We span the 'roulette wheel' tonight for our Halloween pick of the day, and wound up with 'Slender Man' the 'Official' cinematic adaptation of the creepy/pasta created in 2009, popularised through 2010/2011 and slopped half heartedly down the cinematic meat chute in late 2018…the PRECISE window of time needed for a film like this to be positively fossilised in terms of cultural relevance…but also WAY too early to fall into the 'Nostalgia' window that can have folks like me going 'Oh yeah…I remember that!…Kind of…'
Right out of the gate theres a pretty significant problem with this movies plotting. The original 'Slender man' was created to take part in a photoshop contest. with a short story outlining what it was and what it does. Then in the early 2010s a 'Slender Man' video game came out…which assumed everyone had read the short story before playing, and was basically a multi-stage 'fetch quest' in which you had to collect 8 pages of 'reference' to Slender man lore while also surviving being hunted down by 'Slender Man' himself.
Thats the version of 'Slender man' that I would *think* most people are aware of and know about. Well! This film decides to basically airlock 90% of the lore, fanfiction and R34 imagery in favour of a reinvention of the character that keeps the absolute barest bones of the ship, and then runs with it as its own thing.
The film follows Wren, Katie, Chloe and Hallie. 4 high school girls getting up to high school girl stuff (This film doesnt clarify) who, while 'girling' around or whatever teens in 2018 were getting up to. Hear that a similar gathering is happening with the guys on the other side of town, and that they're going to attempt to summon 'The Slender Man'. A mysterious entity that may or may not be real…But you can summon him by watching a video on the dark web.
So, the girls decide to watch it…and at first not much happens. But then the next day, the girls are all feeling a bit offside, and while walking to school Katie stops at a nearby woodland…and seemingly vanishes.
The other girls are in shock, and after ruling out all the logical options for what might have happened. Wren, the member of our gang who's obsesses with paranormal happenings and knows a fair bit about 'Slender man' to begin with, suggests that maybe Slender Man has taken her.
the girls are dismissive at first, but as time goes by they all begin to become more and more paranoid about Slender Man, and increasingly begin to see visions, hallucinations and false realities of Slender man. Slowly, but surely, the girls all begin to deteriorate, and an attempt to appease 'Slender Man' goes horribly wrong taking another of the girls…leaving the survivors to try and find a way to sever the ties to Slender Man, or end up joining him.
I'll be honest, I really didnt have the time or inclination for this one. 'Slender Man' as a 'Thing' was fun for a glint in time around 2010/2011…But by 2018 it had really died of death, Indeed, the very idea that a studio like Sony would license the distribution of a film based on a game, a wiki full of fan written 'Lore' and a photoshop job from the 'Something Awful' message boards' feels like a level of corporations trying to be 'relatable' that I actively baulk at…and thats BEFORE we even GET INTO the fact that a lot of the charm this creepy internet lore…thing…had. Was utterly obliterated in 2014 when two mentally unwell girls tried to murder a 12 year old in a woods near their house because 'Slender Man told them to.'
Its kind of hard to pop up the popcorn, and dive into this as 'Entertainment' when a studio knowingly pushed this film out only 4 years after that event happened…
What this film is, is a generic horror film of its time, with 'Slender Man' branding wrapped around it and unceremoniously booted into theaters because Sony would lose the exclusive rights to make a 'Slender man' movie otherwise. And its every bit as generic as you'd guess.
The plot is nonsensical, relies heavily on people doing THE stupidest options consistently, doesnt have grounded rules for what 'Slender Man' can and cant do, doesnt have consistent caricaturisations of our core cast. doesnt have consistent pacing or plotting, doesn’t move through its three act structure particularly well or effectively, and ends in a dissatisfying way, that makes the viewer feel like the preceding 89 minutes were ultimately kind of pointless.
The characters are VERY generically coded, the dialogues rougher than ladies night down at the 'happy clam'. and…if I get to the point where I start asking 'Wheres Slender Man?' while im watching a movie called 'Slender Man' I do feel the films somewhat missed its brief.
The direction is super generic, it largely feels like elements of the 2013 'Evil Dead' movie, with some trippy visuals and a STRONG over reliance on CGI to smooth over the fact that the direction that isnt CG'd up the wazoo just…isnt really that interesting or good. It generic, low effort stuff that doesnt really pull you into the world, and doesnt even really try to make this look or feel any different than any of the other hundreds of movies that have this exact same style and tone that can be found dumped on Tubi from 2012 – 2020.
The cine is much the same, dull, lifeless cinematography that overly safe, compositionally strong, but now HEAVILY let down by the CG, which…now even only 8 years on is creaking HORRENDOUSLY. Sequences feel roughly cut together, CG transitional cuts dont work right, its an ugly movie truthfully, with almost nothing really redeeming of note that I can raise. Its not the worst thing i've ever seen. but the bare minimum isnt a sign of a winner in my books.
Performance wise, you would think with a cast consisting of Annalise Basso (Of Ouija: Origin of Evil fame), Joey King (of 'The Conjuring' and 'Fargo' fame) and Jaz Sinclair (of 'Paper Towns') that there'd be some decent turns here…but there isnt really. Of the lot, i'd say Joey King is probably the strongest performer of the bunch. But the material they all have to work with is so dire, even with their best attempts its a slow deflation of an acting gig. These ladies are all decent in their other respective works…but here, they all looked bored, and seemingly could barely work up the energy to go much above the barest of what was asked.
And the soundtrack is just droning…just ambient droning and weird clicky sounds periodically…bleh.
All in all, dont bother. thats all I have to say. They'll no doubt make a MUCH better 'Slender Man' movie 10-15 years from now. This? this was a contractual obligation on Sony's part…and it shows.
