For a film based upon a highly popular horror video game, and for it to be released way after the actual time when its popularity was at its peak, it's surprising how much they missed the point when it came to explaining how Slenderman came to be as scary and as popular as it was in the first place.
The video game was super basic and never relied on too much to spook you. It was all about a fear of the dark and maybe some fears about ghosts as well. It was done in a first person perspective and whenever you see the Slenderman, your vision goes nuts, white noise to the extreme, and that's it.
In order for this film to follow suit, it simply needed to basically be The Blair Witch, found footage in dark woods for a majority of the film. Because in any Paranormal film about filming ghosts, what happens when they show up on footage? White noise and cameras malfunctioning. Found footage also never relies too heavily on story, relationships, or characters because it's usually stripped down to the basics to focus more heavily on fear tactics. This movie had random and irrelevant romances, and a mystery that is all over the place, and a lot of crap in plain daylight. It just doesn't work.... it's not scary, and it completely ignored what little story the games actually had, with collecting the pieces of paper notes in the woods.
In short, everything felt too unoriginal, unscary, overproduced, and overall incredibly stupid. It made sense that they made the movie, but zero sense in why it was made the way it was made.It missed the point entirely.
Hmm...a little late don't you think.
I mean, this should have came out like four years ago when Slender Man was popular, but not now. The popularity has kinda died out.
'Slender Man' is a water down horror movie with more yawns than thrills. It's painfully dull. So boring in fact, I actually fell asleep 12 minutes into it. Of course I had to re-watch it which was horrible.
There's nothing redeemable or anything good about 'Slender Man'. The script is terrible with endless amount of horror movie clichés you thought died out for good. The cliché of how teenagers talk in these type of horror movies. Not forgetting the questionable decisions that leads to their demise.
All the performances were pretty bad and not convincing during the more "scary" elements - Just made the scenes more funny to be honest. Joey King is on a winning streak recently by starring in terrible movies, and she's really bad in the movie.
The atmosphere or tension is none existent to build up any suspense, just loud jump scares through out. Most of the quiet scenes felt like filler than anything else. When it tries to be creepy, it's embarrassing.
Overall rating: Sony, YOU HACKS!
"He gets in your head, like a virus."
There is no way I can approach this movie with that score without looking like I'm out of my fucking mind. I unfortunately have to side with Jeremy Jahns on this. I don't understand what makes this movie so inexplicably worse than other shit like Winchester, Truth or Dare, The First Purge, and so on. And let me just say, I don't think Slender Man is that great, far from it. I want to see what the inevitable Blu-ray extended cut will feature that hopefully completes the fractured narrative this has. To watch the first trailer and then see my favorite parts from the trailer are just flat out missing, was a bummer to me. But, I think the film offers more in the way of genuine scares and creepy imagery than most other horror movies of the last few years. All too often, we audience bitch about the use of incessant and cheap jump scares, and this one does have some, but the most memorable parts are the montages with seizure inducing flashes of disturbing and abstract pictures. It earns it's jumps and uses them in the right places. There is a strong component in this that relies on psychological horror, and asking the viewer the question, "Are these characters just imagining all of this or are they going insane?" People are complaining there is a lack of a story, but I felt it was there, just placed more subtly. This isn't a movie that has an easy to follow beat for beat story like IT or A Quiet Place. I'm not saying this is smarter written than those, no, but what's done here is reliance on the characters being appealing enough that you just follow them along as they break down mentally. Since I rather dug the teenagers here, as opposed previously mentioned trash, I found it easy to get into the transpiring events. The film is set in a small, mostly run down town, and the surprisingly not obnoxious four lead girls all have unhappy lives, one has an abusive father, and their group wish is to skip town and just go somewhere, kind of like the seniors in American Graffiti. What makes the pay off all the more a real closure is, they technically got their wish, they did leave, just not the way they wanted to. They're now in another dimension. The story starts off simple, they watch a video and then one of the friends goes missing, but the rest of the movie is them hopelessly trying find a way to stop the psychosis. One of my favorite parts is the reveal that Wren desperately used Hallie's sister as practically a sacrifice to appease the Slender Man to get him to go away. The performances these kids puts on is more raw than I expected, I actually believed I was watching some kids on the brink of mental collapse. Okay, enough spoiling, I'll get into more of the technical shit I liked. There's good use of mystery here. It could've been honed in collectively better, but they tried. This hearkens back to the glory days of The Ring and my favorite horror film of all time, Sinister, where the use of technology, old and new, is implemented in their resources figure out the Slender Man mystery. The stuff I crave that I don't seen enough films do is the "found footage" prop, or the "Once you see it, you'll shit brix" element that scares me the most. When Hallie is looking at online videos of "supposed" Slender Man encounters, pauses one, and sees the figure in the background, that's what gets to me. The fear of not knowing something was actually there is what I love; and it raises the question further, is Slender Man just tinkering with the footage or was here there? That's what this film really excels at: making you paranoid. The shots of the woods are beyond excellent. While there's a lot of dark color work, it works, as the on location shoot they did implemented a lot of fog, to highlight the silhouettes of the trees. This movie repeatedly pulls out the rug from the viewer and has the thin Slender Man emerge from an object, pole, or tree that looks like him. It happens multiple times, so eventually, you become on the edge, looking all over the screen, waiting for him to come out. Once that effect hits you, that's what you'll see when you walk outside at night. Couple that with some of the best sound design of this year, you have a movie that has quite a few tense and shake inducing sequences. Everything here has a pattern, three bell sounds, three knocks on the door, the attention to detail is exquisite at times. Maybe I'm stretching for qualities that are present in other, better, movies, but I really got a kick out of the presentation offered here. They didn't twist the mythology of the title character at all, if anything, they were too faithful, and that's why they had to cut it down. I loved the use of a real actor and costume for the Man, even if it got overshadowed by the giant CG leg monster that unwinds at the end. This is all wholly subjective, and maybe I just have the worst taste imaginable, but I have to wonder where the complaints are coming from other than picking on the movie being "made too late" or "it has no story" or other empty complaints I keep seeing regurgitated. Give credit where credit is due. I'm not saying the film is immune from criticism, I think the story is actually incomplete, but I got a massive high from it's colonial subtle creepiness and mystery restraints. Sony, please release the footage that was clearly shot, finished, and promptly cut, for the home video release. We need to see what was removed. I'm going to see this again, and later with the cut stuff, to further evaluate if maybe I was reaching here, or I actually think this movie is underrated.
Review by ALAMLEDPVIP 5BlockedParent2023-01-12T22:27:45Z
The movie "Slender Man" is a poorly made horror film that fails to deliver on its potential. Despite the intriguing concept of the Slender Man legend, the movie is plagued by subpar performances, a terrible script, and clichéd storytelling. The visual effects are poorly done and the grey filter over every scene adds to the overall lack of atmosphere. Additionally, the removal of certain scenes due to the controversy surrounding the movie's release only served to further weaken the movie. Overall, "Slender Man" is considered one of the worst movies in recent years and is not worth watching.
La película "Slender Man" es una película de terror mal hecha que no logra cumplir con su potencial. A pesar del intrigante concepto de la leyenda de Slender Man, la película está plagada de actuaciones deficientes, un guión terrible y una narración cliché. Los efectos visuales están mal hechos y el filtro gris sobre cada escena se suma a la falta general de atmósfera. Además, la eliminación de ciertas escenas debido a la controversia en torno al lanzamiento de la película solo sirvió para debilitar aún más la película. En general, "Slender Man" es considerada una de las peores películas de los últimos años y no vale la pena verla.