With Freddy Krueger, you had to avoid falling asleep. With Jason Vorhees, you had to avoid going to a camp in the wilderness and possibly Manhattan in the 1980s and with Candyman, you just had to avoid saying his name a few times in a front of a mirror. All of these had plausible ways of avoiding meeting your doom. This goes completely out the window with The Bye Bye Man, which is one of the silliest and worst PG-13 horror films of recent memory.
The Bye Bye Man is in fact a boogeyman who can force you to kill whomever, and after a series of hallucinations, a demon dog, and money showing up in some unlikely places, you will die yourself, by just thinking about this Bye Bye Man. Unfortunately for everyone in the film, the words "Don't think it, Don't say it" are written everywhere and said quite often. If you're constantly reminded of this, wouldn't you just think of this Bye Bye Man? Of course you would, but the terrible script here thinks that if you always say those words, then maybe you won't summon the boogeyman.
Like Beetlejuice, if you even say the name, he shows up, but doesn't have the wit or charm that Michael Keaton had at all. The film starts off in the 1960s where we see a guy kill a lot of people, but then it cuts to present day where a few college kids move into a creepy old house nearby campus and all hell breaks loose, due to trying not to think it or say it. A lot of this film doesn't make sense at all, but instead the cheap CGI effects just take us to the next silly hallucination where this PG-13 affair tries to scare us, which it doesn't.
The dialogue and acting are so deplorable that I've seen better on infomercials. Faye Dunaway shows up out of nowhere to do absolutely nothing, too. The Bye Bye Man is a the product of a rushed, lazy effort by its cast and crew with no real direction or spirit.
Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
The Bye Bye Man comes with a 50GB Blu-ray Disc, a DVD copy of the film, and an insert for a Digital Download. The discs are housed in a hard, blue plastic cast with a cardboard sleeve.
The Bye Bye Man comes with a 1080p HD transfer and is presented in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. This is a solid looking video presentation, which stays true to its tone and style. Colors are well balanced and nuanced throughout, even in the many dark scenes. The creepy old house showcases all of the dark corners with decaying browns and duller earthy colors. The opening scene in the 1960s reveals all of the bright and groovy colors of the time period, but is a bit muted in its stylistic choice of a flashback.
Other exterior shots show nice green grass and blue skies, but the majority of the film has a low light setting, which never has problems. The detail isn't hindered too much with closeups showing facial pores, wounds, and individual hairs. The CGI is quite terrible, so the image can turn soft in these sequences. Black levels are deep and inky and skin tones are natural. There are no real instances of any banding, aliasing, or video noise here, either.
Perhaps the best thing about The Bye Bye Man is the audio track, which is a lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix. Every creepy sound, door creak, scream, moan, and supernatural noise is excellent and presented cleanly through the speakers. You've heard all of these sound effects before in other films, but at least here, they are all very robust and loud with great directionality that will cause you to look around you to see if there is an actual boogeyman in your viewing room.
The crescendos of all the jump scares are forceful and the ambient noises come through the rear speakers often and loud. There is a good low end with deep bass with noises of trains and vehicles, and the score often adds a suspense quality to the film, even though it's all a bit silly. The dialogue is always clear and easy to follow, and free of pops, cracks, hiss, and shrills.
There are zero bonus features here. The only thing that could be considered one is that there are two different cuts of the film. The theatrical version and the Unrated version. The difference is about 3 minutes and for being Unrated, there was nothing fun or gory about it.
The Bye Bye Man is a PG-13 horror film of the worst quality. The performances, screenplay, visual effects, and direction all leave a lot to be desired. It's as if the filmmakers took 20 or 30 aspects from other horror films and mixed them together in the worst way possible. Even though Doug Jones and Faye Dunaway are somewhat in the film, there is no saving the movie. Like the main theme of the film says, "Don't think it, don't say it." Use those words when it comes to this movie. The video and audio presentations are both very good, but there are zero extras here. Skip This one all together.
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