SLENDER MAN
Soon wears thin
released OUT NOW! 2018 | 15 | Blu-ray/dVd/download
Director sylvain White Cast Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz sinclair, annalise Basso
There’s a lot of potential in a film based on Slender Man. The character is a prime piece of internet-age folklore; a spooky meme created on a forum that took on a life of its own in art, stories – and also in a grim real life incident.
This film doesn’t tap into any of that. Hallie, Chloe and Wren grow concerned when their friend Katie goes missing. They discover that she’s been dabbling with the occult and may have attempted to contact Slender Man – a faceless, tentacled entity with a nice line in suits. In one of many remarkably bad decisions, they decide that the way to get her back is to summon the creature themselves…
Even putting aside the mythology that’s grown up around the character, there could still be the makings of an interesting slasher flick here; the titular terror shares some of Freddy Krueger’s reality-bending abilities. The film squanders it all. It’s charmless, murky and entirely lacking in imagination. The cast are fine (especially considering the lack of characterisation) but the effects – essential to realising the possibilities of this character – are terrible. It may have an enticing hook, but the chances of this scaring anyone are slender, man.
Extras A short featurette about the cast. Will Salmon
Hallie’s surname is Knudsen – a nod to Eric Knudsen (aka Victor Surge), creator of the original meme.