Supernatural creatures and entities have always found bizarre ways to impact humanity, and The Bye Bye Man is no exception. This sinister being only needs to hear his name spoken, and then the end comes swiftly and painfully, but from a psychological standpoint. Upon uttering his name, a victim will begin to hallucinate and see the cowled figure and his skinless hound. However, there’s not much explanation as to how this being came to be in the first place, as there’s only the desperate need to not say or even think of his name. Once that happens, it’s all over, eventually. There is a way to keep the Bye Bye Man from coming around, though, but the measures that one has to take in order to break the link are reminiscent of other movies such as Nightmare on Elm Street and even one of the newer horror movies, Smile. It’s revealed that one has to kill the people who spoke the name and thereby spread the curse around in the process. This is the type of curse that’s tough to not become engaged with since if there’s one thing that a lot of people are not good at, it’s stopping them from thinking about something terrible once they’ve gained even the slightest bit of knowledge about it.
The Ridiculous Premise of the Curse
There’s not a lot of rhyme or reason for the Bye Bye Man to exist other than to be a troublesome spirit that comes when called and will bedevil an individual without ceasing until they snap or kill someone or both. If there was a backstory to this creature and not just a past scene that was devised for the opening of the movie, it might have helped, or it could have hurt the movie even worse. This feature is kind of on the same level as another movie that featured a version of the Boogeyman, as there wasn’t a lot to that story either. In fact, there are a lot of ghost stories that are meant to convey a strong story with believable characters, but this one was just barely worth watching in this regard.
Acting: Not the Worst, But Could Be Better
It’s too easy to pick on a movie for bad acting since there are some that are truly terrible and others that need to be seen from more than one viewpoint. In all honesty, the acting wasn’t terrible in this movie, but there were moments when it could have been a little better. The story was allowed to move forward in a manner that was easy enough to follow, but somehow, Carrie-Anne Moss felt as though she didn’t belong in this feature. Maybe it’s something to do with personal taste, but she didn’t feel as though she fit in this movie, as her character wasn’t exactly able to mesh with the rest of the cast, making her appearance feel kind of stiff.
Is Anyone Mentally Strong Enough to Avoid Thinking About the Spirit?
In a typical horror movie, the general feeling is that if there’s a supernatural being or something similar after someone, they don’t have the faculties necessary to contend with it. A person could be insanely smart or tough, and it wouldn’t matter quite as much since the supernatural creature has typically been around long enough to shore up its weaknesses and make them rather obscure and difficult to locate. But the Bye Bye Man can supposedly be defeated by simply ignoring him and refusing to speak his name, so it’s easy to wonder if someone in this movie might have had that ability, but it obviously wasn’t the main characters since they fell prey quite easily to the creature and were unable to do much more than attempt to keep his name to themselves. Of course, seeing how the movie ended, that wasn’t entirely possible.
Some Curses Feel Like Giant Cheats Designed to Spread Chaos
There are some curses in the movies that feel as though they’re created in order to cause little more than hurt, which isn’t exactly balanced, but somehow there’s always some weakness to be exploited, and it takes an intelligent character to find it. The thing about horror movies is that, kind of like reality, there are plenty of people who aren’t going to believe in the supernatural when it comes to the world around them, which is why supernatural creatures are usually able to get the upper hand. This wasn’t a bad movie to be certain, but it had a few missteps that needed to be fixed.
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