The Bye Bye Man

Hey free with adzers, this is Jordan with a very exciting announcement.

On Wednesday, October 9th at 6 p.m.

Pacific time, we're going to be doing our first ever video live stream.

That's right.

Emily, Matt, and me will be AMAing.

That's right.

We will be answering all of your questions live on the Max Fun YouTube channel.

There will be a link to said YouTube channel in the show notes.

And never fear, if you missed the live stream, it will be archived there at the Max Fun YouTube channel.

Again, link in the show notes.

One more time, it's the Free With Ads AMA live stream Wednesday, October 9th at 6 p.m.

PST on the Max Fun YouTube channel.

Hope to see you there.

This is Free with Ads, the podcast that asked the question: why pay max 10 bucks a month for a bunch of artsy A24 horror movies when you could go on YouTube for free and watch a horror movie that's kind of, sort of like an A24 movie if you're watching it while Blackout Drunk and you have a sheet on your head.

I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Emily Fleming.

Today's movie is The Bye-Bye Man, a horror movie about an urban legend that's nowhere near as good as the movie Urban Legend.

I love that movie.

And we are Me Too.

And we are waist deep in Howl O Peen.

Oh, God.

Our spooky season of horror movie reviews and jokes about the male dong, which is sometimes known as the peen.

Before we get into this movie, which is, as of this recording, streaming free with ads, we have an email address, and sometimes people email us questions, and sometimes we read them on a segment.

We call, we got mail.

We got mail.

Yay!

This message is from Valerie.

Hi, Valerie.

They write.

What was your first horror movie that you mustered up the courage to see in theaters?

Who did you see it with?

And how did you leave feeling?

Emily, does anything come to mind?

Yes.

I don't know if some people consider this to be a horror movie, but I remember

I was five years old.

No, I was five years old, and the movie trailers for the movie

The Witches had come out.

Oh, yeah, sure.

And I was seeing them on TV.

I have a lot of weird memories from when I was very young.

And my parents don't believe that I have memories like this, but they're always accurate.

But yeah, so I remember seeing them and it looked spooky and cool.

And I don't know.

I was like, I want to see this.

And I remember a friend of mine's like older sister saw it and she was like, you're not going to be able to do it.

Oh, yeah.

And I thought I liked spooky stuff as a kid, although I was scared of everything.

So I saw it with my mom in the theaters, which I think that movie is PG, which is insane.

Oh, sure.

Yes.

Our childhood was littered with PG movies that are

horrible and traumatic.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, great example.

Yeah, that's the one that triggered the whole thing.

But like, yeah, I ran out of the theater.

Wow.

I couldn't do it.

It's when she took off her, her, like, face and then the witch face was underneath.

And then the, um, I don't know, the way that the kids looked as they were turning into the mice.

I have a little bit of body horror stuff.

Like, I think that I, it, it triggers me.

Like, I like body horror to some degree, but this really messed me up.

I was five and I ran away.

And my mom was like, I told you you weren't going to like that.

And I was like,

and then, yeah, so I don't know.

There were other kids my age who said they saw it five I mean I think it was probably marketed as a kids movie oh boy it was not that was a scary movie it still scares me okay so mine was tremors yeah I saw it with Tim Coda and his mom nice and I asked to leave I asked them to leave because I was too scared of tremors and then we went into we we did that thing a lot where you just like

walked around in the movie theater and went into random movies.

Yes.

I don't know if that practice is still as done today, but I think like littler movie theaters, you could like

stone 16 year olds and they're like, whatever, go wherever you want to.

So we went in and saw the like Last Hour of Always.

What's that?

It's a Spielberg movie.

I think it is about crop dusters.

I cannot, but I remember it was, it was, it was far, it was very soothing.

And then, you know, like, and now I love Tremors.

Like, Tremors is like, you know,

I would consider a favorite of mine.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

And it's one of those things where I'm like, oh, I was too scared to watch this as a kid, and this is supposed to be a comedy.

Like, this was absolutely supposed to be funny,

but I was just so scared of those crab boys.

I mean, mine was supposed to be like a fantasy movie, I guess, for kids, but it was terrifying.

So that's adorable.

I love that.

Matt, can you look up what the movie Always is about?

Yeah, you got it.

Okay, thank you.

I see that it's got John Goodman in it.

John Goodman's in there.

Maybe Dreyfus?

Maybe Dreyfus in Always?

Richard Dreyfus.

Yeah, and then we've got A Holly Hunter.

I love a Holly Hunter.

Who could be scared of that?

I know.

I think it was about crop dusting.

Okay.

I've got the synopsis right here.

Please.

Aerial firefighter Pete, Richard Dreyfus,

writes himself and his vintage World War II airplane in a constant and death-defying quest to fight forest fires.

Okay.

Jesus Christ.

Audrey Hepburn is in this.

It's a forest fire movie?

I guess so.

Steven Spielberg made a forest fire movie.

Yeah.

Anyway,

so there you go.

Not as scared.

They can't all be winners, you guys.

They can't all be winners.

Yeah, but I'm like blown away an older Audrey Hepburn is in this.

This is wild.

It's from 1989.

There you go.

Cool.

If it pops up on Free With Eds, we'll watch that.

There you go.

We'll do it.

Yeah, we'll do a double feature, Tremors and Always, to remind me of that wonderful afternoon I spent with Tim Coda and his mom.

Fuck yeah.

Well, hey, we're about to talk about The Bye-Bye Man, a movie which will surely have viewers screaming and running into always.

Oh, God.

But before we talk about The Bye-bye Man, we wanted to mention that this movie does include suicide as part of the plot.

So, if that's something you do not want to hear about, we're going to play a little music and give you a chance to find another episode.

Okay, we're back.

It's free with ads.

We're talking about the Bye-Bye Man.

So, the movie opens in 1969 in Madison, Wisconsin.

We've got a suburban dad who I would say has J.D.

Vance energy.

Yeah.

