victims crazy, making them hallucinate or see terrible things, which leads those people to do horrible violent acts.  But why?  And why is his arrival signified by the sound of a train, and an old fashioned gold coin suddenly appearing on the floor?  Again, the movie does not clarify.  My guess is the information is being saved for the inevitable sequel, which will likely hit next January.

The Bye Bye Man is summoned by saying his name only one time, which breaks the ancient rule in these kind of films that always requires you to say the name three times, like in Beetlejuice or Clive Barker's Candyman.  Once you say his name, he gets inside your head and makes you think you're seeing terrible visions, until you are driven to violence to make them stop.  In the opening prologue, we witness a common man in 1969 Madison, Wisconsin go on a shooting spree in his peaceful neighborhood.  This does manage to grab our attention, but then the movie glaringly jumps to present day Wisconsin, and introduces us to our three young protagonists.  They are Elliot (Douglas Smith), his girlfriend Sasha (Cressida Bonas) and his best friend John (Lucien Laviscount).  They're college students who have just moved into an off campus house.  Elliot finds an old nightstand in the house that has the Bye Bye Man's name scrawled onto it, and as soon as he says the name out loud, strange things start happening in the home.

It starts out kind of basic, with strange scratching sounds coming from somewhere in the house and the outside, and Sasha suddenly and mysteriously developing cold and flu-like symptoms. (To be fair, the movie is completely unclear whether this is caused by the supernatural entity haunting them, or the Wisconsin winter.) But then, Elliot starts seeing visions of Sasha and John having sex, and the thought of this betrayal is enough to drive him to madness.  He quickly becomes obsessed with the Bye Bye Man, finding out what he is, and how to stop him.  We do get a little bit of information, mainly that the ghoul's soul purpose is to drive his victims crazy until they're murderous psychopaths, but we don't really get a whole lot.  This will likely lead to audiences being more confused than frightened by the monster.

The Bye Bye Man went through a variety of release dates this past year, and during this time, it was edited down from an R to a PG-13, in order to bring in the all-important teen audience.  The plan supposedly worked, as my screening was absolutely packed with giddy Middle and High School students.  But in the process, it has lost much of what little punch it probably had.  There are many violent moments that are meant to be horrific, but now seem overly edited.  A movie like this needs a lot of power and tragedy behind its violent images, and while this one definitely tries (it's probably one of the darker teen horror films I have seen), it is obviously constrained by the new rating.  I'm not saying showing more blood and gore would automatically make a mediocre thriller into a great one, but it would have at least given the film some unforgettable moments.

The cast is largely made up of young actors who fill the roles, but don't really stand out in any noticeable way.  However, two recognizable faces do pop up in the third act.  First we have Carrie-Anne Moss, who is supposed to be playing a tough, no-nonsense cop who gets wrapped up in all this Bye Bye Man business.  However, she often comes across as if she honestly couldn't care less about what's going on, and seems to be wishing that she was still making Matrix sequels.  And then we have the legendary Faye Dunaway, who fills the role of the old lady who delivers an exposition dump about the monster's background, since she's connected to that shooting spree we saw in the opening moments.  Instead of giving us useful information about the Bye Bye Man, all this scene does is make us wonder what Dunaway is even doing in the film and in such a throwaway role in the first place.

As a thriller, The Bye Bye Man is a bit slow and plodding.  And even if it does have a few ideas that could be suspenseful or scary, they are either underused or unexplained.  Still, the kids at my screening seemed to be into it, so I'm sure we'll be getting a sequel before too long.  I personally can't wait to see what famous actor from long ago they trot out to do the exposition scene in the next one. 

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