Slender Man Review

PG13: disturbing images, sequences of terror, thematic elements and language including some crude sexual referencesSony, Screen Gems, Mythology Entertainment, Madhouse Entertainment, It Is No Dream Entertainment1 Hr and 33 MinutesDir: Sylvain White | Writer: David BirkeCast:  Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, Annalise Basso, Alex Fitzalan, Taylor Richardson, Javier BotetAt long last we have “Slender Man,” the most anticipated horror movie of 2012! I was so close to handing the “Why The Fuck Do You Even Exist” award to “Sherlock Gnomes” this year, but “Slender Man” just had to be dumped on us. Of course it is brought to you by the good people at Sony who decided literally 3 weeks ago to distribute this movie after shelving it for months upon months and tried selling it to other studios. When other studios said, "No," it was only fair for Sony to respond with,
In reality, they should’ve released this yeaaars ago, but whatever. They’re Sony. They’re still trying to get their shit together since the hack. They decided not to do any press screenings for critics so… you know what that means.
In a small town in Massachusetts, a group of teenage girls perform a ritual in an attempt to debunk the lore of Slender Man (Javier Botet). When one of the girls goes mysteriously missing, they begin to suspect that she is, in fact, his latest victim. The girls attempt to investigate the mystery of the Slender Man, only to become haunted by the Slender Man themselves.THE GOODAt least Slender Man himself looks really good VFX-wise. Because this movie is cheap, he’ll get about two minutes of screentime in the 93-minute running time the film has.
Poor Joey King. She’s trying. She’s on a roll right now with “The Kissing Booth” and… “The Kissing Booth”. Her character is practically doing all of the proactive work in order to find their friend Katie, so most of the dialogue comes from her. She’s not particularly good, but King is the only actress who is acting her ass off. There is a moment where she goes over the top (Viola Davis style), and while she IS over-acting, it is impressive that she’s bothering to put her all into “Slender Man.” To my surprise, they give Joey King the best sequence in the movie. She’s the only character who encounters Slender Man face to face and it was the only time I felt some actual tension. I will admit, there is one cool, trippy sequence that had me impressed. And by impressed I mean it made me go:
THE BADDuring the movie, I texted my copy editor/best friend, Myan asking, “Hey, do you remember the lore of Slender Man? Because I think this movie is doing it wrong.” Her response is the equivalent to everyone’s reaction of the movie’s existence:“I forgot because it’s 2018, not fucking 2012.”Eventually, I did some research and it hit me that this movie isn't based on anything related to the true premise of Slender Man. This isn't based on the game Slender or the Slender Man stabbings of 2014. The only thing the movie is based off of is the name Slender Man.
If you’ve seen “The Blair Witch Project”, “IT”, “The Bye Bye Man”, “Sinister”, and most specifically “The Ring”, then you do not need to see “Slender Man”, for its premise is the standard, traditional horror movie narrative where teenagers unleash an evil that takes effect on them after watching a video they weren’t supposed to. That is the only sense of story I gathered while watching “Slender Man” because it has no idea what it wants to be. At first it starts as a mystery movie, but that idea is later abandoned. It then turns into this sacrificial “Final Destination”-type movie where it hints that characters will kill themselves in a PG-13 manner… but that’s abandoned. The film doesn’t know what it’s going for as it just becomes sequence after sequence of characters going cuckoo and tripping out with no solid story destination. Even one of the girls is completely abandoned because, after a certain point, you see them alive as they’re under Slender Man’s effect, but then she never shows up for the remainder of the movie. This a 90-minute movie and it dedicated around 20 minutes to characters experiencing episodic premonitions.It is a goddamn shame that 2017’s “The Bye Bye Man”, an obvious Slender Man rip off, is a marginally much better film than this. “The Bye Bye Man” was terribly enjoyable in the sense that there were so many awful attributes in the story and filmmaking that it made the movie entertaining. I don’t think I saw something last year that provided me with so much unintentional laughter as “The Bye Bye Man.” This shit is just dull, generic, and outdated.
