There is a little-known rule about January when it comes to films. It’s known as a dump month. The movies that can’t compete with summer blockbusters, low quality genre B-Movies, and films whose leading star long ago lost their shine, and most importantly, schlock horror movies.

The Bye Bye Man is the story of three college students who move into a old, off-campus home where they soon discover that the home is haunted by the spirit of the Bye Bye Man, who might be the reason people have committed brutal mass murder sprees throughout history. Hes causes people to do this by the means of a curse. To avoid the effects of the curse you must not think his name or say his name.

With a solid score of 24% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 3.7 out of 10 on IMDb, The Bye Bye Man manages to crash and burn under the already incredibly low bar of the modern horror industry, and be an even bigger disappointment than previously thought.

Griffin Hall, a senior, said, “The concept was great, but the execution was terrible”.

Every aspect of the film was bland and uninspired. All of the actors’ performances lack any amount of believability, and the only enjoyable performance was the sassy librarian. I believe the director has seen The Shining, and thought they could pull off the same kind of vibe, but they lack even a shred of Kubrick’s skill.

But everything I mentioned before isn’t The Bye Bye Man’s worst offense. It’s worst offense is that, as an idea, the film could have been so much better. If the film had been more of a character study which focused on one of the characters slowly losing their grip on reality, it might have had a decent plot and received better reviews. Take it from me, you shouldn’t even say “hello” to this movie.