There are moments when you watch a trailer for a movie and think to yourself "Well, the trailer is pretty bad, but maybe the movie is better." And, sometimes the movie does actually turn out to be better, making you pleasantly surprised. I did not have that feeling as I watched the trailer for the Bye Bye Man. After the trailer ended, there was not one ounce of me that thought "OK, maybe I should give it a shot.".
I watched this movie with my best friend, who also happens to be a horror fan, only because we have literally seen everything else that was out. I personally found three major issues with the movie.
1. The characters: Not one of the characters were particularly likable, so who really cares if any or all of them get hacked to bits? They don't really have any back story. The only one you feel any emotion towards at all is Elliot, and even those moments of emotion are sparse. Of course, he's the only one who has somewhat of a history to him.
2. The acting: To put it simply, the acting is horrendous. It's downright laughable. The writing can only be blamed for so long. It felt more like a high school stage production (and a bad one at that), than an actual movie. The women who played Kim, and Elliot's girlfriend, are by far the worst out of the whole movie, the latter being slightly worse than the former.
3. The worst thing about this movie is there is no mythology about the Bye Bye Man. There is zero backstory into who or what this creature is. All we know is that he is a creepy man with a creepy dog, and that's it. We don't know why he's terrorizing and killing these people, other than the fact that they say his name. WHY?! Where did that lore come from? Even the most psychotic icons of horror have some backstory into why they are that way. This movie offers you none of that.
I wouldn't recommend seeing this movie; I wouldn't recommend renting this movie; I wouldn't even recommend watching this movie for free on Netflix. This is one of the worst horror movies I have ever seen, and I've seen some very bad horror movies.
I watched this movie with my best friend, who also happens to be a horror fan, only because we have literally seen everything else that was out. I personally found three major issues with the movie.
1. The characters: Not one of the characters were particularly likable, so who really cares if any or all of them get hacked to bits? They don't really have any back story. The only one you feel any emotion towards at all is Elliot, and even those moments of emotion are sparse. Of course, he's the only one who has somewhat of a history to him.
2. The acting: To put it simply, the acting is horrendous. It's downright laughable. The writing can only be blamed for so long. It felt more like a high school stage production (and a bad one at that), than an actual movie. The women who played Kim, and Elliot's girlfriend, are by far the worst out of the whole movie, the latter being slightly worse than the former.
3. The worst thing about this movie is there is no mythology about the Bye Bye Man. There is zero backstory into who or what this creature is. All we know is that he is a creepy man with a creepy dog, and that's it. We don't know why he's terrorizing and killing these people, other than the fact that they say his name. WHY?! Where did that lore come from? Even the most psychotic icons of horror have some backstory into why they are that way. This movie offers you none of that.
I wouldn't recommend seeing this movie; I wouldn't recommend renting this movie; I wouldn't even recommend watching this movie for free on Netflix. This is one of the worst horror movies I have ever seen, and I've seen some very bad horror movies.