Review of Slender Man (2018) by John M — 14 Nov 2018

I suppose this movie was inevitable. So this is about a group of four high school girls. They do a Google search for Slender Man, summon him like fools, and now they have to try to survive. Now I do actually do like the lore of Slender Man.

.. to an extent. In a sense, it is the internet's version of a campfire story. I think it's a fun to look for him in the background of pictures online, and I do enjoy playing the video games, as simple as they may be.

That said, I can sniff out a turkey pretty far in advance, and there was no real reason for this movie to be put into existence. The mystique is largely what makes this character as effective as he is, so why are they making a narrative focused on learning more about him? This was about as terrible as I was expecting, and may God help you if you were excited for this.

Right out of the gates, this starts off on the wrong foot with these girls. They don't talk like natural people, they talk more like how adults think teens talk, and it is awkward. It is not helped by the fact that these girls aren't the best of actors, which is hindered even further because nobody in this makes logical choices.

Not to get into spoiler territory (I just know there are people out there that don't want Slender Man spoiled for them), but there are way too many points where you will audibly talk to the screen, asking hard-hitting questions like: "why don't you go to the cops?" or, "why don't you talk to an adult?" This is a folly of many a horror movie but here, it is considerably worse because it is so noticeable.

To further exacerbate things, in the smack dab middle of when these girls are dealing with Slender Man, they take a break to bicker about boys. Why? Because this is written by somebody who does not have a clear understanding of how sensible human beings operate.

I don't think that this is the worst thing in the world, it is just a very poorly conceived horror flick. It is basic, and when this thing is finally wrapping up, there are way too many dream sequences for you to even start being scared.

They make up the rules as they go along, so much so that the rules in this universe aren't clearly defined enough so that you feel threatened. It gets tedious with the amount of research they do on computers, and there is even bad lighting to boot.

Yeah, this is a big time waste of your time.