Slender Man is a 2018 American supernatural horror film based on the infamous creepypasta of the same name, as well as the videogame it spawned, Slender: The Eight Pages. It was directed by Sylvain White, produced by Mythology Entertainment, Madhouse Entertainment, and It Is No Dream Entertainment, and distributed by Sony Pictures. The film was released in the United States on August 10, 2018.
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 A movie made six years too late...
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"At some point, you realize that the film only has creepy imagery. There's no characters, there's no real story, there's no real narrative, it doesn't even really have a main protagonist, and then it just gets boring."
— Chris Stuckmann
"The thing about this film is it just borrows every trope, every cliché thing from every horror film of the last five years, and all those things are bad because they're based around teenage girls texting each other, or FaceTiming, or Snapchat, and are using the internet to watch scary videos, and this movie takes all those things but does a worse job than every other movie that already did them."
— John Flickinger
Plot
Based on the infamous creepypasta, Small-town best friends Hallie, Chloe, Wren, and Katie go online to try and conjure up the Slender Man - a tall, thin, horrifying figure whose face has no discernible features. Two weeks later, Katie mysteriously disappears during a class trip to a historic graveyard. Determined to find her, the girls soon suspect that the legend of the Slender Man may be all too real.
Why It Should Get Killed by Slender Man
- Executive meddling: Sony got cold feet over the film's content and so tore it to pieces in post-production to turn what the trailers implied to be a violent, disturbing, hard R-rated horror film into a PG-13 schlockfest where almost nothing happens. Most of the material in the trailer, including at least one entire character, does not appear in the finished film, and several characters who are left in the film have their plotlines left completely unresolved.
- The film's production companies found a clause in their contract allowing them to offer it to people other than Sony, then tried to pitch it to Amazon and Netflix. Consider for a moment the kind of junk these two are prepared to publish and realize that they did not want this film. Ultimately, the production companies had to return to Sony with their tails between their legs and accept a deal where Sony could cut it however they wanted and essentially do nothing to promote the film at all.
- The film steals elements from other, better horror films such as The Ring.
- It wasted the potential of a theatrical creepypasta movie, though it is quite interesting.
- Rather than The Angry Birds Movie, which is another film from Sony, the film attempts to cash in on something that is already over.
- A good amount of the film's scares relies on unsophisticated jump scares and creepy imagery, which this film badly fails at.
- This film treats Slender Man more like a cliche horror movie villain instead of the original creepypasta character, whose origin and motives are shrouded in mystery.
- On the other hand, it is established that Slender Man acts differently depending on who you are, which means it is never clear if a character is actually in danger or when the audience should feel apprehensive.
- The entire cast is full of idiots, such as the one girl who decides to awaken Slender Man again.
- terrible acting and writing. The fact that the writer is completely out of touch with the generation he's writing about is obvious. For example, one character talks about watching a "website video", and at one point a character decides to go to a library to do research. On the internet.
- Slender Man barely gets enough screen time to justify the movie's title; the movie blatantly focuses more on the girls and their insanity, which is ironic, considering “Slender Man” is in the movie’s title.
- Speaking of which, Slender Man is supposed to have tentacles as shown in the poster, but he doesn't use them in the film, which is false advertising.
- The cinematography is ugly and flat.
- The scene where the boyfriend is possessed by Slender Man is silly rather than scary.
- Every scene is extremely dark, which is likely to make the scenes "scary" and "suspenseful" when it really just makes things hard to see.
- Poor grasp of the source material: Slender Man's character was completely character derailed and flanderized, and the following reasons are:
- Slender Man is not supposed to roar, and neither bugs nor turning into a tree are involved with Slender Man.
- What he's supposed to do is kidnap children and turn them into his minions, impale people with his tentacles, and even cause disturbing hallucinations but none of these abilities or attributes were used in the film.
- Slender Man's design isn't that accurate either, his suit is black but for some reason his suit is a blueish black, he wears pants but his suit is a part of his skin, so it looks like he's wearing a suit with leggings that are apart of the suit, the texture of his face is almost organic, resembling a tree bark or rough material though Slender Man's face canonically actually appears to be very smooth.
- Slender Man didn't even use his tentacles in the movie despite that being one of, if not his most iconic ability he has.
- Slender Man has been heavily flanderized as they poorly executed the character by stripping away his enigmatic and terrifying essence, reducing him to a cliché and predictable horror movie villain, diminishing his overall mysterious and chilling impact.
- Slender Man is not supposed to roar, and neither bugs nor turning into a tree are involved with Slender Man.
- Lame directing by Sylvain White.
- Overall this movie is considered to be the death of Slender Man and arguably one of the most hated horror films.
Redeeming Qualities
- The idea of making a movie based on a famous creepypasta on the internet was cool, but unfortunately, it executed terribly (as everything mentioned).
- Javier Botet, when he isn't edited out of the film, actually looks like he's trying to be an intimidating Slender Man.
- The make-up design and computer-generated movements for Slender Man are decent.
- The movie can be unintentionally hilarious like similar horror movies, such as The Bye Bye Man and Truth or Dare, since although many scenes are not scary, they become ludicrous and funny, especially if you're someone who wants a very nice time laughing.
- Slender Man is still a cool villain despite his character derailment.
- The movie at least has some references to the character and they make it a little faithful, like the scene in the woods.
- Good soundtrack composed by Ramin Djawadi and Brandon Campbell.
Reception
Slender Man received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 8% "rotten" rating based on 79 reviews and an average rating of 3.11/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Slender Man might be thin, but he's positively robust compared to the flimsy assortment of scares generated by the would-be chiller that bears his name.". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 30 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D–" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it an "awful" 38% positive score; social media monitor RelishMix noted that "the majority's feeling toward [the] film" was negative. Chris Stuckmann gives this film a rating of D.
Box office
Despite receiving overwhelmingly negative reviews, Slender Man was surprisingly a box office success, grossing $30.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $21.2 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $51.7 against the budget of $10–28 million.
Awards and Nominations
Jaz Sinclair was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
Videos
Trivia
- The film was accused of cashing in on the 2014 "Slender Man stabbing" incident, in which then 12-year-old Payton Leutner (now 22) was stabbed 19 times by her "friends" Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser in Waukesha, Wisconsin, who were attempting to become "proxies" of Slender Man. Bill Weier, the father of one of the children convicted in the stabbing, protested the film's production and release as "extremely distasteful" and advised local theaters to not screen the film. Out of respect (or more cynically because everyone involved knew it wouldn't matter), cinema chains with theaters in the Waukesha and Milwaukee County areas elected not to screen the film there.
- This was the first film to have a creepypasta internet meme.
External Links
Comments
- Bad media
- Bad movies
- Horror films
- Thriller films
- Based on video games
- 2010s films
- Mystery films
- Monster films
- Sony films
- Films with misleading posters
- Box office hits that received negative feedback
- Banned films
- Controversial films
- Abusing the mascot
- Based on media
- Boring films
- Films with misleading titles
- Cash grabs
- Executive meddling
- Featured on TV Tropes' So Bad, It's Horrible