Slender Man (2018) is a supernatural horror film directed by Sylvain White and inspired by an urban myth. Initially created as a creepypasta by Eric Knudsen (“Victor Surge”), Slender Man is a tall, faceless entity dressed in a dark suit. He is known to prey on children and young adults by luring them into madness and disappearance.
The movie takes place in a small town of Massachusetts and centers around four high school friends – Wren (Joey King), Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles), Chloe (Jaz Sinclair), and Katie (Annalise Basso). During a sleepover, the girls come across a video and website that purportedly summons the Slender Man. They think it’s an internet joke, but decide to try the ritual out of curiosity.
Things take a turn for the worse when Katie one day decides to go missing. The other three girls begin to experience very disturbing hallucinations and nightmares with the common theme being the Slender Man. The attempts made by the girls to solve the mystery of the Slender man leads them deeper under his control.
As they try to fix the ritual, the entity continues to control them, provoking even more horror. Their attempts to escape the Slender Man curse collides with the reality of being incurably facisnated by him. The Slender Man curse claims victims, and gives you no choice but to chase it endlessly.
Cast & Crew
Director Sylvain White has handled perpetually action and thriller specific content, however chose to tackle supernatural horror with Slender Man.
Screenplay David Birke has adapted the internet mythos as an attempt to include a psychological horror twist in it.
Produced by Brad Fischer, James Vanderbilt, William Sheriff.
Music composition by Ramin Djawadi, who topped up the never ending dread and fear with strange and horrific sounds.
Cinematargoher Luca Del Puppo added a chilling and grim ambience to the movie by coloring in dark and blustery toned colors.
Main Cast:
Wren played by Joey King is the controlling factor of the group, determined to save her friends and is fully aware of her oncoming descent into panic.
Hallie played by Julia Goldani Telles is a realistic, hope diffusing character who attempts to keep faith when everything unreal seems real.
Jaz Sinclair as Chloe – Chloe suffers from dramatic psychological breaks as the entity takes a hold of her mind.
Annalise Basso as Katie – The Slender Man’s first victim who disappears and causes the horrifying events to unfold.
Javier Botet as Slender Man – He is well known for physically transforming into supernatural beings, and his rendition makes the Slender Man more frightening than ever.
Visual Style & Atmosphere
The cinematic techniques employed in this film heavily rely on surreal and nightmare-like imagery. With the use of disoriented camera angles, abrupt visual glitches, and dreamlike sequences, director Sylvain White aims to portray the sensation of transitioning between reality and a nightmare. The muted colors have also been used to capture the feeling of helplessness and isolation. Gray, black, and cold blue tones are dominant throughout the film, accentuating its aesthetic.
Instead of overtly gory or violent means, the Slender Man employs suggestion and movement rather than direct action. He often remains in shadow or is only partially in frame, allowing him to become more frightening. This combined with the recurring settings of forests and dark corridors further paint the picture of humanity’s fear of the unknown and being lost in endless darkness.
Ramin Djawadi’s score creates a sense of unease through whispering undertones and dissonant sounds. The audio-visual combination compliments the film’s slow-building dread while also offering loud jump scares for mainstream horror purposes.
“The Slender Man” at its heart is a tale about one’s curiosity, the fear of the unknown, and the reckless behavior that stems from messing with things one does not fully understand. The man’s summoning by the schoolgirls serves as an example for youthful peer pressure and ignoring folklore’s plausible dangers.
The film attempts to delve deeper than just digital-age anxieties by showing how The Slender Man’s curse can propagate through the dreadful technology and the internet. It draws upon the concept of viral horror, portraying the not just believed but consciously accepted notion of danger.
Through the Slender Man story, the most frightful aspect of the film comes from how the girls begin to lose their grasp on reality. Their acceptance of the supernatural Slender Man alters not only their perception of reality but their trauma filled psychological state of fear.
Critical Reception
Alongside audiences, critics were ceratinly not impressed with Slender Man as it received overwhelmingly negative reviews throughout. The film receives and holds low scores on IMDb and other platforms reviews where the main focus of critique surrounds its weak narrative structure, lack of character development, and over reliance on cliches.
Understanding the reviews, many were able to quickly pinpoint that the film does not capture the true terror that comes with the Slender Man mythos, and rather, ends up diluting a chilling internet legend into horror tropes that are far to predictable, This caused the many reviewers to point out that the scares often came of as cheap and formulaic, as they relied heavily on loud noises and jump scares as opposed to psychological tension.
Furthermore, the disjointed script suffered from a plethora of different scenes that had no connection to one another as well as an ending that left too much to be desired. The film suffered from controversy during its release as well, as violent crimes in the real world had associations with the film which led to negative attention for the movie.
Regardless, some commendable praise was given towards the younger cast’s performance. Most notable, King and Telles were certainly the strongest of the cast with King and Telles being able to deliver and portray sentiments towards their otherwise underwritten roles. Another strong point commends the visuals and sound design being atmospheric allowing for genuine uneasiness throughout the film.
Conclusion
Slender Man (2018) had a chance to adapt one of the Internet’s most recognizable horror icons into a scary movie. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met due to poor script writing, lack of direction, and excessive use of horror tropes.
The film offers short moments of rooming tension and a few images that are ominous, but lacks any cohesive plot or story structure that build suspense. It is a warning of sorts – not about bringing forth some evil from ages past, but how a captivating and terrifying legend can created only to recoil in disappointment when the elements are not done properly.
For the hardcore fans of horror and those interested in the cinematic retelling of Slender Man, the film promises a few surprising spots. For other audiences, Slender Man is a squandered chance to showcase an deeply chilling contemporary mython film.
Watch Free Movies on Fmovies