It was bound to happen that any studio would take up the task of making a movie based on Slender Man, the creepy meme about a photo-bombing, faceless child kidnapping specter. With a character design that is both ghastly and terrifying, Slender Man fits perfectly as a classic Hollywood boogeyman. He would always be hiding in the background, similar to the killers in “The Strangers”, but unlike them, Slender Man is more fashionable.
Sylvain White’s “Slender Man” was not worth the wait. In this case, they had a brilliant horror character to use, but the executed the plot so poorly. It’s slow, it’s boring, and it’s not scary. The horror in “Slender Man” could be easily replicated for free at home by turning off the lights and playing atonal violin music on your laptop.
“Slender Man” starts with a group of high school girls searching Slender Man online. They come across a pretty creepy video claiming to summon the demon, so they watch it. Next thing you know, they go insane thinking that Slender Man is stalking them. Katie (Annalise Basso, “Captain Fantastic”) goes missing, Wren (Joey King, “Wish Upon”) goes conspiracy theory crazy, Chloe (Jaz Sinclair, “Paper Towns”) goes along for the ride, and Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles, “The Affair”) gets skeptical to the point of frustration.
In the make believe world of Slender Man, there are numerous accounts of Slender Man appearing, terrifying them, driving them insane, kidnapping them, and perhaps even taking their faces. What started as a monster who kidnaps children has been transformed in this movie into a shapeless being of random traits that is devoid of logic and changes based off whatever dumb idea the script writer needs him to execute next.
Even a string of unrelated slasher pranks where Slender Man stalks his victims would have been fun had we been able to witness the act. There’s a saying within the horror industry, in terms of movies, that what the audience does not see is much frightening than what is shown in the movie, and the creators of “Slender Man” chose to make that principle their own. For massive sections of this film, you can’t see anything. Almost all of the jump scares are so dark that we need to take them at face value, along with the music that tries to hint but, for the most part, doesn’t help at all.
In any case, it is not a good sign when your horror movie characters take time off to watch horror movies that are more well made. That’s precisely what we get in “Slender Man.” Our protagonists decide to browse the internet for some Slender Man footage and choose to watch more disturbing footage. The way it looks, the creators of the film are actually challenging their viewers to do themselves a favor and pull out their phones for something more interesting on the internet.
Slender Man is a movie that touches on several dark themes. In the film, Slender Man feeds on the obsessions of his victims. Think of him as an intrusive thought that gains power from fear. This was deeply explores in The Bye Bye Man, but now the author’s just tack it on without too much thoughts. At some point in the movie Wren tries explaining Slender Man’s ways by comparing him to a computer virus. Does that make ANY sense? Computer virus in a humans brain isn’t too far from what Wren likes to think of it as. He likes to call it a real virus.
The other issue is really focused on the characters. They say that Slender Man is a creature that was born out of an internet meme, which isn’t a too shocking revelation nowadays. Surges page is literally written on Wikipedia. The characters in the movie Slender Man should have done some research so they could have asked Surge all of their plot related questions if they were that concerned about it. It obviously would have made better for the movie if they got a little playful meta with the plot. Because otherwise, it’s way too dull.
However, if the explanation is that Slender Man attacks you when you are scared of him, then we have to thank the makers of this movie for protecting us. The worst part of it all is that it is remarkably uncanny that the most terrifying moment of the cinema came when a beer bottle was dropped by the exit. My most terrifying experience occurred in the movie house when a bottle flew from the back seats and sprung open. That chainsaw noise effect is eerie. To add more, there is zero dialogue in that unbearably boring fantasy.
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