Slender Man

It's not Slenderman himself that's scary, it's the alone-in-the-dark deafening silence and dread that made the game frightening. Freddy Krueger was scary in the first Nightmare because they didn't focus on the character, but rather the psychological terror. Slenderman tries and fails to build a story around something that only needed to bring a feeling. It tried to get us involved in the lives of shallow and boring cookie-cutter horror-movie fodder characters. The horror genre needs to be left to the artistically gifted and intelligent artists. Slenderman is yet another mass produced generic label product waiting to be forgotten. Watch the trailer, it's way better than the movie. Or better yet, watch The Ritual for a better example of what Slenderman should have looked like.

This movie is absolute crap. do not waste your money on this movie. Being into creepy pastas I wanted to check this out. Saying, oh it looked cool. So we sat down and just watched it. Seconds in, it was terrible acting. And even further into the movie, I didnt understand what was going on, even though my eyes were glued to the screen the whole time. The jumpscares are terrible and not even scary. all I wanted to do was leave since the first girl dissapeared. Do not waste money on this. I repeat, do not!

Currently, "Slender Man" has the distinction of being on IMDB's infamous Bottom 100 List...the 100 worst rated major release films. While I certainly didn't enjoy the film, it seems odd that this one made the list when there are so many worse modern horror films which somehow avoided the list. I just can't see this as the 50th worst film....let alone 500th.

The idea of the film is taken from a pre-existing story of a 'Slender Man' who will kill or make folks crazy who are dumb enough to call upon him. In many ways, the film is a very derivative project--using the existing notions as well as infusing it with ample parts "The Ring" as well as the "Bloody Mary" story that's been floating around for decades. With "Bloody Mary", a person supposedly calls the name out repeatedly until some murderous other worldly thing appears.

The story begins with four very dumb high school girls having a sleepover. They find some info on the internet about a Slender Man and despite being warned, they summon the creature...and the rest of the film is about them each disappearing or going mad one after the other.

The movie has a scary style to it, with its pulsing music and bass....though after a while it does become annoying instead of scary. The story itself is nothing new...consisting of lots of ideas from other stories, urban legends and films. The acting and direction are fair. My only serious complaint is that I wish it HAD been awful...that would have made it a lot more interesting.

Right, well first of all a movie based on a laughable urban myth or legend hardly makes for much of a foundation for success. Then top that off with having a movie that was downright laughable in script, plot, character-wise and fully devoid of scary moments, and you have the 2018 movie "Slender Man" from director Sylvain White.

I had to divide this movie into two, I couldn't suffer through the hardships of sitting down and watching it in one prolonged go. It was just that painful to bear witness to. I managed to endure 50 minutes in the first sitting, then had to give up. And I had essentially given up on the movie entirely, but my wife convinced me to watch the rest of it on the next day. So I did... And let's just say that the rest of the movie didn't do anything to lift up the ordeal that was the first 50 minutes.

The entire movie was wholly and fully devoid of anything that would be scary to a grown up, which leads me to believe that this movie was intended for the same kind of airheaded audience whom would also believe that the Slender Man legend is actually true.

The characters in the movie were unbelievably stupid, one-dimensional and completely devoid of any sense of intelligence and common sense. It was just painful to witness their actions and the way they milled about on the screen. Now, I am not saying that the actresses were subpar or inadequate. No, not at all. I am saying that the characters written for the story could just as easily have been portrayed by cardboard cutouts.

Once the movie ended, you didn't even fell that the movie had come full circle. It had just dragged you along by the nose for the entire duration that it ran for, without providing any kind of proper entertainment.

Do not succumb to the same mistake that I did when I went to watch this movie. The trailer actually made it look interesting. The actual movie, well let's just say that watching grass grow is far scarier...

This latest version of the Slender Man mythology seems to be universally reviled though I don't entirely understand why. It's not great but it's simply not THAT bad.

Alike Lovecraft Slender Man seems to be one of those commonly used subject matters that always seeems to miss the mark. Filmmakers just don't seem to be able to make the most out of the fantastic material presented before them.

So yet again we see a tale of a group of young folks on the run from the Slender Man and spooky things happen. Yadayadayada.

With a decent young cast including Joey King and Annalise Basso we're presented with the glossiest and most high budget Slender Man movie yet. Sadly along with the budget comes all the usual Hollywood horror flaws, demonstrating once again how badly Hollywood have lost their way when it comes to the entire genre.

Sure it looks great, but the plot tail spins out of control by about the halfway mark and that's such a shame as up until then it was showing real potential. Hollywood need to go back to the drawing board, hire indie filmmakers to adapt material otherwise we'll just keep getting this Insidious/Conjuring tripe.

Slender Man has it's moments and the concept is pure gold, this however is more squandered potential.

The Good:

It's Slender Man!

Atmospheric

Great cast

The Bad:

Plot falls apart badly

Potential isn't met

Too many common tropes and cliches

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Slender Man mythology is fantastic but really inconsistent, no wonder they get it so wrong with adaptations

Joey King and Annalise Basso are going to be big stars

Slender Man is like Aliens (Xenomorphs), he needs keeping in the shadows or he looks a bit silly

This should have been called The Ring: Slender Man