‘The Bye Bye Man’ Trailer: Beware Doug Jones’ Boogeyman

You wouldn’t know it from the first trailer, but apparently The Bye Bye Man stars Carrie-Anne Moss and Faye Dunaway — two incredibly great actors who would make this horror flick an instant draw for a lot of fans. Unfortunately, The Bye Bye Man looks like a late ’90s / early ’00s horror film, complete with an opening that mimics The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and a boogeyman who seems like he’d be right at home among the villains of the post-Blair Witch wave of studio horror.

Terrible title aside, The Bye Bye Man does have some promising aspects: Hellboy’s Doug Jones plays the titular creeper, who is capable of getting inside people’s heads and making them do very bad things — like murder the crap out of their friends. That’s a fairly creepy concept, but the hacky voice over and true crime opening of the trailer makes this feel like very tardy satire of the kinds of horror movies you rented at Blockbuster back in the days of Jeepers Creepers and Urban Legend.

And if the titular boogeyman is capable of making people do such bad things, maybe that explains why Carrie-Anne Moss and the legendary Faye Dunaway ended up in this movie and not…anywhere else.

That said, those two names are worth the price of VOD rental alone, and maybe we’ll end up with a pleasantly surprising chiller.

People commit unthinkable acts every day. Time and again, we grapple to understand what drives a person to do such terrible things. But what if all of the questions we’re asking are wrong? What if the source of all evil is not a matter of what…but who?
From the producer of The Strangers and Oculus comes The Bye Bye Man, a chilling horror-thriller that exposes the evil behind the most unspeakable acts committed by man.
When three college friends stumble upon the horrific origins of the Bye Bye Man, they discover that there is only one way to avoid his curse: don’t think it, don’t say it. But once the Bye Bye Man gets inside your head, he takes control. Is there a way to survive his possession?

The Bye Bye Man hits theaters on June 3.