He
must be more powerful than Candyman, because you need only say or think his
name once, without looking in a mirror, to invoke this bogeyman. On the other
hand, Candyman had that killer hook—but this evil cat has a dog—but that
spectral pooch hardly does anything. Regardless, if you say his name, you’re
pretty much toast in Stacy Title’s The
Bye Bye Man (trailer
here), which opens today nationwide.
Elliot,
his out-of-his-league girlfriend Sasha, and his player best bud John are about
to rent a spacious but decidedly creaky off-campus house together. Sasha and
John seem to get along super-well together, so foreshadowing. Something feels
wrong about the place, so Sasha has Kim, their classmate with the shine do a
cleansing after their housewarming kegger. Unfortunately, Elliot’s kneejerk
Richard Dawson materialism spurs Kim to stage a how-do-you-like-them-apples séance,
during which the E-man foolishly drops the name he saw scrawled on a discarded
night stand: “Bye Bye Man.” Thanks to him, they are all as good as dead.
Once
you call him, Bye Bye Man gets in your head, showing visions of your darkest
fears and tricking you with hallucination. The afflicted commonly resolve to
kill everyone they have told, in order to break the chain of terror. That is
what happens in the prologue and that is that is the course of action Kim
chooses. Unfortunately, the college town cops blame Elliot for her carnage,
which is not completely unfair given the circumstances.
It
is worth noting Bye Bye was directed
by Stacy Title, who made a splash with her feature debut, The Last Supper. As a pitch-black satire on the horrors of
political polarization, it obviously speaks to our time. When celebrities seriously
advocate martial law to prevent candidates they disagree with from taking
office, it is safe to say the time has come for her tale of liberals poisoning
right-wingers, out of a sense of smug moral superiority.
Bye Bye is nowhere near as
zeitgeisty, but Title still derives some efficient scares from her canny use of
moody sets and lighting. It is also pretty inspired when the Everly Brothers’ “Bye
Bye Love” pops up in the third act. (If only they’d had a video clip of the
late great John McLaughlin’s “bye bye” sign-off.) The problem is, even with
Doug Jones under the make-up, Bye Bye Man just doesn’t resonate. While he looks
like an archetypal reaper, he is a distant figure, whereas you always knew it
was personal with Tony Todd’s Candyman.
Douglas
Smith, Cressida Bonas, and Lucien Laviscount are all adequately competent but
never particularly memorable as the three housemates. To her credit, Jenna
Kanell brings some refreshing attitude and energy as “sensitive” Kim. However,
nobody can top Faye Dunaway’s weird scene as the mysterious widow Redman. Just
try to get your head around her credits: Network,
Bonnie and Clyde, The Thomas Crown Affair, and Bye Bye Man. Unfortunately, Carrie-Anne Moss’s appearances as the
completely unintuitive Det. Shaw just sets her up to be the focus of a
potential sequel.
