“Don’t Think it … Don’t Say it … and if you know what’s good for you ..Don’t Watch it.”
This should have been the mantra that the three most important characters in the film repeated over and over during the utterly bewildering “Horror” film (and I use that term loosely) Bye Bye Man. The only thing scary about this release is someone at STX Entertainment deemed it worthy enough to be released to the general public. Where most horror films are teeming with scares, this one is chock full of stupidity. It’s a struggle even to come up with a rational reason why anyone would even pay to see something that should be at best fodder for the comedians of Riff Trax (Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett, and Micheal Nelson .. take note).
I don’t know why I am so surprised by this turn of events? In the first seconds of the film’s opening, a reporter (who seems to be going on some murdering rampage) utters these comments
“I’m sorry … sorry more than words can say”
Was he apologizing for his actions or the debacle that was about to unfold? Didn’t he know the pain that this film was about on these unsuspecting audiences?
The premise behind this narrative (and I use the words premise and narrative extremely loosely) is that these three college students happen to be renting this rundown mansion. They come across this dusty nightstand that contains some weird ass drawings, coins and the phrase Bye Bye Man. Once they say his name, strange things start happening to these college students. Now let’s say if this glorified rip-off of the boogie man was chopping these kids up into pieces, I might have been okay with the film. However, what happens in this movie is that these kids start having weird hallucinations primarily around two of the college guys hooking up with the same college girl from their group (oh the drama).
Where most horror films (even the terrible ones) contain some palatable tension, this movie had more of an air of apathy that engulfed the cast. One gets the sense that this ensemble felt they were killing it on the screen when in reality it was like watching a painful Junior High Christmas pageant. I wasn’t sure if we should applaud their effort or feel sorry for them.
Speaking of sorry, let’s discuss the cinematographer who I assume was paid hourly and not for the job itself. Anytime we were remotely involved in what was suppose to be a “scary” scene, they always resorted to a wide shot. It was wide shot after wide shot after wide shot, Why? Were they just trying to get the cinematographer in and out? By having that shot, you saw what was going to occur before the actual scare occured.
The director, Stacy Title is who we thought she was. Her biggest credit to date was when she was at the helm of the “major” horror release, Snoop Dog’s Hood of Horror. ‘Bye Bye Man’ clearly shows that Title has no ability to edit a film together with any discernable flow to it.It seems that her mantra during filming had to have been “Whatever!” This movie is so haphazardly thrown together that one has to wonder if this was even meant to be a serious horror film or some god awful parody. As it stands right now, the only thing scary about Bye Bye Man is that people might see it.