Doesn't have the stunning eyes.

Yeah, doesn't have the eyeliner on Fleek.

Certainly the haunted energy.

Yes.

J.D.

Vance.

And he gets a shotgun and threatens his family.

And

then he kills them with the shotgun.

Well, not his family.

It's some lady.

It's so confusing.

Because later there's more about this guy.

He kills like the neighbors.

Yes.

So I think he kills his own family and then goes over to the neighbors while we see these shots of a train.

These random shots of a train.

How haunting.

Surely these images will be explained later.

No, they're not.

But he didn't kill his wife, though.

Oh, that's right, because that turns out to be Faye Dunaway.

You're right, you're right.

And then you're like, who's this lady then?

Well, this.

Okay, so it's a suburban guy.

He's got a gun.

He's killing the neighbors.

And we're seeing shots of a train.

Yes.

Oh,

I wonder what that was supposed to be before they either removed the explanation or didn't shoot it.

Oh, yeah.

What the fuck?

I mean.

Yeah, so there's a lot of stuff in this movie that goes unexplained.

And I think it is all part of the source material.

This is based on a short story.

And all the stuff in this movie that does not get explained is kind of unpacked in the short story.

Yeah, and the short story I was reading about, this guy wrote a book of short stories that he claims are true.

Okay.

But he says that this story was told to him by a friend.

So it's like a second-hand story that may or may not be true.

Well, that's enough for me.

The bye-bye man is real.

It's real.

Don't say it out loud.

Don't think it.

Don't say it.

Everybody, hide in this theater.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

He's all around us.

Bye-bye.

So we cut to the modern day.

And the house that the murders took place in, it's getting rented by some college kids.

Yes.

A bunch of hot college kids.

And only three.

Three of them, yeah.

So it is a huge house.

It's a giant.

I know, right?

Does everybody get two bedrooms?

Yeah, no kidding.

So, yeah, so it's a couple and their friend.

And

so they're like looking at the house.

house, they love it.

Um, there's this little moment where, where the, the woman of the couple kind of comes into the room to the guys, and they're just punching each other in the stomach.

She just comes in, and they're just, Matt, we're guys, right?

Yeah, hell yeah, we're guys.

And when, and when the ladies are away, we just punch each other.

All I do is wrestle with my homies and try to physically harm them, right?

But it's out of love.

It's all love, dog.

Yeah, this was a really weird triad of friendship.

Sure.

Yeah, because you're not sure who's fucking who.

Yeah.

It takes a while before you figure out who the couple is.

Because I thought for a little bit it was both the guys.

Me too.

I was wrong.

They have hella kids.

That stomach punching is pretty hot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, but, so, you know, this is like setting the table introducing us to our main characters, and they're a lot of fun.

There's this exchange that had me rolling.

Matt, can you play this?

Let's play this outright.

Because I'm not going to be your guy's maid.

Of course not.

I told him.

Right?

But I never cooked you my butter pasta and eggs.

That is not a thing.

That's not a thing.

That's not a thing.

She said that.

I was like, okay, random.

Hard pass.

So that happened.

So that happened.

Hashtag winning.

Oh, God.

Fuck this movie.

Anyway.

Oh, God.

You know, Jordan, I think that

there may need to be a sting about millennial slang.

Oh, God.

Overuse slang.

I know.

If there's just really any of that stuff, which, by the way, you have ruined my movie going experience because now when I hear those quotes.

Oh, right.

I know.

And I complain about this.

Jordan would be furious.

I know.

Furious at this movie.

So that's not a thing as one for me.

And this movie came out in 2017.

We don't need to be saying this was over.

And that, so that happened.

So that happened.

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, it literally should be illegal to write that in a script.

Yeah.

I mean, what are we doing?

I know, and it's just like they, and it's like the stomach punching thing.

It's like they just, they're like, the scene needs energy.

You have to do something.

Punch it, you know, and it's like, no one knows how to act like a person or be fun or write a joke.

So they just put in this shit.

Anyway, so like already I'm like, oh, movie, you're on fucking thin ice.

You aren't.

Oh, I don't know.

I might just lie and say I watched you.

I might just turn on family feud for the rest of the night and lie about the movie.

Read Wikipedia.

Anyway,

so, okay, they're all friends and they rent the house and they have a fun party and the woman of the couple and the friend of the couple are flirting at the party.

And the man, the normal man whose characteristic is that he

has a lot of Dead Kennedys shirts.

I know, I saw that, and I was like, oh, cool.

I think you bet Jordan will like that.

I did like to see the Dead Kennedys logo.

That was fun.

So, yeah, so he never like talks about it or like acts punk rock in any way, but he has a lot of like punk shirts.

I'm like, yeah, that's cool.

I enjoy that.

And there's a little girl at the party.

She is the like niece of the main dude.

Yeah.

So she just starts wandering around by herself.

There's a lot of doors in this house.

There are.

There's a lot of like little doors.

And there's like little, yeah, little tiny doors on the ground.

Yeah, it's kind of like the Winchester Mystery House.

Yeah, it's a little like that, or that it's maybe that was a dumb waiter type thing.

Oh, yeah.

Or a laundry

shoot or I don't know so yeah, so that the house is kind of like creepy and this little girl is walking around and there's there's some like kind of creepy atmosphere here and then she goes into one of the bedrooms and out of one of the little doors a dog or dinosaur head comes out and then goes back in like that meme of Homer Simpson going back in the bush

Surely this dog dinosaur will be explained.

Not really.

Yeah, and then she finds a spooky coin.

Ooh, a spooky coin.

The coins come up a lot.

Surely we'll get an explanation for that.

We don't.

Spooky coins.

And so they're having this party, and they're talking.

They have a, they have a use those coins to do spooky laundry.

Separate your whites from your colors.

Musical guest, the bye-bye man.

I have two voices, Vincent Price and Don Pardo.

Yes.

Anyway, so they have a gothy friend at the party.

