The Bye Bye Man Review

The Bye Bye Man (2017)

IMDb genre: Horror/Thriller

Director: Stacy Title

Writer: Jonathan Penner

Starring: Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount, Cressida Bonas

OK I promise I’m not a hipster but a lot of my movie opinions this month seem to be going against the grain and this one’s no exception; I feel it has been unfairly written off. Is it perfect? No, but I don’t think every movie has to be if it’s entertaining.

When the movie started with three two-dimensional teenagers moving into an obviously haunted house I thought I knew what I was in for and I’d definitely be rooting for the bad guy. However, I was pleasantly surprised that there was enough time in between scares spent on the characters themselves so they become worth watching not just to see them picked off. In a movie centred around personal fears we should get to see inside the characters’ heads and, at least with the main cast, this movie pulls that off.

There is the obvious comic relief character but she provides a welcome, if brief, respite in a film packed with some very effective jump scares. These provide the majority of the scares during the film rather than scares that stick with you, which is probably why it’s been criticised, but personally the more I thought about it afterwards the scarier it got to the point that I was scared to say the name for a couple of days!

Another highlight are the scenes with Leigh Whannell, not only does he act his scenes perfectly but there’s a clear choice to have these scenes in bright light and high colour which act as a fantastic contrast to the more human horror shown and the darkness of the majority of the main scenes.

As I said at the beginning though, it isn’t perfect so here come the negatives. The look of the Bye Bye Man is revealed too early in my opinion, a mistake made in many horror films, as it removes the majority of the suspense. It’s surprising then that so much else surrounding the villain himself is left unanswered; there’s obvious patterns to his ‘haunting’, for lack of a better word, but the reason behind them goes unexplained. There’s also a few others moments which feel like they’re building to a payoff that never arrives. This deliberate withholding of information plus the forced tacked-on ending feel like desperation for a sequel. I know this is common in horror movies but it doesn’t get any less annoying and maybe make sure the first one is really solid first please?

General Opinion: 

Sort the ending out and give me some answers but still well worth a watch.

Scare Factor:  

Reliant on jump scares but they’re done well and the idea is solid and stuck with me for a few days.

Gore: 

I’d have liked a little more gore but it is used effectively in a few scenes.

Clowns: 

There’s a couple of great comic relief scenes but it’s more focused on the horror.

The Bye Bye Man is currently in UK cinemas.

Calling all film-makers/Soska fans!

In case you haven't seen I thought I'd make you aware of an awesome competition that the Soska sisters are running to celebrate American Mary's four year anniversary earlier this week.

The prize includes a signed American Mary poster from its premiere at Frightfest or as Jen Soska put it in her announcement: 'YOU will not only get the glory of kicking all the artful ass, but be rewarded with this piece of cinematic history banner signed and personalized by us along with a prize package for your team.'

You have until the 11th February to "Swede" American Mary & create a 3-5 minute video of your favourite scene(s) from memory with stuff you have lying around, like they do in Be Kind, Rewind.
You can't spend your money and you don't necessarily have to re-watch the film because they're looking for passion & creativity over accuracy (although if you've never seen it what are you doing with your life, get on it now!). You can use any of the soundtrack from the film if you wish.

Once complete you must send your entries to twistedtwinsproductions@gmail.com and a few of their favourites will be featured on their YouTube channel so you may even get some exposure out of the deal just to sweeten it even more.

So good luck but don't you dare beat me!

The Best & Worst of 2016

Following the lead of my friend Mike (of Maven’s Movie Vault of Horror, check him out) and to mark the fact that this blog is two years old today I am doing a short list of five highs and lows of horror this year.

The Good:

1.       Raw

-          I was lucky enough to catch this at Mayhem film festival and I recommend this movie to everyone, it was hyped up but it deserved it. An absolutely stunning debut film which was surprisingly funny. Wonderful acting and a story you actually seen before.

2.       The Conjuring 2

-          This one was much scarier than the first in my opinion (I mean the nun alone!). Some of the CGI work was a bit dodgy but I think Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga are a fantastic duo who create characters I don’t tire of watching.

3.       Hush

-          I’m a big Mike Flanagan fan (I can’t wait until the studio sort their messes out & I can finally watch Before I Wake) and this was no exception. It genuinely kept me on edge throughout, gave me a main character that was realistic, and there was some good gore as well.

4.       The Shallows

-          This one makes the list because it was such a pleasant surprise to me. I never expect a lot from shark movies and I didn’t think Blake Lively could hold her own considering she was mostly alone. She really impressed me though, the film itself was tense, and there was some body horror which really made me squirm.

5.       Don’t Kill It

-          Another Mayhem film takes the last spot as it was another pleasant surprise of the year. I can’t resist a good comedy horror as it combines my top two genres and this was hilarious, had great effects and an interesting plot.

The Bad:

1.       The Forest

-          To be honest I had wiped this movie from my mind until it popped up on Netflix recently. They had one of the scariest settings in the world and they wasted it in my opinion, Natalie Dormer is capable of much more.

2.       The Boy

-          This film has divided people for sure and I’m definitely in the ‘no’ camp. The ending spoiled what had been built up for me and left me with too many questions. Not one I’d bother re-watching.

3.       We Are The Flesh

-          One Mayhem watch makes the worst list. This one felt like it was being weird just for the point of it, I couldn’t follow it and it didn’t really get good until the very end.

4.       Lights Out

-          I liked the short (apart from the actual design of the monster) but it didn’t expand to a feature well. All the scares were the same and the ‘twist’ ending was sign-posted from miles away.

5.       The Reef

-          There wasn’t another horror movie from this year that I’ve seen that I particularly disliked so I went with one from 2010 that I watched for the first time this year. This was the total opposite of The Shallows; boring characters so I was on the shark’s side and not enough tension.