Slender man - F

​Quick Hit: Boring and awful and unnecessary.

It’s unfortunate when creepy things go by the wayside. Internet and social media culture (of which I’m a huge fan of) consistently sends things into the stratosphere of popularity, only for them to slowly deflate like the rubber balloons they are and drop down to the earth, deflated and useless. But, alas, Hollywood was never not one to try and make a quick buck, and the expansive mining of the internet brought forth Slender man – a Creepypasta meme that ended up taking a drastic and traumatic turn in real life.
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So we have what probably could have made a good horror film, if you were willing to either A) go to some very dark places in exploiting the death of a young teen, or B) delved into the mystery and given rules to a creation that essentially has no backstory besides a guy who pasted a picture next to some kids. While I don’t really think an origin story for a meme character is necessary, it would have at least given this dribble a bit of direction. 

Essentially what happens in this film is that four friends summon the Slenderman one night when they’re bored, by watching what seems to be the video from The Ring. Nothing happens but a week later one goes missing, and they all know it’s the Slenderman because of dreams or something like that. It’s truly an awful transition, and the performances are so varied that I don’t know how it could get much better. The movie drags onnnnnn and onnnnn as they tiptoe around trying not to be scared before always ending up in the woods (I guess because that meme seemed to be in the woods. Hmmmm).

All this in a ninety minute horror film – can you believe it?

This movie has stolen so many things from so many different horror films - blatantly, I might add. And it's adding nothing at all of its own ideas. I thought the Bye Bye Man was awful, but at least he kinda sorta had rules to follow. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what happens to these victims. It's worthless - follow horror movie rules or subvert them, but when you totally ignore... ugh. 

Pictured - my face the longer the movie went on.

​Don’t waste your time – skip the Slenderman and find one of the better shorts on the internet about him. “F”. 

I'm not even gonna link this to IMDB. It doesn't deserve it.