I love horror films, but sadly more often than not they fail to really deliver anything all that original these days. Every so often one comes along that might not be original, but finds some unique way to make it stand out. The latest looking to do that is The Bye Bye Man starring Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount, Cressida Bonas, Jenna Kanell, Faye Dunaway, and Carrie-Anne Moss, but does it have anything that makes it creep into your horror memory rolodex or should you say bye bye to the movie?

​

The Bye Bye Man follows three college friends who stumble upon the horrific origins of the Bye Bye Man and discover that there is only one way to avoid his curse: don't think it, don't say it. But once the Bye Bye Man gets inside your head, he takes control. Is there a way to survive his possession? The trailers to this one screamed that it was either going to be a cool horror surprise or a tragic train wreck and they were not misleading. Sadly it was the ladder with it being a pretty big laughable mess. The idea and story is fine but just fails to fully execute in a way that makes you stay invested. The cast have all been decent in other things and I do not like bad mouthing performances, but here they were often times unintentionally laughable. Every one of them looked confused the whole time and had no chemistry whatsoever. The always awesome Doug Jones does what he can as The Bye Bye Man himself, but is given little to do other than point and stand there.

​

They left out any back story to the Bye Bye Man which I was completely fine with and actually preferred it here and loved the only way to stop it which serves up perfectly for a film like this to kick off a franchise. There are some flashback sequences that work great and would have made for a way better film had we got to just see that story play out as opposed to the one that was the focus. I read somewhere that it got edited down to a PG-13 rating and it shows. There are numerous moments where they but away from the graphic violence, but here you needed that to really see the horrors he brings on people. There is a side kick of sorts that could have been really cool with the Bye Bye man, but it is such poor CGI it is yet another laughable addition to the finished product.

​

I so wanted to love this film and was hoping for a cool creepy kick off to yet another awesome horror icon, but sadly what we got was a film that fails to scare and makes you laugh way more than you were supposed to. If you are a horror fan then decide for yourself, but I for one just felt that it ended up being a missed opportunity that just doesn’t work.