The Bye Bye Man Urban Legend Explained (Scarier Than The Movie) – Screen Rant

The Bye Bye Man is an underwhelming horror movie based on an urban legend, which is far creepier than anything in the film version.

Here's The Bye Bye Man urban legend explained, which is much creepier than anything in the 2017 movie adaptation. There have been some great horror movies based on real-life urban legends, with both When A Stranger Calls and Black Christmas being inspired by the classic "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs" tale. Candyman is arguably the scariest film based around urban legends, which was based in part on the Bloody Mary tale.

In 2017 horror movie The Bye Bye Man arrived in cinemas, which was based on a chapter in author Robert Damon Schneck's The President's Vampire, which investigated various urban legends. The Bye Bye Man movie had a creepyhook, which revolves around a supernatural being that spreads like a virus whenever its name is mentioned. Despite a cast that included vets like Carrie-Anne Moss, Leigh Whannell and Faye Dunaway, the movie was greeted with horrid reviews for its lack of scares, confusing story and the murky mythology surrounding the central monster.

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Despite the movie turning a modest profit, its bad reception makes The Bye Bye Man 2unlikely. This is a shame in one regard, as the premise could have made for a cool new horror movie icon. This is especially true for anybody who read The Bye Bye Man chapter "The Bridge To Body Island" in Robert Damon Schneck's book, which was understandably rechristened The Bye Bye Man: And Other Strange-but-True Tales to tie in with the movie.

According to Schneck's tale - which in true urban legend style he claims to have learned from a friend - the Bye Bye Man was a blind albino born in the 1920s. As a boy, he was shunned by his parents and placed in an orphanage, before running away after being relentlessly bullied. He later became a serial killer who traveled the country via trains and created himself a seeing-eye dog dubbed Gloomsinger, who is stitched together from the eyes and tongues of Bye Bye Man's victims. Like the movie, the Bye Bye Man could track victims who either spoke his name or even thought about him, with Gloomsinger hunting them down and whistling to its master when they were found.

The Bye Bye Man from the story also carried around a bag of spare body parts - dubbed the "Sack of Gore" - to keep Gloomsinger fresh. The movie uses elements from the story but makes no attempt to explain their origins or create a coherent mythology, including the killer's links to trains, the name or purpose of the Bye Bye Man dog or what exactly his abilities are. Director Stacy Title revealed to Cosmopolitan that the coins actually act as Gloomsinger's eyes - which is yet another detail left unexplained in the movie. The origin story for the killer is much more intriguing than the final movie portrayed, so hopefully, another filmmaker will mount a better adaptation in the near future.

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Its pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now thats out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if hed like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site. A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU - where Hawkeye is clearly the best character - to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle. He's super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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The Bye Bye Man Urban Legend Explained (Scarier Than The Movie) - Screen Rant

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero