In a poor attempt to cash in on the rise of properties such as Slenderman, comes The Bye Bye Man (seriously? that's the best they could come up with?), which is based on a short story called The Bridge to Body Island from author Robert Damon. I've never heard of the story before watching this, so I didn't know what to expect, but it clearly drew a lot of inspiration from several already known movies and urban legends.

Directed by Stacy Title (who gave us the 2006 masterpiece Hood of Horror, starring none other than Snoop Dogg himself!), the movie focuses on a few college friends that rent out an old house off campus and naturally decides to hold a séance shortly after because that's obviously the type of thing you do after moving into a home (how else will you know if it's haunted?). It's during this fun little get-together that the name "Bye Bye Man" is uttered, which eventually leads the group on a downward spiral of fear, paranoia, and death--apparently the Bye Bye Man loves to play games on those who know his silly name and forces them to see things that aren't there.



This is a VERY problematic film that somehow found its way into theaters worldwide, despite being terribly written, directed, and offers no real suspsense or even scares. In fact, it's so poorly written that it doesn't even know how to explain anything, so it simply doesn't: who is this "Bye Bye Man" and why the hell's he called that? "who gives a shit?" said the writer (just kidding.. probably). Except for a couple cheap jump scares, we really don't even see much of that pale hooded creeper until the finale, while the rest of the movie is just the friends turning on each other. Actually that's essentially the whole movie--the friends seeing things and flipping out with the occasional shitty attempt at a jump scare.

Once the finale rolls around it brings forth even more questions than answers, like why is there some random hairless CG dog following around The Bye Bye Man? And where does the dude get his stylish black hoody? All these answers are actually found in the original story (except for the hoody, unfortunately), where I discovered that the dog acts as a guide to the Bye Bye Man and is created and sewn together from his many victims (I think I'd rather see a movie about this badass dog). Ultimately, as bad as the movie is, I've encountered much worse and despite being terrible, it at least kept my interest all the way to the predictable climax and unintentionally hilarious final scene.

Aside from being decently-paced, The Bye Bye Man is a terrible film that's poorly written and offers little-to-no redeeming qualities. It's predictable right from the beginning, from the story to the poor attempt at scares, there's nothing new here.