The Slender Man

Where did it all go wrong? Blast!

Slenderman has limitless potential as a film but after Slender (2016) I started to fear it was potential that would never be met.

The first 15 minutes or so of The Slender Man had me gripped, this was well made and genuinely scary stuff. Truly scary and I don't say that very often.

Then to my horror it all fell apart and this movie which I was beginning to think was going to turn into something special turned into another found footage film and an utter mess.

The plot makes little sense, the pacing is disastrous and all the magic from the start of the film flickers down to nothing.

I believe Slender Man will get a great film one day (Or has one already I haven't seen) this however is not that film.

The Good:

Genuinely scary in places

The Bad:

No rhyme or reason why people are recording most of the time

Poor audio balancing

Incoherent plot

Front cover makes him look like a gothic Koro-sensei

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

If you're going to kidnap children, doing it during the day in the middle of the street seems like a good call

It might be my poor social skills talking, but I feel like they act like real people. If someone was documenting their experiences/ blogging, of course they'd point at the ground since it's the easiest. When I film, I point down at my legs or infront of me. In this movie, they act like normal humans who just like recording things. Hank records for some sense of closure, and the kids record to document the making of their "movie". The acting shows how people normally talk, they don't sound scripted or nervous (unless the part suits it). I've seen movies with characters talking like a 4th grader reading something on the board. I genuinely love the acting in this. It feels human and well done. Love this movie!

A solid attempt at making a horror film about an urban legend called Slender Man (first time I heard about it, but it sounds kind of intriguing). I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the special effects used for depicting the Slender Man. Yes, he appears very briefly on screen, but looks well made (this is an extremely low-budget movie, so I wasn't expecting him to appear at all). The rest of the movie was just your standard "found footage" horror, unremarkable and mostly dull, only slightly more interesting toward the end.

Can't say I would recommend this to anyone but hardcore fans of "found footage" horror movies like The Blair Witch Project. It's mostly boring and acting is unconvincing, but considering it's very low production standards, it could have been worse.

So bad. Just really bad. Most of the film was jerky footage of the ground. Much of it was so dark you just couldn't see anything while the camera was bouncing around. The terrible audio composition had me constantly turning it up and down. I get that it's low budget, but did they even try? I'm SO angry that the creators would let anyone waste an hour of their life watching this and waiting for something interesting to happen.

I have been required to put more effort into this review than was put into this entire movie. I did this to save you! Don't let the hour of my life I sacrificed be in vain. Save yourself!

I won't say anything about the plot because I think this type of film has more effect if you know nothing about it. I will say this tho, I was scared. I had to watch a lot of it through my fingers. It's very suspenseful and has a few scares. The story is good (i didn't expect much of one) and the acting is pretty decent. The effects of the The Slender Man were pretty surprising for such a low budget film. If you're a fan of Handycam movies then i'm sure this one won't disappoint. It looks very much like the game which also i found rather scary. You only get brief glimpses of The Slender Man but quite often it made me jump. If you're a horror fan like me then i'm sure you'd find it worth a watch.