The Slender Man legend is a lofty one. And some are very upset that it's become a throwaway horror movie. What started as an Internet campfire story turned to real life tragedy when two underaged girls tried to kill their best friend believing this mythical horror icon was real. Sony didn't make a movie about that. Instead, they've turned the Slender Man tale into a ghost story of the week. Today, we have the second trailer. It offers a few cool scares. But in the end, is it worth it?
In Slender Man, we visit a small town in Massachusetts. A group of friends perform a ritual in an attempt to debunk the lore of Slender Man. When one of them goes mysteriously missing, they begin to suspect that she is, in fact, HIS latest victim. This new trailer proves that big portions of this movie are going to be PG-13 thriller boring. But we also get some awesome shots of our monster, and they are enough to make any 13 year-old girl squeal in fright. The older horror crowd probably isn't buying it much.
Slender Man is directed by Sylvain White. The guy knows a little bit about schlock horror. He directed the third chapter in the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise. Titled I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, it went straight to video and isn't remembered much by horror fans. He went onto direct Stomp the Yard, what, with its copious amounts of street dancing, is as far away from horror as you can get. Though the dance scenes do have to be choreographed and executed as finely as the best slasher kill.
From there the guy went onto direct the comic book adaptation The Losers, which got a big Comic-Con push but ultimately didn't go anywhere. It's most noticeable for its amazing cast, which would be almost unthinkable today. It stars Marvel's own Captain America Chris Evans, and Guardians of the Galaxy's Zoe Saldana before they were a glimmer in the MCU's eye. We also have Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba, Columbus Short and Jason Patrick getting in on the action, and you have to wonder why more people aren't talking about it today. Sadly for White, the movie bombed, and he was relegated to directing episodes of Sleepy Hollow and the MacGyver reboot, working exclusively in TV. Slender Man is his first return to the big screen since the barely seen thriller Mark of the Angels back in 2013, which came three years after he blew it with The Losers.
Now he's returning to where he got his start. Dump ground horror. Slender Man looks a little silly at the end of the day. It's based on a Creepy Pasta Internet meme. The trailer tries to evoke Evil Dead and The Exorcist, but you can tell it's going to be worthy of a few shrugs and that's about it. Unless you've never seen a horror movie before, and this is your first time. Then you might think it's really scary and pretty great.
Going into the August 10th release of Slender Man, a lot of folks believe this cheap throwaway Drive-In fodder to be insensitive. Which would have gone over great in the 70s or 80s. Audiences would have eaten that aspect alive, gleefully supporting the film. We live in a different time, and certain factions are railing against Slender Man's existence as a movie audiences have to pay for.
It is built on the backs of two real-life 12 year-old girls who lured there friend into the woods, and then tried extremely hard to stab her to death, claiming they were under the immortal spell of Slender Man. That is a very sad situation. And there's a great HBO documentary about what went down that will give you authentic chills. And it puts a clamp down on any enjoyment one who knows the story might derive from this horror fluff.
Slender Man is in the genre of PG-13 ghost story thrillers that are aimed at the very 12 year old girls that pulled off that heinous crime. Which is worrisome. It will be interesting to see if there is still an audience for Slender Man. Most of the youngsters who grew up in fear of the mythical Internet icon have grown up, gotten jobs, and moved on to real horror movies like Hereditary. You can check out the latest trailer for yourself and decide if this is something you want to spend your hard earned cash on. I'll probably wait for streaming.
Slender Man stars Joey King, Julia Goldani-Telles, Jaz Sinclair, Annalise Basso, and Javier Botet. It's in theaters later this summer. The second full-length trailer arrives from Sony Pictures, who know they have a turkey on their hands and are doing with it what they can.
