Slender Man (2018)
Film Review
By the Geezer of Oz
In a small town in Massachusetts, a group of friends, fascinated by the internet lore of the Slender Man, attempt to prove that he doesn’t actually exist, until one of them mysteriously goes missing. [IMDb]
A number of films resting on some kind of urban legend as premise have been released over the years. Films such as Candyman, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Bye Bye Man, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Bloody Mary, The Ring, Boogeyman and ummm… Urban Legend, have all come and gone to varying success and most have spawned several remakes. If you thought that Slender Man is just another in a long line of such films, trying to profit off the success of others before it, by giving us the exact same plot structure with different names and slightly different faces (or lack thereof)… you’d be correct.
French director Sylvain White (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, Stomp The Yard, The Losers) returns to directing feature films after a long stint of directing TV episodes in many different series. He does a good enough job in giving the film a slick enough look and keeping his actors in check. Technically, there isn’t much to complain about. However, the script by David Birke (Gacy, 13 Sins), based on characters by Eric Knudsen a.k.a. Victor Surge, is so by-the-numbers that it is no longer scary or even interesting. This seems to be an ongoing trend with many horror films, and films in general, these days, where it seems they are not even trying. As long the film looks satisfactory in a technical sense, the actors are decent and it goes for 90-minutes, people will eat it up and ask for more. Apparently, they are not entirely wrong. Slender Man, which might be considered a mild box-office failure by some, collected over US$50 million from worldwide cinema ticket sales, on a US$10 million budget. This almost guarantees that we will see some kind of sequel, prequel, or reboot in the not so distant future.
Speaking of acting, though there are no mind-blowing appearances here (none were probably expected), the cast did rather well in convincing us of their plight and keeping things believable enough. Julia Goldani Telles (Most Likely To Murder, The Wind), Joey King (Quarantine, The Conjuring, Wish Upon), Jaz Sinclair (Paper Towns, When The Bough Breaks) and Annalise Basso (Oculus, Ouija: Origin of Evil) star as our quartet of high school girlfriends who innocently watch the wrong video and mess with the wrong urban legend.
There is not not much going on in terms of real surprises or twists, effective scares or gore… in case that’s what you’re after. As mentioned before, the film is technically solid, just missing the one and most important element of any film, an interesting, somewhat original story. I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but unfortunately such is the state of cinema these days.
Slender Man is a cool enough boogeyman, with an interesting enough backstory, yet these factors were simply not put to good use in a very, VERY average script. Too many plot decisions seemed to be unnatural and just existed to get the plot to the ending the people behind the film desired, without too much care as to whether or not it actually works. It could have been much, much better, yet isn’t.
Only if you have nothing else to watch. 5/10.
