The Bye Bye Man movie review & film summary (2017)

Following the usual prologue chronicling a horrible event that will eventually be sort of explained, the film turns its focus to a trio of Wisconsin college students—Elliot (Douglas Smith), his girlfriend Sasha (Cressida Bonas) and his best pal John (Lucien Laviscount)—as they move in together off-campus in a run-down old house that they are somehow able to afford to rent even though it appear to be slightly roomier than the Overlook Hotel. Alas, they have barely settled in when weird things begin to happen. A classmate of Sasha’s offers to do a psychic cleansing of the place and senses a lot of bad mojo. Elliot begins hearing weird noises and is convinced that John is trying to steal Sasha from him. Sasha begins to develop an alarming cough. (To be fair, this just might be the inevitable resulting of spending the winter in Wisconsin.) A nightstand is found with the phrase “Don’t Say It. Don’t Think It” scribbled repeatedly inside of it along with a reference to something known as The Bye Bye Man.

As the weirdness continues, Elliot begins to investigate what is going on with him and his friends. With the help of perhaps the most overly solicitous librarian (Cleo King) in screen history, he finally gets to the bottom of things. Apparently, the Bye Bye Man is a malevolent spirit that can be summoned simply by speaking his name only once—when that happens, it gets into your mind and causes its victims to see things that aren’t really there as a way of driving them to madness and murder. This is clearly an unstoppable force with unimaginable powers and therefore it only takes Elliot a few minutes before he figures out a way to fight it off. But will it be enough to help save him and his friends? More importantly, is there any chance that they will be able to get their security deposit back as well? (You may laugh, but the scariest line of dialogue is when Sasha complains to the guy they are renting from about all the weird things going on and he replies, “You did sign a lease.”)

Though I cannot imagine anyone with more than a few functioning brain cells being particularly shocked by this revelation, “The Bye Bye Man” is pretty much as lame as can be—a film that is alternately far too silly to work as a horror film and far too boring to succeed as camp. The screenplay by Jonathan Penner is notable only for its utter slovenliness—the scares are predictable, the backstory is banal and the various rules regarding the Bye Bye Man and the scope of its powers are explained so poorly that viewers are more likely to be confused than frightened. As for the allegedly terrifying visions—which are supposed to be so horrifying as to drive their victims to madness yet still somehow conform to the parameters of a PG-13 rating—they are executed by director Stacey Title in the most indifferent manner imaginable. To be fair, there was one moment featuring the characters wandering through a bleak, chilly and unforgiving landscape that initially struck me as highly creepy and disturbing until I realized that it was supposed to be just an ordinary day in Wisconsin.

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