Monday, October 3, 2022

October Horror Challenge 2022 #10: "The Bye Bye Man"

I remember hearing about this movie when it first came out. All I knew about it was that it featured some kind of supernatural character called the Bye Bye Man, and that's how I wanted it, to know as little as possible about the movie so it would come as a surprise when I finally got to see the movie, which is today, apparently. Yay, horror movies! Funtimes!

So this movie is about three college friends who move into an old house together and find out that it's harboring terrible secrets. Soon they unleash a terrifying entity known as the Bye Bye Man, who gets inside your head and takes control. The only way to keep the monster at bay is not to think it's name or say its name, but once it gets inside your head it takes control and makes it almost impossible NOT to think or say its name (evil creature is a cheater). Will they be able to fight the evil or will it kill them and everyone they love?

This movie starts off with a bang (literally, haha) and it came as a shock to me that the movie would start off so strongly. The opening scene is really creepy and effective, but then the movie goes into the story of the three college students (Elliot, John and Sasha) who move into an old house that is harboring a dark secret, so of course they decide to have a seance because that's exactly what you do when you want whatever supernatural evil is stalking you to get stronger. In case you can't tell, the three college students aren't the most interesting characters in the movie. They do really stupid things that make everything worse, and even after they know how to stop the evil, they keep doing exactly the opposite of what they know they should do. Now I've never been in a situation where an evil supernatural entity was stalking and killing me and everyone around me,, but I would like to think that if it ever happened I would be able to restrain myself from doing the worst possible stupid things at the worst possible stupid times.

Seriously, every side character in the movie is more interesting than the main characters. Even a librarian who is only in the movie briefly is more interesting than the three main characters, and I wish the movie had focused more on her, or the reporter, or his wife, or anyone else, really. Well, i guess John isn;t so bad, and Sasha spends most of the movie sleeping, so she's not bad, but Elliot is a huge idiot and he really started to piss me off after awhile, especially since the whole movie centers around him so we get to watch him make dumb move after dumb move. Even after he figures out exactly what he needs to do to stop the Bye Bye Man he manages to do a bunch of stupid things that continue to make everything worse,instead of better. Dude, you're really bad at this hero thing, don't quit your day job. Eventually, everything comes to a head and when things can't really get any worse and there's a big explosive finish to the action in the movie. A cop played by Carrie Ann Moss has a small role here and she does a great job (though her character makes some boneheaded moves like everyone else in the movie). Overall, despite some pathetic main characters and some silly plot twists there was enough good here that this ended up being an enjoyable movie and I'm glad I checked it out.

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