The Bye Bye Man

A welcome, but not entirely successful throwback to classics like "A Nightmare on Elm Street," Stacy Title's "The Bye Bye Man" is a brainier horror film than most. Adapted by Jonathan Penner ("Last Supper") from the book "The Bridge to Body Island" by Robert Damon Schneck, the concept sounds familiar (hi, "Candyman"), but the execution does make you wonder where exactly the story is going.

The film opens with a prologue from 1969 that shows a terrified businessman (Leigh Whannell, "Saw") pointing a shot gun at friends and neighbors, asking if they told anyone "the name." Hysterical, the victims plead that they haven't, but he shoots them one by one anyway.

Cut to present day. Three college kids are moving into a large, creepy old farmhouse off campus. Elliot (Douglas Smith) and Sasha (Cressida Bonas) are a young-in-love couple, and John (Lucien Laviscount) is their sexy best friend. The three clean up the old house and are settling in when Elliott accidentally discovers a message inside an old nightstand drawer. It says "Don't think it Don't Say it" over and over. When he realizes there's more written on the bottom of the drawer, he reads aloud what is written there: "The Bye Bye Man."

Suddenly, things get creepy and the three friends are behaving badly. They have terrible nightmares, they start seeing things, Sasha gets sick, and there's a weird scratching coming from outside. Soon enough the three find themselves embroiled in the mystery of what's happening to them and who the hell the Bye Bye Man is. Some of the progression of events is expected, but there are some nifty twists and turns that keep you wondering what's going to come next. The scary parts are truly scary, and Title does a great job at establishing atmosphere and dynamic shots.

The main problems are simply that there's A) not enough of the Bye Bye Man, and B) the history of the creepy guy is never explained. That's not so much a spoiler as a head-scratcher. The mystery of the piece is really about what saying his name does, and how to stop it. Neither is a pretty picture.

The acting here is slightly over the top, with lead Smith all bug-eyed and spastic, while Cleo King as a librarian that knows some of the Bye Bye Man's history ends up being unexpected comic relief. Weirder still, Faye Dunaway shows up as an old widow who knows something of the Bye Bye Man's mythology, but kudos to the casting director for casting her younger self with someone who looks just like her.

While I don't know if this was a conscious choice, I enjoyed the way Bonas chose to create her character. While the plucky gal determined to fight is nothing new, she chooses to speak in a way that recalls '80s horror movie heroines, especially Heather Langenkamp from the "Elm Street" series. She has a way of speaking very slowly and specifically, articulating each word a little too clearly than normal. While Bonas is British and might have been struggling with an American accent, I liked how it made me feel like I was back watching a cool, supernatural '80s horror film. And it really does feel like it.

The "Bye Bye Man" is an engrossing story with a rumbling tone of fear and dread that absolutely works. While it feels like some of the more gory scenes were truncated to get a PG-13 rating, the scary stuff really does scare you. There just needed to be more of it so that title character could be a worthy successor to his predecessors, like Freddy, Jason, and Michael. Still, for a normally tepid January release, I was happy to say hello to "The Bye Bye Man."