<Review by: Sailesh Ghelani>

Directed by Stacy Title. Starring Douglas Smith, Cressida Bonas, Lucien Laviscount, Doug Jones, Carrie-Anne Moss, Faye Dunaway

Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes

Not expecting much from this film – and my general lack of enthusiasm for the ‘scary’ movie franchise that has become so formula nowadays – I was pleasantly terrified by The Bye Bye Man (agreed that the title of the film isn’t the greatest).

Do you remember the scary movie It Follows? In the film, the terrifying ‘curse’ gets passed on if the person with it has sex with someone else. The Bye Bye Man has a similar premise where the terrifying Bye Bye Man inside your head spreads if you say his name to someone. He can also make you do horrible things if you think about him.

Of course there’s a house. But instead of a scary little girl, we have a hooded ‘reaper’ with his devil hound (quite scary) who pits the occupants against each other in a clever and intriguing game to get them to kill each other off.

I have to say that the way director Stacy Title has handled the movie and its somewhat amateur actors is commendable. The scares are subtle, but creepy nevertheless. The twists are dramatic and almost always surprising. The mystery of the dark goings-on keeps you consistently interested in the story.

I found myself walking a little bit faster through a dark lane trying my best not to say ‘Bye Bye Man’, which is a good indication of how eerie the film is. If you’re looking for a well-crafted, interesting and genuinely creepy movie, then ignore the not-so-flattering reviews this film has gotten so far, and go watch it.