And the main guy of the couple, he's not sure about her.

She wears hats indoors.

He says girls who wear hats inside are crazy.

And we all know that's true.

Oh, so their friend, they're just trying to give people character traits here, and they don't know how to do it.

So he's a jock, right?

The friend is, he's a jock.

Yes.

And he organizes a little game of baseball outside.

And the main guy, our main guy, our Dead Kennedys guy is like those jocks, they even, they can't stop playing games, even at a party.

There's party games, that's a phrase.

People play games at parties.

What's your fucking deal?

If I was friends with you guys, I would go outside and whack something around just

to do it.

Do something.

I also think because there was something

when they were exploring the house in the basement, the jock guy like finds an old shoe, like an old leather shoe, and then tries to throw it like a basketball, and it hits his head on a pipe.

And then I think that's what they were using is the baseball outside.

Oh, just this leather shoe.

I'm like, there's a million other things you could use as a baseball.

I don't know.

And a thousand other games you can play with a leather shoe.

Yeah.

Just do something else.

Fuck the shoe.

You can fuck the shoe.

Everybody line up.

Fuck the shoe.

It's like pin the tail of a donkey for a while.

And the last one that finishes has to drink the cum out of the shoe.

We've all played icky Shoey before.

Icky Shooey.

So, yes, the little girl, she's still cruising around.

Can't stand her.

She looks, you didn't like this curve.

Little girl?

Yeah.

No.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, no one in this movie is.

You just have this whiny, like, meh, like this kind of thing.

And it's like, no kid talks like this.

Yeah.

No person talks like anyone does in this movie.

Yeah, and she, like, opens the drawer, and we see a bunch of crazy person writing in the drawer.

Don't think it, don't say it, bye-bye man.

Don't think it, don't say it, bye-bye, man.

Oh, yeah.

I thought bye-bye man was underneath the paper.

Like that was.

Oh, right.

Yeah, well, they ripped it up.

There was some like shelf paper in the drawer.

This existed in a time where there was

drawer paper on the.

I had drawer paper.

My mom put rose-scented drawer paper in all of my chest of drawers.

Whenever I move into a new place and I show my mom around, she brings drawer paper and puts it in all the drawers.

Yeah, in my place I have now, my mom like came in and put in the drawer paper.

That's so nice.

Gail.

Gail and Lois crushing it with the drawer paper.

Nice mom.

So the gothy friend.

Okay.

Everyone's hotness in this movie is so inversely related to their acting.

The hotter, the hotter they are, the worse they are.

And this

she's the hottest one.

Yeah, and the gap is huge, and the gap, yeah, uh, all of the all of the college characters, anyways.

Yeah, she, she, she is, she is stunning, but absolutely so wrong for this.

And can't, and it's the funnest part in the movie, she gets to get a little possessed at some point.

Well, yeah, I okay, maybe I think there were moments in this movie where I stared at a wall, like it just kind of, I'm my, I dissociated.

Sure, that's all you can do.

You're just saying, don't think it, don't stare it, don't watch it, don't watch it,

don't hear it.

But I was like, so they're all just having a fake science, like science.

What the fuck did I just say?

Y'all want to have a seance?

Y'all want to have a science?

Yeah.

And then she's.

A few chairs flying around the room.

You might be possessing that.

You might be having a seance.

You might be possessed.

But yeah, I was just like, okay, so no one is at the party now.

And then this girl's here and she wants to have a seance.

And suddenly she's very psychic.

How is she real psychic?

I guess she just is.

I guess she just, because the woman, like she legitimately like predicts things and things.

And she like, the guy goes off and hides his keys and she knows where he hid his keys.

Yeah, I know.

And she could see things, but it's like she's the only other like supernatural thing in the whole movie.

Right.

And there's no explanation for her.

Yeah.

Like there's a whole like, it feels like there's a whole universe happening now, like

True Blood or something.

So we got a psychic over here.

Where's the vampire

yeah you're right so she's psychic and there's and like the bye-bye man is not explained it does feel like we're watching a sequel it feels like we're watching the third or fourth bye-bye man movie and they're like no you don't need to explain you know they didn't need to explain freddy at some point he just kills you in your dreams but yeah but he was also a compelling character yeah freddy rules and they prefaced him from the get-go sure yeah they explained him at some point it just feels like just no one they just want to show you images that they think are scary and they don't feel like you know yeah we're not being told a story coherently yeah um so yeah she's she's crazy but she does sleep with like the jock friend um

and so he drives her home in the morning they have this little conversation he she kind of suggests like he couldn't get it up during them hooking up and then he hallucinates a bunch of maggots on her face

yes and then he so he talks about how like dirty the goth woman was and how like

his roommate is like clean and nice he's like you're so clean and nice ew i forgot about this and then she like hallucinates him so every so okay our main

are just all hallucinating now i guess it's the the because of the seance well okay so he um reads that our main guy elliot yeah he's like our main dude he like sees the drawer that has the

like don't think it don't say it all written on this piece on the the drawer paper and then he pulls it up and then it just says the bye-bye man right like

in the font that they use on the poster yeah and um yeah it says coming soon yeah

yeah exactly um yeah fandango.com like

we're already in the movie

but then um so then when they have the seance the psychic chick says it out loud she's like saying don't don't or like don't say it don't think it don't say it don't think it and then they're all like they've all heard it sure and know it and i guess the deal is just like if anyone says bye-bye man one time he gets in your head and then makes you hallucinate and then eventually can kill you they never explain that well if you hear it too like i feel like because then you're gonna think it i don't know i'm so confused by it as well there's no concrete explanation for how this works you don't see the bye bye man much much no but he is usually just saying kind of hello That's true.

He never says bye-bye.

That's a really good point.

Thank you.

He comes out and he kind of appears and points at you and it's kind of like a little welcome.

It's a little welcoming.

It's not by.

He never waves bye-byes.

I'm starting to think it's a bad movie.

