This February, Midnight Social Distortion will be celebrating Black History Month by honoring Black horror characters, in particular Black horror survivors, throughout the twenty-eight day period. Each day will feature one black male and one black female survivor in horror and sci-fi to bring light to the positive, albeit still problematic, black champions of representation in horror. Some disclaimers first: obvious spoilers ahead, and not all horror survivors will be featured this go round, but will appear in later posts down the line.
John (Lucien Laviscount)
Character Arc
Moving into a house or apartment with your best friend is one thing. Moving into a house or apartment with your best friend and his girlfriend is a whole other beast in itself, especially when there’s a supernatural entity at play to exacerbate the problem. But that’s what John walked himself into when he moved in with bestie Elliot and Elliot’s girlfriend Sasha. While it was established that John was a ladies man, the curse of the Bye Bye Man made Elliot believe that John and Sasha were sleeping around behind his back. While John was also seeing his own visions about his friends, he ended up being stabbed by Sasha who was then killed by Elliot, who envisioned that the complete opposite had happened. In the end, Elliot and Sasha didn’t fair well, and while John did survive his wounds, he still was cursed and uttered The Bye Bye Man’s name in the final frame of the film, leaving his fate unknown.
Fun Trivia
John didn’t have much to do outside of being black and cute. It was also nice to see him not be too much of the stereotypical black best friend. Although, when watching this I was more focused on how bad it was than looking for any resemblance of a deep context within the film.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to talking about The Bye Bye Man as a whole, the phrase “Don’t say it, don’t think it; don’t think it, don’t say it” takes on a whole new literal meaning. The only truly memorable thing about the pic is John surviving (as well as the black librarian being affected by the curse), and that’s pretty much it for me. But, again, the box cover/poster warns you: “Don’t say it, don’t think it; don’t think it, don’t say it.”
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