MovieChat Forums > The Bye Bye Man (2017) Discussion > Isn't the villain destroying himself?

Isn't the villain destroying himself?

posted 8 years ago by tyguy
3 replies | jump to latest

There's so much badness and stupidity in this movie to criticize, it's hard to know where to start. The bad acting from the leads. The abysmal CGI for the hell hound. The three college kids being able to afford a house in the country with no jobs (even an admittedly rundown house). The constant bro hugs between Elliot and John early on. The fact that, if I understood it right, Elliot and John appear to have been about 8-10 years old in the picture labelled "1992" but are in their mid-20s in 2016. Having the university librarian's home phone number in your caller ID.

But what I really, *really* don't get---and I fully concede I may have been misunderstanding something---is how the BBM's schtick doesn't make himself obsolete?

From what I got, his existence and his power depended on people knowing his name, passing it along one way or another. And yet, those also seem to be the only people he was able to attack and kill, or manipulate other people into killing. He doesn't seem to be able to attack or influence at all anyone who hasn't heard his name.

I don't get it. For that matter, why did Redmon go to all that trouble that he did and *not* destroy the name written inside the drawer? Or in his story?

[–] biteyislewis 8 years ago

Good point

[–] reaseltbim 8 years ago

this movie was made by idiots

[–] AdamWaldron96-2 (178) 7 years ago

While agreed that this movie has so much badness and stupidity, some of these can be explained. SOME. This is my take on it.

Larry probably carved the name in the drawer, and put the paper over it with "Don't Say It, Don't Think It" over it so no one will proceed further. This sounds stupid, yes, but so is putting the dead file in an archive, whose sole purpose, according to Watkins, is to save these files for posterity. Why wouldn't he burn it? It's also possible Larry "went away" like Sasha did with her journal, and carved it in there without knowing he did it. He probably saved the dead file when he hallucinated that he destroyed it. In the end of the movie, Elliot thought he threw the nightstand into the woods, but it turns out he hallucinated that, and the nightstand was actually right outside the house next to the trash cans for Alice and police to find.

As for how the Bye Bye Man works, think back to the notorious Hash Slinging Slasher. There are signs that signal The Bye Bye Man's approach.

1). The lights flicker on and off (as shown in the basement near the nightstand, as well as the dead file in the library)
2). The physical appearance or the audible sound of the CGI hound or the coins
3). The sound of an oncoming train that is not there.

All of this is to entice whoever's around to search for the source of the noises. It will lead them to something that has his name on it (the nightstand, the dead file). Like Larry Redmon said, ANYONE can say the name, but it all comes down to dumb luck, like a flip of a coin. The Bye Bye Man wants people to go crazy, act out in violence out of fear of him, and to declare his name out of fear because it gives him power. Those who have heard the name probably have killed others who also heard the name. But, as long as there's something left for him to stick around (the nightstand, the dead file, the search engine in the school library), he probably doesn't care if his victims kill themselves or not.