Hold on, Matt.

It might get better.

I think he's

more like an Irish exit man.

Oh, yeah, sure.

I'm just going to go get some cigarettes.

I'm going to call my lift.

I'll be right back.

I've got to get my trench coat dry cleaned.

Jeez.

So, okay.

So she hallucinates him naked.

Dude's in great shape.

We see the gutters

or the dickroot, as I'm a little bit more.

The gutters is so much hotter when you say it like that.

Gutters.

Ooh, the gutters.

So at this point,

the woman roommate, she is doing that thing where she writes creepy stuff in a notebook and kind of doesn't know why.

And

just like standard crazy person hallucination font.

And so she writes bye-bye man.

Because the font is so insane, when she showed the notebook, I said it, I thought it said Honk Man.

And I'm like, why are we not watching the Honk Honk Man?

Someone make Hong Kong Man.

That sounds pretty good.

Honk Konk Man.

That's my name.

That's my name when I see those K's.

It's also a combination of words you might never say, as opposed to Bye-bye Man, which has been said probably billions of trillions of times.

Yeah.

Well, also,

this is 2017, but this came out.

The Snowman also came out this year.

Oh, yes, Mr.

Police.

Yes.

I gave you all the clues.

Yes, and I got them confused.

I at first thought, like, oh, I think I've heard of the bye-bye man.

It's the one with the snowman in it.

And it's like, no, there were two different little man things.

There were two, yeah, there were two mans around this time.

The bye-bye man did not give us all the clues.

We don't know anything about him.

We've watched the movie.

We don't, we haven't, we need more clues.

Help us, Mr.

Police.

Oh, boy.

So, okay, so this is kind of when we kind of see the bye-bye man for the first time.

They have this in their bedroom.

They have this very creepy-looking, like a druid costume on a mannequin, which is, yes, of course, they're going to get scared by that.

But that,

in the middle of the night, that costume comes to life, and we see the hooded, leather-jacketed bye-bye mans, played by Doug Jones, who we love to see in things.

He is given fucking jack shit to do in this.

Like, he doesn't, you know, he gets a couple of little scenes where he gets to gesticulate but you know he's great love this guy and everything so i i have an unexpected hunk watch oh sure i do think that the bye-bye man is kind of like a jacked like doug jones

character he's a little jacked kind of hunk watch but right before you see the bye-bye man for the first time he's having a dream hallucination and there's three naked people um

like back facing to us on the train tracks before they get hit on a train and it's just three perfect butts oh okay so the three butts on the train tracks, that's my hunk watch.

Okay.

And so, yes, three, yes, we stand three butts.

Three butts that are all standing next to each other on the train track.

Why?

We don't know.

We never find out.

You never know.

They just went, we need some butts.

We need some butts.

And people love trains and they love butts.

Yes.

We need butts.

There you go.

And hey, while we're staying in Doug Jones, obviously the tallest person in the movie.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This guy's huge.

Tallest guy.

All right, we're getting them all out of the way.

All right.

And so, okay, that's the first time we see the Bye-bye Man.

He just kind of pops out and is scary and doesn't really do anything.

Later, Elliot is doing research in the library.

He's on one of those fake movie search websites.

It's in the Google font, but it just says search.

Yes.

Yes.

What is the reason for that?

I watched that, and that was the most confusing part of this.

Can you not show, I guess, Google is a, you know.

But you don't get in trouble if you show Google

charge you for something because maybe they don't want you looking up something spooky.

Isn't that just free advertising?

I don't know.

I've never understood dummy products.

If you use their search engine to summon the bye-bye man, that's a good point.

They're liable.

We don't want to be associated with the buy-by-man.

That's scary.

Yeah.

I also love that in so many horror movies, there is like a research kind of moment, like in the ring.

She's like going and researching and looking through the library.

And it's like, does every horror movie involve the library?

You got to go to the library.

Yeah, you got to go to the library.

I mean, it.

You got to go to the library.

There's always a horror movie with the library.

It's true.

It's great.

Public libraries.

They're a wonderful, a wonderful resource.

We can't do it.

If public libraries go away, then there's going to be no more like intrigue and horror.

How will we learn about our monsters?

Yes.

Okay, so we go like, we go like back into the flashback with the dude from the beginning.

It's weird how much they don't explain the bye-bye man, but this flashback is unpacked constantly.

Yeah.

So yeah, so he like kills the neighbors and then he like puts the gun in his mouth and kills himself.

Oh no, he drinks like bleach under the counters.

I thought it was gasoline.

It was Draino.

Draino.

He drinks Draino.

That's crazy.

Yeah, it seems like if you're going to kill yourself, there's like knives around.

Yeah, that's true.

He was just in the heat of the moment because I think the bye-bye man was coming towards him and he just grabbed something.

But was he going to to kill him?

I don't know.

We don't know what the bye-bye man does.

We know there's something about taking people's eyes out, which is another thing that wasn't explained.

And there's so much shit that isn't explained.

Yeah.

I don't know.

And it's like, it's like, I,

like, in a good movie, in a good movie where, where people are in control.

Yeah.

Like.

Leaving out that information can be deliberate, right?

Like, it's like, we want you to be thinking about this.

We want there to be some mystery around this.

And, you know, and I don't like in like modern movies where it feels like you have to get a long explanation for everything.

Right.

But like.

This movie needs.

It just feels like they forgot to shoot stuff.

Well, there's some things like, I don't know, there's movies that are super spooky and mystery is involved.

And it's fun to kind of put things together.

Yeah.

Because there's symbolism.

Sure.

And there's like, I don't know, some kind of emotion behind it.

These characters had, like, they tried tried to give our main dude a backstory about his parents being dead, and then it didn't really do anything either.

Yeah.

And

these characters have nothing going on in their lives.

But yeah, I was like, I don't.

care about all these little breadcrumbs of spooky that don't connect to each other or to anything else.

It's just like frustrating.

You feel like you missed something.

