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Movie Review: The Bye Bye Man

Recently, my malevolent malcontents, I've had the pleasure of watching a few movies that not only disturbed me, but also infected my dreams with their malicious splendor. The Bye Bye Man (I hate to even write the title for fear of summoning him!) is one of them.

Feeding into my phobia of the utterance of a name multiple times and viral propagation of said evil deed, this movie delivers that super-creepy unease you get when you know something is going terribly wrong, and you're certain it's not going to stop until the whole world is infected. The Bye Bye Man is a film in the same vein as The Ring and Pulse, with a dose of the Bloody Mary urban legend, and a bit of Candy Man thrown in for good measure.

The Bye Bye Man was directed by Stacy Title and written by Jonathan Penner. It was based on the chapter "The Bridge to Body Island" from the book The President's Vampire by Robert Damon Schneck. It stars Douglas Smith as Elliot, Lucien Laviscount as John, Cressida Bonas as Sasha, Doug Jones as The Bye Bye Man, Carrie-Anne Moss as Detective Shaw, Faye Dunaway as Widow Redmon, and Jenna Kanell as Kim.

This movie was basically panned by critics for being derivative and poorly mashing together a bunch of other horror movie themes. But seriously, what horror movies out there are completely original anymore? I guess to satisfy critics these days you have to have some deep, existential meaning to every movie, even though they all seem like torture porn these days, which The Bye Bye Man has none of, so... whatever, minions. My opinion is: don't knock something 'til you try it yourself, and from a standpoint of having a fun romp on the creepy coaster, this film will give you a good ride.

The directing, acting, cinematography, and overall production of the film were top notch, and even though the story was not completely original, it was original enough to be enjoyable. In the end, it's not up to any critic, or me, to tell you what you should and shouldn't enjoy. Watch it and decide for yourself.

You just may get as freaked out at the concept as I did. Just remember: "Don't  think it, don't say it." Crap... well, I guess I'm screwed, then.


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