Since it's release in 2017 I have been aware of this movie, and more importantly it's reputation as a bad movie. I like a challenge, a bad horror movie is my staple viewing diet these days, so it would seem. That said, I was caught off guard by just how bad this movie truly is, to the extent that I thought it was a parody, a slightly more subtle Scary Movie inspired "comedy". Apparently not. Then as the movie lurched on I convinced myself that it was an intentionally bad movie, a Sharknado. Apparently not. This is just a bad, bizarre and at the same time bland horror movie.
The plot, this shouldn't take too long, involves the "urban legend" of the Bye Bye Man who if you say his name and/or think about him comes for you and does strange things until you die. The central characters to the movie are three college students, Sasha, her boyfriend Elliot and their best friend John. They have rented a large, creepy old house off campus. Sensing something is wrong Sasha has her friend perform a seance, as you do, and proceeds to talk of the Bye Bye man. Before long strange things starten to happen in the house. The rest of the movie revolves around these supernatural events and the attempts of the three main characters to u understand what is happening and why.
From my brief outline of the plot you are probably thinking so what, seems like a typical yet unoriginal horror movie, not so. The way in which this movie puts the plot into action are simply bizarre yet bland. The bye bye man has virtually no back story, he is an urban legend without a legend. The closest we get to a back story is the opening scene, but in truth we really do know little to nothing and have little to go on. Dont get me wrong I detest movies that try to provide an over elaborate back story, but at the same time, a movie needs to at least give me a few crumbs of information. All I learnt was that the bye bye man likes trains, has a creepy pet dog and likes to leave you coins. He also has power over you, he can make you see things that are not real, but only if you say bye Bye man. I am pretty certain people somewhere in the works say bye bye man every day. He must be very busy.
The three main characters are the typical college students in a hunted house. The closest we get to character development is Elliot but in truth it was difficult to muster enough concern to care about any of them. This is not helped by poor acting, particularly from the female lead who was particularly unconvincing. The dialogue is dreadful too. The cinematography is reasonably good but the special effects are at best adequate. There are some jump scares but they are so predictable and the film so bizarre that the jump scares have little to no impact. The creepy atmosphere is undercut by the bizarreness of the bye bye man. He makes a train appear when he is on his way, why? To be honest during the movies runtime all I could think was a series of why, why, why, with the ending leading me to think why did I ever bother to watch this drivel.
2 out of 10
Summary: a terrible mismatch of the Candyman/Freddy Krueger in a bizarre yet bland movie with an urban legend minus the legend. Avoid!