You feel like, yeah, I mean, and you know, we, we talk about the various moments in these movies where we zone out.

Yeah.

And I constantly in this movie, I'm like, what did I miss?

And I think just nothing.

I think they just don't bother to see it.

You miss nothing.

I mean, in the library scene, we meet the best actor in the whole movie who is the librarian.

Oh, yeah, she's great.

She's a lot of fun.

She's so good.

She's played by Cleo King, who's a great actor.

I'm a king.

Oh, yeah, I didn't recognize her for anything.

One of those character actresses that's like in tons of stuff.

She's really funny.

But in this, you like like her immediately.

She's like, I don't know.

You believe everything that's going on.

Yeah.

But we do know that, like, okay, so the dude who shot everybody in 69, it was a big story kind of in their town or whatever.

And

all of the

like info had kind of been wiped from public records.

So they're like in these privatized records or something.

I don't know.

And then how that happens, people don't really know how somebody stripped it from the records.

So yeah, so like it does, at some point, our characters just kind of know the story of the bye-bye man.

Yeah.

And so it's like, is this, and I guess I'm like, I guess this was just an urban legend around this town.

But there's, there's not that scene where people are like, the bye-bye man's going to get you.

All right.

That's just an urban legend.

And I know that's cliche, but you fucking need that because they just, I'm like, oh, they know about it 45 minutes in when no one has explained it to them.

Well, that's probably the bye-bye man.

But they can't say it because if you say it, then you're down.

Exactly.

Anyway, so, okay, so he's, he's, Elliot's driving around with the, with the, with the goth friend.

They're talking about doing another seance.

Everybody starts hallucinating, and she thinks she sees a family on the train tracks, and then she runs out and gets hit by a train.

I guess that's the connection to the train imagery.

It was foreshadowing that.

I don't know.

I don't know either.

I think that the people who were dead on the train tracks were those ghosts of people that the bye-bye man had gotten

or something.

It was fucking nuts.

Anyway, so investigate, hey, this is when this is this movie picks up a little bit here because the cop investigating this played by Carrie-Ann Moss.

Ow!

Yeah, ooh, Hunk Watch part two.

Yeah, always good to see her and stuff.

She's great.

I mean, she has jack to do in this.

Like, she has two scenes.

I think before we were recording, I think you had the observation of like they're trying to make a franchise and promising you that Carrie-Ann Moss is going to be in the next one.

Well, they should have just done it from the get-go with Carrie-Ann Moss because that would have been our, you know, kind of the ring situation.

Like the Naomi Watts, the person who is a detective,

who would have gotten more information about what was going on.

We only had a detective who is specializing in figuring clues and things connected to each other out.

And instead, we didn't get to have that lovely, you know, experience.

We just had three doofy college kids.

Sure.

Yeah.

Anyway, I mean, and one of them with a pretty nice dick root, but

not a lot of other qualities

between these three.

Okay, so Elliot goes to see the wife of the guy who killed everyone.

Yeah, you're right.

I mean, he didn't kill his wife because he goes to see Faye.

It's going to see Faye done away away in the like a scene but also it's like yeah i think you're right a lot of shit was probably cut because you've got two like big actresses in this movie who are barely in it it's so weird probably just the things like we can afford them for a day what can we do with them you know for a day i guess why would they do this movie yeah i know i think these movies like

you know this is kind of a recent horror movie and i feel like sometimes for the like older characters you kind of stunt cast a little bit you can get this great you know Yeah.

Because like the, you know, the insidious movies do that sometimes.

And I think that's kind of what this wants to be a little bit.

Right.

Anyway, yeah.

But here's the thing I will say is this was 2017.

2018 is when Hereditary came out.

I think that we were in a huge like horror lull

leading up to 2018.

And then it was like, oh, we can make horror movies good.

Sure.

Cool.

And now we're in like this horror renaissance kind of.

Yeah, the bye-bye man was the last.

Snowman and Bye-bye Man were the kiss of death.

And then I was like, shut it down.

We need to reconfigure every horror movie.

Yeah, get A24 and Neon out here.

Oh, yeah, sure.

To make some compelling weirdo movies.

So, any, the librarian who we mentioned that we all love,

she's like hallucinating.

It kind of implied that she killed her kids.

Yeah.

And that, to me, I'm like.

You know, very dark, but I'm like, okay, this is kind of, you know, seeing her in the kitchen and you see the little kids' feet.

I'm like, this is a little grim.

This is a little like, you know, juicy there's something here yeah and then she just gets sit by a car i know which made no sense because she was just standing in the middle of the road and there's that shot now where you know that's gonna happen that perfectly framed shot where someone is in the middle of the road and i i think it's meant to be a jump scare yeah but they do it in fucking every movie and it's just not anymore should also be illegal yeah when you see that shot i'm like well here comes the car here comes the bad cgi car that's gonna fake hit them well that there was a cool moment in that because

there's some other kid in the road and he's like, fuck it, I'm gonna pile through this kid.

Yeah.

And then he fades away and then he's looking behind him.

And then I was like, the kid's gonna be like sitting next to him, like the ghost of the bye-bye man or something.

That's what I thought was.

And then it was the lady, the librarian, who is conveniently on this, like in the middle of nowhere on this highway that

he just happens to be on.

Yeah.

Like, why is she there?

Totally neutralizing her as like a scary threat because we just saw that she clearly killed the kids.

You're like, uh-oh, forget the bye-bye man.

The librarian's after you, right?

Yes, and then boom, she's the shush-shush woman.

She tells you to shush-shush.

Hong Kong.

These are the sequels.

This is the bye-bye man cinematic universe.

2025, Honk Man.

2026, Shush-Shush Woman.

2027,

Fuck Fuck Guy.

Fuck fuck guy.

Yes.

What's the Avengers where they all come together?

I don't know.

Anyway.

So, like, everybody's hallucinating.

We're back at the house.

The roommate.

