The Bye Bye Man Blu-ray review
Mathew Plale
May 8th, 2017
“Don’t think it, don’t say it…Don’t think it, don’t say it…”
And then, of course, people do. Because this is a poorly written and constructed horror movie, that’s what they do. The first case depicted is in 1969, in which a distraught man asks his wife if she has told anyone the name. In distress about revealing what should have been kept silent, he kills her and anyone he can find who told the secret.
Jump to present day, with college students—Elliot (Douglas Smith, 2014’s OUIJA), his girlfriend Sasha (Cressida Bonas, the UK series DOCTOR THORNE) and best friend John (Lucien Laviscount, Fox’s SCREAM QUEENS)—scouting a house to move into. It’s plenty of room for three people, although it’s quickly apparent that the house isn’t exactly keen on residents. Soon enough, doors go slam, corners go creak and coins appear out of nowhere. And then there is the recurring phrase: “Don’t think it, don’t say it…Don’t think it, don’t say it…”
All signs point to The Bye Bye Man (Doug Jones, best known for working with Guillermo del Toro in PAN’S LABYRINTH and more), who was once mentioned to a journalist (seen with a shotgun in the prologue…) and since became known as a murder-inducing figure of lanky proportions who owns a demonic dog and loves him some trains.
The checklist of lazy clichés is a lengthy one here and those playing along will surely run out of ink. There are cheap jump scares and screeching music cues. There is a prologue that proves useful only halfway through. There is a psychic who offers expository answers. There are nightmarish visions that vanish in a blink. There is a creepy old neighborhood woman (here played by Faye Dunaway…). There is the clear prep for a sequel (THE WELCOME BACK MAN?). THE BYE BYE MAN seems determined to go for some sort of record—unfortunately for viewers, all records need a witness.
Director Stacy Title’s (2006’s HOOD OF HORROR, starring Snoop Dogg) THE BYE BYE MAN so clearly wants to stick in the audience’s heads and give them a little caution when they go to enter their house at night. But zero effort has really taken place, and variations of the titular character and the entire scenario have been done and done and done. The main inspiration for THE BYE BYE MAN appears to be CANDYMAN, the beloved Bloody Mary-esque Clive Barker adaptation. One of many points that show THE BYE BYE MAN’s failure: whereas the appearance of Candyman required the victim to outright say his name, The Bye Bye Man only needs you to think it. The viewer can’t avoid this and so there is no luring self-daring temptation, no potential for the audience to play a spooky game with friends after the theater lets out.
The look of titular character is meant to send chills down the spine, but it comes off more like a deformed hoodlum who couldn’t quite scale the barbwire fence. And the frequent line “Don’t think it, don’t say it!” is a forced catchphrase, laughable every time and nowhere near as effective than “We dare you to say his name five times.”
BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video: 1.85:1 in 1080p with MPEG-4 AVC codec. Details are strong, highlighting the production design of the house, and blacks are deep, adding to the atmosphere.
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; English DVS Dolby Digital 2.0. Subtitles in English and Spanish. Dialogue is clean, but it’s the score and sound effects that show off the transfer.
DVD
UltraViolet
