by Monica Hayes
After several months of entertaining awards contenders, we have officially entered into the arm-pit season of the movie calendar: January. The dumping period for movies rolls out their latest dud, the uninspiring horror film , The Bye Bye Man.
The shenanigans begin when three college friends Elliot (Douglas Smith) Oujia, Terminator Genisys, Sasha (Cressida Bonas) and John (Lucien Laviscount) rent an eerie spacious old house together. After the housewarming party is over, Kim (Jenna Kendall), Sasha’s friend, a self-proclaimed psychic, volunteers to smudge the home of any possible evil spirits. (really?).
Skeptical of Kim’s abilities, Elliot convinces her to hold a séance. Unwillingly, she agrees and begins to reveal certain facts/events that make Elliot believe she received information from friends at the party, so he decides to test her abilities. He gets up, goes into the kitchen, and when he returns he asks Kim to tell him what he did, she immediately gets a bad vibe and ends the séance. When Elliot says “Ha! I knew you were faking” Kim reveals what Elliot did in the kitchen, and then says, “Someone is coming, don’t think it, don’t say it.” At that point, Elliot utters “The Bye Bye Man” and the spooky begins or at least that is what we hope.
The paranoia begins with Elliot thinking John and Sasha are fooling around behind his back. Sasha all of a sudden gets mysteriously sick, and John, having slept with Kim or at least tried, but things did not rise to the occasion, starts having anger issues. They all start seeing things that are not there, or real. Elliot decides to check out the just what or who the Bye Bye Man is, but instead finds that the more he digs, the more unexplained deaths have happened, and the more paranoid he becomes.
This movie was hard to watch. It was slow to start, and when things did pick up it was laughable at best. There were details pertinent to the background of the story were not explained; the story was choppy and the editing was worse. In the beginning of the movie, you see someone killing eight people in 1960, and then you jump to the three friends moving in together with no trasition.
The scariest thing in this movie was the acting. The best part of this movie, are the small scares you get from The Bye Bye Man and his creepy dog, which were few and far in-between. The Bye Bye Man started out with so much promise that would have placed it in the ranks of Candyman, or Nightmare on Elm Street, or Bloody Mary, however, it pales in comparison and leaves you with more questions than answers.
Grade F