So it seems like the roommate, I'm going to call him Dick Root.

Dick Root looks like he's stabbing the female roommate.

And then Elliot shoots him.

Oh, wait.

So he thinks he's shooting.

I don't know where he got the gun from.

No, no.

We forgot about the sex scene.

Did we?

What's this?

Oh, right, because he hallucinates them having sex.

Yeah.

So he's jealous.

And it was looked great.

Yeah.

That fake sex, that hallucination scene.

Didn't need to happen at all.

The sex scene didn't need to happen at all.

Anyway, yeah, so he comes back and...

Yeah, he comes back and it looks like...

So he thinks he's shooting the roommate, but then we see that was a hallucination and he shot his girlfriend.

Which I liked that shot, actually.

Yeah,

there's a kind of like fucked up shock there.

Well, she kind of hovers up.

So he like

grabs

the dude who he thinks is his dude friend who is stabbing his girlfriend in the face, which was crazy.

And then he's like rolled over on top.

The guy's on top of him.

He shoots him in the stomach and he thinks he's rolling the guy away.

And then you have the camera in his point of view.

And he brings the body back and it's his girlfriend's dead body.

I thought that was really cool.

I didn't explain it well, but it's

very scary.

I did get a little bit of a like, oh, wow, okay, that's fucked up out out of that yeah there's a lot of like creepy hallucination stuff that I did like about this but then it's like why not just make it a disease that makes you hallucinate why do we need this guy in a raincoat I don't know what the point of that is as I was watching the movie I literally said to myself well you don't need to make a movie

you could just like just don't you could get another job don't make the movie you could get it be a substitute teacher sure a lot of great jobs out there blog you could blog i just feel like watching that movie you're just like there's other careers.

You could do a turkey trot.

Absolutely.

You know, you could run a petting zoo.

There you go.

A lot of fun stuff to do.

So the bye-bye man is there.

His creepy, skinless dog is there.

Yeah, great CGI.

Not.

Boy.

Yeah, the dog looks so bad.

The dog's awful.

So bad.

He looks kind of like a hot dog.

Cover a real dog in meat.

Yeah, he's the dog loves it.

And it looks scarier.

I know.

And it was like shaped all weird and stuff.

I don't know.

It was really weird.

So the little girl comes back.

Her dad, who's, I guess, the main guy's brother, brings the kid.

I don't know why they're there.

And then the kind of maybe think he's going to shoot the little kid, but then he shoots himself.

He killed the guy, Elliot kills himself to get rid of the bye-bye man.

And then the shocking tease, which we'll get to right over this.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and Me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, this is Free with Ads.

This is an exciting moment in the history of the show.

It is?

It's our first jumbotron.

Yay!

So here's what's happening.

For people who don't know, one of our beautiful listeners who we love went to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron.

They paid a nominal fee.

And because they paid that nominal fee, we are sharing a message of their choice with our listenership.

You out there, you can do this.

Go to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron.

You pay that nominal fee.

There's a fee for a personal message.

There's a fee for a commercial message.

So we will say happy birthday.

We will propose marriage.

We will break up with your girlfriend.

We will break up with someone.

We'll plug your podcast, plug your band, plug your comedy show.

We'll plug your holes.

If you got a hole, we'll plug.

Maximumfund.org slash Jumbotron.

It is fun to do, and it keeps this show going.

This message is from Jack in Melbourne, Australia.

Oh, cool.

Jack's message is this.

You hooked me with the Stallones Knockouts mini review, compelling me to binge through the entire Free With Ads catalog on my cycling commutes.

Now, passers-by have no idea that I'm thinking about them in three-syllable audio stings of tallest guy and on one memorable occasion, the worst hat.

Love this show with or without ads and all of you.

So what Jack did, that nice Australian, what Jack did was just use the Jumbotron time to say that he liked the show.

I know.

It's amazing because he could also, you could email that.

But what I like is he said, no, I want them to say the words.

Yeah.

I love you guys.

And God bless them for that.

We love you too.

Is that what you wanted?

Yes, there you go.

I love you.

You're pretty.

I will love you for money.

Yeah.

Give me money and I will love you.

You give us money.

We give you love.

So, yes, you can use Jumbotrons to declare love for us if you want, but also, you know, for for anything else.

Maximumfun.org slash Jumbotron.

All right.

Back to the show.

We're back.

It's free with ads.

We're about to talk about the shocking conclusion of the bye-bye man.

So, our main guy, he's killed himself.

And it seems like everybody else is dead, but Dick Roots alive.

He's alive.

He's getting carried out on a a stretcher.

Carried out.

And who sees him but Carrie Moss?

And she comes up to him and he whispers, it was the bye-bye movie.

Did he say it?

Because I thought it was like her going, tell me.

Yeah, they turn down the audio, so you're not sure what's happening.

So at the end of,

what's that Bill Burry, Scarlett Johansson movie?

It's Lawson Drahansen.

There you go.

Yeah, it's like the end of Law.

What did he say?

What did he say?

It's a MacGuffin.

Right.

You don't know, man.

God, it's

Schrodinger's Bye-bye Man.

Yeah.

He probably just said, honk, honk.

Shush woman got hit by car.

Honk honk.

The worst part of that is literally as he's whispering, she, Carrie-Ann Moss, looks into the camera.

I saw that.

And then it cuts to black.

And I was like, that is

the worst ending I've ever seen.

Yeah, did we hear bye-bye man?

Are we dead now?

But my

the other thing is, so the bye-bye man, when he appears, and God, I hate having to say that all over, like over and over.

And when he appears to our main dude, he like puts his finger on his forehead for some reason, and he doesn't see anything cool.

He just sees that his brother and niece are at the door.

Yeah.

And you're like, what is the fingering?

Fingering story.

There you go.

Fingering story.

Yep.

So the bye-bye man fingers this guy's forehead and we don't even see anything cool.

Yeah.

And I'm also like, what happens if the bye-bye man kills you?

