Review of Slender Man (2018) by Michael I — 14 Aug 2018

Just to preface, I don't feel good about criticizing Slender Man. It feels like telling a kindergartener that their fingerpainting is lazy and derivative. I wasn't expecting too much going into this movie. And within the first 10 minutes, I gathered enough to know that the movie didn't want you to expect much of it, either. I like to lump movies like this into a category I call Sleepover Horror, along with recent gems like Bye Bye Man, Wish Upon, and Truth or Dare. Sleepover Horror does not hold itself to very high standards and asks that audiences do the same. The only standard is that it must be PG-13, catering to young adolescents who want to be spooked with their friends under a pile of blankets on the couch on Saturday night. To be frank, I have a soft spot for these kinds of movies. My first forays into horror were films just like these from a previous era (circa The Grudge). And when you're 13, you don't know or care that they're mediocre; they deliver what you and your friends want. So I would never grade Slender Man with the same rubric as something like Hereditary. Apples and oranges.

But even the nostalgia of my younger years couldn't redeem this failed attempt at movie making. I actually think it started out fairly promising. The premise was good enough, the characters were good enough, and the atmospheric tension was good enough (also, props to Joey King for acting her heart out no matter what script she's handed). For me, the biggest stake in the heart of this movie was pacing. When we're dealing with Sleepover Horror, I can forgive a lot: bad acting, ridiculous dialogue, painful plot contrivances, exposition through text messages, etc. But I can't forgive boredom, which Slender Man dished out in full service. I was along for the ride until Hallie's date with Tom: perfectly fine scene, but I have no recollection of what happened after that. I blacked out. I can't remember anything, because nothing in the following scenes made any sense plot-wise and therefore blurred together in a feverish attempt to mimic "The Ring." I came to around the part where Wren's trying to jump out her window for some reason, but by that point, I was no longer invested. If Slender Man had shaved 15 minutes off of its runtime and trimmed some of its fat, I think I might have held out until the end. It was a 90-minute movie that felt much, much longer.

Not to pile more dirt on its grave, but I have a list of other minor issues with Slender Man that I want to get off my chest:

I don't even know if the writer's originally planned this script with Slender Man in mind as the Big Bad. The fact that it's called Slender Man is totally meaningless; the film barely addresses any of his lore. It may as well have been called Spooky Steve, or Creepy Creeper, or Bye Bye Man 2. If you're going to make a movie specifically about Slender Man, you should probably draw upon what made him creepy in the first place. Like how he's always stoically planted in the background; he never moves and you never see him up close. That shit can be really effective for spooks (see "Courage the Cowardly Dog" episode with Ramses and the slab). As soon as we see him up close, he's robbed of his power. He seemed like a ripoff of the Crooked Man from Conjuring 2, both in the way he looked and moved.

Not to harp on the mythos, but didn't they explicitly mention that Slender Man has the power to hypnotize his victims and lure them in? That seemed to work with Katie, but the other girls were lure-proof. They kept screaming and running away. Hallie even has a weird moment at the end where she's like "Take me, sir. I'm ready to die" and then immediately changes her mind and bolts.

Why did the nurses in the hospital wear old-timey uniforms?

This movie has a real lighting problem. Most of it is in so much shadow that you can't see the actors' faces (intentional?), and then it'll suddenly cut to, like, the surface of the sun. For viewers in a dark theater, this was torture (and it happened about every 5 minutes). Like in the woods scene, when they have flashlights and then shine their lights right into the camera and it feels like you're in a dentist's chair.

They couldn't decide who it's protagonist was. My vote would be for the younger sister Lizzy since she gets a great little voiceover at the end that attempts to tie things together with the final word "ya know?".

Hallie is always mentioning she has track practice but never goes to track practice. What are you hiding, Hallie?

Hallie's family dinner is really quiet, dark, and awkward. I hate when movies do this. Hereditary did it too, but it had the excuse that a huge tragedy had just occurred. Wouldn't you at least want to turn on a few lights and play some light dinner jazz?

Obligatory library research scene. Why was Wren there? She was just using the computer; does she not have one of those at home? Also, I really wanted to the librarian to play a more central role, like in Bye Bye Man.

I think the director was trying to imitate The Ring with all the fog and bluish tones, but I was getting some heavy Twilight vibes, especially with all the forest scenes. I was waiting for a sexually charged scene between Hallie and Slender Man where she's like, "How old are you?" and "How long have you been 17?".