David Pierdomenico
Simply hearing the name “Slender Man” immediately conjures up images and preconceived notions about a mysterious figure who lurks somewhere in the internet. He’s the subject of arguably the most famous of all Creepypastas (more on that here). So it was no surprise that there was a great deal of buzz surrounding Sony’s theatrical version. It was also not without controversy, given the stabbing incident of 2014. However, the film proves that it’s not worth all the anticipation or concern.
All Too Familiar
The film showcases a group of four friends who do everything together. It’s quickly established that Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles) has a little sister Lizzie (Taylor Richardson) who yearns to be part of their group, but is often excluded. It’s also pointed out early on that Katie (Annalise Basso) has an alcoholic and abusive father from whom she wishes to escape. The only thing not at all established is the idea of Slender Man early on. There’s no mention of him until the girls are hanging out and decide to randomly summon him because that’s what the boys group is doing too.
But it just seems so out of blue, especially since one of them has never heard of him. With the pervasive digital age, it would be very difficult to find an American teenager that hadn’t heard of Slender Man. From there, they watch a video on the internet, and a week later things begin to happen. One of them goes missing, and the rest are tormented by frightening visions of Slender Man coming for them. All the while they claim that watching the video was a mistake, and that others shouldn’t do so. The video itself contains black and white, unpleasant imagery, with subliminal shots.
And if this sounds at all like the 2002 classic The Ring, Sony is hoping that will be overlooked. Slender Man then proceeds to seek out each of the girls at random places to scare them, not at all unlike Stephen King’s It. To compare the two films would be an insult however. It took time to introduce the characters and get us to sympathize with them. Slender Man rushes development just to get to cheesy jump scares.
Wasted Potential
At times it almost seems like the film doesn’t know what it wants to be. It wants to create tension and conflict between the characters when Wren (Joey King) and Hallie have a falling out, but it all seems so rushed. In fact every major plot point seems to come out of nowhere. For example, when one character goes missing, we see them into the woods, and then it immediately cuts to hours later and no one can find them, while the audience is confused regarding what happened. They didn’t even spend a minute or two showing the other characters discover that she had been missing. That’s how the whole film plays out. The writers had a list of “plot twists” throughout, and were so focused on writing them in, that they forgot to write anything around it.
And when Slender Man comes for them, he makes them hallucinate something, but all we get is obviously fake CGI that takes us out of the film. There is never a real attempt to create dread throughout the film. Just “scary” scenes one after another, most of which miss their mark. And with all the same horror clichés we’ve seen so many times before. One would think that given how iconic the titular villain is, more effort would be put in. However the filmed is rated PG-13 rather than R, because they wanted to aim at young teenage audience. And studios know that jump scares without any depth of character or plot, is enough to entice this demographic.
Admittedly there was some controversy because of the real life case of two girls stabbing their friend, allegedly on Slender Man’s orders. And it’s very possible that filmmakers had this in mind when they went for a generic, tame plot that didn’t get too similar to that. But of all the different ways this film could have been made, it’s just very frustrating to see it play out as a cheap imitation of so many others. It’s the very reason that horror struggles to be taken seriously.