Why do you always have to kill me?

If Bye Bye doesn't do shit in this.

Neither does his dog.

All his dog does is create like scratch marks in brick.

Yeah.

And you're just like, oh no, a dog.

Dog doesn't do nothing.

So here's the synopsis of the short story that this is based on.

Okay.

So you can kind of see why they did all these specifics.

It's weirdly faithful to the story.

Okay, this is just from IMDb.

The story on which the film is based, The Bridge to Body Island, better name, has a much more complex mythology for the Bye-bye Man.

He was an albino born in New Orleans in 1912 who ran away as a child and became a derelict who lived in a train yard.

After going blind, he began murdering people and cutting out their eyes and tongues, which he sewed together and brought to life using voodoo.

The resultant creature became the Bye-bye Man's literal seeing-eye dog, helping it so the dog is like stitched together from body parts.

Several elements from the story, notably the dog and the the motif of trains, were retained for the movie, though their purpose is left undefined.

So he was Al-Bye-bye-no.

Oh,

bye-bye.

As he is the Al-Bi-by-No man.

So that's so weird that they expected people to know the lore.

Yeah, weird.

Totally weird.

Just

take a swing at it.

Even though specific, too, it's like, you know, yeah.

Anyway.

Even if it's bad, even if you do a bad job of explaining the lore, at least we get an explanation for the train shit.

Why did I see butts if you're not going to tell me why?

Why did I see the butts?

Why did I see them?

Yeah, I don't.

And cutting out their eyes and tongues, which he sewed together and brought to life.

So he brought the people to life or the eyes and tongues.

The dog is a collection of eyes and tongues.

What the fuck?

The dog is made of eyes and tongues.

Again, better, this is a better movie.

I know.

Whatever this is, it's a better movie.

Because it's an idea.

Yeah.

This movie is a whole movie without an idea.

There's one idea.

It's like, what if Bloody Mary, but you only have to say it once?

Yeah.

Well, there's like, okay, so here's a few things I was thinking about.

We got the coins.

Why?

Never talked about the coins.

Yeah, sure.

So, and isn't there a thing about

when you're sent to the River Styx, there's like some things where you put coins on your eyes

to like afford the fare to get in and that probably your eyes are taken out or whatever.

And then the hounds of hell, I was like, this guy is probably

the Grim Reaper

or something going on here.

Cause I was like, okay, they are missing eyes.

There's some coins.

There's the.

And so I was like, I think he's a demon or something with the, and we're going to connect.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Yeah.

Nothing.

They started with the Halloween costume design and said, how do we make a whole movie around this?

Yeah.

And they didn't even even feature it that much in the movie.

Yeah, I know, right.

That

hooded coat that he has.

Right.

It feels like they like, this is the new scream mask, and it's not.

No.

Well, yeah.

Like, also, if I were those kids, I'd be like,

all right, let's see what the deal is with this jacket if I put it on because it's been hanging on the wall all the time.

Yeah.

I also would have been like, well, let's see what the bye-bye man does.

Yeah.

I'd be like, so far, all he does is make you trip.

Like, trip balls.

Oh, shit.

Is there a fire going on?

I would have said, like, what do you want?

Like, what do you want from me?

Like, if he was, like, my girlfriend's dead, my buddy's face is all stabbed up.

I'd be like, what is why are you doing this?

And what's happening?

I just want someone to hang out with.

I'm so lonely.

You want to come with me to the dog park?

Oh, do you have a dog too?

I could be a dog friend.

Don't worry.

My dog just smells your dog.

That's why he's sniffing.

He's my fur baby.

Oh, you're going, okay, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

All right, so we're going to rank the bye-bye man on a scale of one to ten super light commercials.

But first, we're going to talk about the best lines in the movie.

So, you know, there's no good lines in the movie, but

and we've complained about the overall story, but like the second-to-second dialogue in this movie doesn't make much sense.

And there's this back and forth that just drove me crazy.

It made me think like it had been written through Google Translate.

Matt, can you play this?

Oh

God.

You can.

I don't know.

Maybe I shouldn't be playing baseball in the cold.

That's the problem with being an alcoholic.

Oh, shut up.

I didn't even drink that much.

Maybe that was a mistake.

It's okay.

Maybe I shouldn't play baseball in the cold.

That's the problem with being an alcoholic.

What the fuck does that mean?

Like,

it's written like, it's like Tommy Wizzo wrote it.

Yeah.

That's how it feels.

It's very the rule.

So true.

Yeah.

Do you have a line you want to play?

Okay, so I do have a line.

Yeah.

The little girl, good actress.

Here's the thing.

You're a a kid.

It doesn't matter.

But

the end of the movie, when it's the whole, like the brother and little girl trying to get in, and she has to pee real bad, even though she sees her uncle is bleeding from his face.

She's like, come on, I'm just freezing like a popsicle.

And I gotta pee.

And all this stuff, I'm like, just kill the girl.

I would kill the girl.

Like,

so there was actually, before I get to the line, there's another, and this is so bad.

Most of the female characters in this the main ones are just they're horribly written and I just feel bad for them But our main girl Sasha was her name is sick for some reason She gets sick after the saying bye-bye man gives her a cold I guess I guess and she is like bad acting coughing the whole thing and I'm like just die.

Maybe she's never coughed.

Just die.

Like kill the little girl.

Kill Sasha.

I am so over it.

But anyway, so the little girl, girl they get in the truck and the house is on fire with her uncle in it she's unfazed yeah and they're in the car and he goes home he won't he won't mind the fire anymore and she's like okay

and i'm like i hope where'd she piss is kind of what i want to know but anyway so i found a carl's jr she's like i found these coins he must have left for me and we're like oh

those coins something happened we don't understand we don't understand and then she's like i found them in the little table with all the writing.

And he goes, the writing?

What was the writing?

And she goes,

Daddy,

you know I can't read in the dark.

What do you think I am?

A flashlight?

Kill me.

