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Hello, Niles North, and welcome to Reed’s Recs! I am Reed Larson-Erf, here to talk to you about everything you never knew you had to find. This week, I’m so happy to have the chance to talk to you about 2017’s The Bye Bye Man, a supernatural horror film directed by Stacy Title. Based on Ron Damon Scheck’s short story, “The Bridge to Body Island,” this movie focuses on Eliot (Douglas Smith), John (Lucien Laviscount), and Sasha (Cressida Bonas), college students who move into a house off-campus. It turns out, they should have settled for living in a dorm. This particular house once belonged to a convicted murderer, and within, Eliot finds a plaque carved with the name of “The Bye Bye Man”–a supernatural being who torments those who learn his name.
One of the most impressive aspects of The Bye Bye Man is its psychological tension. Saying, writing, or even thinking the Bye Bye Man’s name allows him to alter one’s perceptions, influence one to commit violence, distort one’s sense of time, and more. Thus, the protagonists have to rigidly guard against using or thinking the name. Of course, intentionally not thinking about something is a difficult feat of mental gymnastics–even more so when the stakes are life or death–creating a mental conflict that propels the plot forward. Worse, Eliot and his friends are forced to question their perceptions, not knowing whether the Bye Bye Man has warped their senses to set a trap. Fans of the Slenderman mythos will find a familiar chilled feeling as they watch the protagonists struggle to maintain their very sense of reality in the face of a seemingly insurmountable supernatural evil.
The Bye Bye Man also has the visuals to back up its nail-biting plot, which admittedly makes the film a bit grisly at times. In a dream, Eliot sees the point of view of a passenger at the front of a train, driving through the night with its lights shining coldly, shrouded in darkness except for a small pool of light directly in front of it. This train leitmotif perfectly underscores the protagonists’ position: they are moving, inexorably, into a dark and fearful situation that they cannot fully understand. In another scene, a librarian with whom Eliot had previously discussed the Bye Bye Man calls him, saying she has been having disturbing thoughts since their meeting. As she speaks, the camera pans to the side…to reveal that the librarian, guided by the Bye Bye Man, has unconsciously killed her family with a kitchen knife, leaving them lying in her blood-soaked living room. And the Bye Bye Man himself cuts a figure that will haunt anyone’s nightmares–gaunt, thin, dressed in a tan tunic and brown cloak, with long fingers and pools of darkness for eyes, accompanied by a snarling, dog-like beast. In what is perhaps my favorite scene from the movie, the camera shows us Eliot’s darkened bedroom, including a bathrobe by the door–which turns into the Bye Bye Man, standing in the darkness to stare at his sleeping victim.
If you like movies that should not be watched before bedtime, you’re going to love the psychological and visual chills of The Bye Bye Man. Check it out on Tubi, Amazon Prime, the Roku Channel and elsewhere. Thank you for listening, and tune in next time for everything you never knew you had to find.