You have all of these great up-and-coming actresses in this movie such as Joey King (“Wish Upon”), Jaz Sinclair (“When the Bough Breaks”), Julia Goldani Telles (“The Affair”), Annalise Basso (“Ouija: Origin of Evil”), who have all appeared in works where they shined through their performances. So, it hurts to see their talents wasted in this horror movie based off a Creepypasta that is both six years too late and is also braindead to the whole definition of horror.Ever since “Eighth Grade”, I've been noticing the clarity of a screenwriter’s age through the dialogue in the movie. From the first scene in the movie, you can instantly tell this was written by an old person who doesn’t know how to write teenagers, because the first thing these girls do is talk about fun facts nobody would ever discuss, and then they proceed to take a selfie. David Birke, (who looks like he’s in his 40s) who wrote the critically acclaimed French film “Elle”, provides a screenplay that has been done to death, but worse because all of the characters are just one-dimensional high school girls who have one prominent trait and that is it. As a matter of fact, only ONE of them has a trait and personality - that is Joey King’s Wren and she’s not even the lead! We follow Hallie (played by Julia Goldani Telles) and her trait is -- girl. She has no personality whatsoever and neither do any of the girls, so when they all get sucked into Slender Man’s control, you feel absolutely nothing for them at all.Then, you’ve got the direction by Sylvain White who works best for TV (where this movie belongs). Throughout the entire movie, there was only one sequence where the shot composition was competent and the picture looked clear. For the most part, nearly every damn scene is shot in shaky cam. What makes matters worse was the cinematography.
I was going to give the film the benefit of the doubt production-wise for the cinematography being dark and grim. It looks like a movie, but the film is completely dark as in I genuinely believe the brightness was on negative. For a majority of the movie it is hard to point out what exactly is going on because the cinematography is as dark as a goth kid’s room.It is not only that this entire ensemble of talented young women is delivering this terrible dialogue that has been given to them, but because of his lack of direction, they are all giving poor performances as well. I spent most of the film cringing at the way most of the characters would say their lines and then thinking, “Wow. Did they only get one take and that was it?” Whenever the film has an opportunity to do something tense or spooky, it jump cuts to clouds. Is White obsessed with clouds? Because this happens to be the primary transition between each scene. Sequentially it would go from scene, jump cut to cloud, then next scene. Based on the way the film keeps cutting to clouds, this might as well be a Terrence Malik movie.If you want a good Slender-related thing that’s actually scary and tense JUST PLAY SLENDER. Read the original Creepypasta, read fanfiction, just don’t see this movie. You have this interesting figure that made the internet quiver in fear for a year and you give him the most basic and generic horror storyline, and to top it off you release it in 2018 when nobody gives a shit?! Seriously Sony,
If you’re going to make a movie about Slender Man, first get a time machine and pitch it during the height of the creature’s relevancy; make the premise interesting instead of giving it “Horror Movie Storyline #3”. It just makes you think, “Wow. I used to be scared of this shit?”Even if you’re going in on an ironic level to get some quality, unintentional laughs, there’s nothing present for you here. There are some unintentional chuckles here and there, but none come to be as hard-hitting as “The Bye Bye Man” or “Truth or Dare”. The sequences where the characters slowly become insane are lame. With the exception of King’s, all of the ‘disturbing imagery’ are either laughable or visuals you’ve seen before. At least with “The Bye Bye Man”, when characters go insane they go all out insane to the point where even the deaths are…. (can’t believe I’m saying this) clever. Okay, not particularly clever, but more like stupid yet cool. Jesus, it took watching “Slender Man” for me to appreciate “The Bye Bye Man.”LAST STATEMENTBelated, dull, and devoid of any value as a horror movie and lacking connection to the source material, “Slender Man” is six years too late of a release and is a huge disservice to the meme it was made from and the talented actresses who signed on the bottom line to star in this.
I believe that one day, in the right hands, an internet Creepypasta can be made into a decent horror movie. Next time just make sure you release during a time period where people are invested and give a shit.Rating: 1/5 | 22%Super Scene: Wren’s Library Trip