Fucking kill me.

I

my.

What do you think I am?

A flashlight?

Also, you know I can't read in the dark.

Well, everyone knows that people can't read in the dark.

Is this a conversation you have with your dumbass dad?

Like, what do you...

Anyway,

those are some things people said in the movie, The Bye-Bye Man.

We're going to rank the movie.

Oh, yeah, I have a favorite line.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, Matt, what do you got?

Oh, yeah, good.

The very opening of this movie

has a line that literally trashes the rest of the movie.

Did you tell anyone?

Did I?

About the name, the name.

Yeah, I told Rick.

He thought he was funny.

I'm sorry, but does that not undercut the rest of the movie?

It's that I would love it if it was a movie about a name that's so funny that you can't help but say it, even if you die.

Sure.

I love that.

Dick Butkiss.

He was a football coach.

Oh, my God.

Also, we were talking about this earlier.

At the opening of this movie, the amount of production companies involved with the Bye-Bye Man is crazy.

They all have very bad logos.

Well, the last one to appear is this guy pointing, much like the bye-bye man, into a fiery abyss.

And so I thought that was part of the movie.

And then I was like, when is the movie?

I'm so.

I know.

This movie is

a money laundering scheme.

It is.

All right.

So those are things people said in the movie, The Bye-Bye Man.

We're going to rank it on a scale of one to 10 super loud commercials when we come back.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news, we still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else, too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Oh, we're back.

It's free with ads.

We're going to rank The Bye-Bye Man on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials.

Matt, you want to go first?

Yeah, I'm giving this a four.

Okay.

It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it is terrible and it is so entertaining.

I truly thought every, I was watching it going like, what are they going to screw up next?

This is so bad.

Good for them.

Emily, what do you got?

I gave it a 4.5.

Okay.

Because it was super entertaining.

I was intrigued from the moment it started.

And then I was like, okay, there's only like 15 minutes left of this movie.

How are they going to wrap it up?

No, they're not.

Yeah, not at all.

They're not.

But I forgot to also say, as

this team of Free With Ads, we love soundtracks.

We do.

We love needle drops.

There is a moment where our main character is going nuts driving a car singing Bye-bye love.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

It's so mad.

You can afford one song.

One song, and it's just Bye-bye Love.

Bye-bye love.

All right.

So I think, I think it might be recency bias.

I think this is my least favorite movie we've watched for the podcast.

It's a zero for me.

The bye-bye band is a goose egg.

Even worse than Skeleton Key.

Yeah, I think this is worse than Skeleton Key.

I think this is worse than Godzilla 98.

What?

For me.

And it's like, I enjoyed watching the blob.

I enjoyed watching, you know, House on Haunted Hill.

And these are like comparably bad movies, but like, you know, I think the retro thing just does a lot for me.

Like, you know, I love a, you know, I like a diner.

I love listening to music on vinyl.

The retro vibes are nice.

And I think those movies, like, are bad, but they're having fun.

I think they're, like, having fun.

They kind of get it.

There's some, like, intentional camp in there.

And I think this is like.

It's, you know, it's trying to be trippy.

It's trying to be fucked up.

And I don't know.

I think just like the shooting for that and failing

didn't do anything for me.

And I think for me personally, I like it.

I like a different flavor of my good, bad movie.

And the Bye-bye Man was not it for me.

So

I think the Bye-Bye Man is a 0-0 man, in my opinion.

A 0-0 man.

That's fair.

That is fair.

So that was the Bye-Bye Man.

Let's talk about some plugs.

I think I have a group plug for our show, Free With Ads.

If you go to maximumfund.org/slash join and support Maximum Fund, the network that brings you our show, you get access to a bunch of bonus content, including our series on Free With Ads, TV Pilots.

If you go up there right now you can listen to our review of the pilot of Gotham yeah this is one of Emily's favorite shows yes this is the the DC universe procedural cop show kind of yeah it's like in that universe where they

weren't allowed to say the names of certain characters right so they kind of flubbed it sure

so they're always talking about when's what where have you seen that mysterious bat guy and his friend the clown villain?

Yes, exactly.

Uh, yeah, Gotham, a ton of fun, and these episodes are a ton of fun.

Maximumfun.org/slash join.

Uh, we're gonna be putting a lot of great stuff in that feed in the coming months, so make sure you're all joined up so you can listen.

Uh, individual plugs, Emily, what do you got?

Well, this is kind of a group plug for all of us.

October 25th is Good Mythical Evening.

We are all um cast members and we make regular appearances on Good Mythical Morning on YouTube.

And every year we do an R-rated show

that, um, you got to buy tickets for because it's so shocking.

It is so shocking.

Anything can happen.

Yeah, truly.

I can get a titty injury

falling through a wall like I did last year.

It only happened one year.

It happened last year.

Yeah.

And they're also, you know, selling tickets for people to watch live at Alamo draft houses

all over the U.S.

So if you go to goodmythical evening.com, you can see if there's an Alamo draft house in your area that is participating, and you could also buy tickets for the show.

Yeah, tons of fun.

Good mythical evening.

We will all be there.

We will all be

having fun.

And two of us will be drunk.

Yes.

Not me.

I don't know.

They may keep an eye on me this year.

Okay, guess me then.

Oh, no.

Sorry, Matt.

Bye-bye, sobriety.

And I will say, if you're in the LA area, I am going to be at the Heavy Manners Comics Fair on October 12th.

That is in the beautiful Silver Lake neighborhood.

Heavy Manners Comics Fair, it is a fun, fun place that celebrates indie comics, zines, all that good stuff.

And they are having a comics fair the 12th and the 13th.

I will be there on the 12th.

You can go to heavymannorslibrary.com to find out more.

And I hope to see some Free With Ads fans out there on the 12th.

Yay!

All right, that's it for Free With Ads.

Tune in next week when our Halloween movie will be

the faculty.

Maximum Fun.

A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

Supported directly by you.