One from the to watch pile…

The Slender Man (2018)

Film: One of the things I love about DVD and Bluray covers, are the blurbs lifted from reviews to and add hype to a movie’s home video release. This blurb is also a poker-styled ‘tell’ of what reviewers I can trust, and those I can’t. This film, Slender Man, has a comment by a fellow human that this film is ‘Scary, chilling and thrilling’.

Sure, a provocative note like this could inspire people to buy the home video release, but what eventually happens is the viewer realises that the reviewer quoted may have been misquoted or has NEVER seen another film in their life, and possibly spent their entire life in a movie and TV-less existence.

Slender Man is based on the supernatural character created as a meme by Victor Surge, aka Eric Knudsen in 2009, which spawned video games, YouTube videos, influenced Minecraft with its ‘Enderman’ character and tragically, resulted in some real-life violence. The character has also appeared in all sorts of other media, from My Little Pony to Big Mouth.

It would appear that the makers of this film like nothing more that jumping into a phase that pop culture was going through far too late, and 2018 gave us this movie, Slender Man, written by David Birke (13 Sins, Gacy) and directed by Sylvain White, who also directed comic-book movie, The Losers, and the sequel I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer.

The story follows four teenage girls, Wren (Joey King), Hallie (Julie Goldani Telles), Chloe (Jaz Sinclair and Katie (Annalise Basso) who decide one night to do some research into an urban legend known as ‘Slender Man’. Eventually they find a video that claims that after you’ve watched it, and heard the three bells, the Slender Man will come for you.

Of course, the girls watch it and within a day, Katie goes missing, but what happened to her? The other girls start an investigation into where she went, but slowly they discover that the creature is pursuing them, and the friendship begins to fall apart…

One thing you’ll immediately notice from that synopsis is the blatant rip-off… I’m sorry, ‘homage’… of the film The Ring, with a peppering of Candyman sprinkled over the top. These sorts of things happen in horror all the time, and in actual fact the entire genre is built upon ‘borrowing’ good ideas and this is not the main problem with the film.

White’s direction of most of the action is pretty good itself, but it didn’t need to be so dark.

No, the main problem with the film is the casting. Outside of the cast of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, I don’t think I’ve ever been presented with such a bunch of unlikable characters in my life. I’m not sure if it was White’s intention to present these kids as bored and disinterested, but they barely seem concerned for either their own or their friend’s wellbeing, which of course makes it impossible for the viewer to give a flying fandango as to whether they survive or not. This of course is a major issue because if you don’t care for the protagonist, you have no investment in the film.

…and honestly, I wish NO ONE had invested in this film.

I really can’t stress enough how much one should avoid this film. I own a lawn vacuum that doesn’t suck and blow as much as this film does.

Score: 1/2

Format: I found the image of this film to be SO dark that it can ONLY be watched in a room that has absolutely NO light source coming from anywhere at all, and had to adjust the contract a little even to watch it at night. The film is apparently presented in 2.39:1 image, but you can hardly tell. The audio is really good though and is presented in DTS-HD MA 5.1.

Score: ***

Extras: The disc opens with a trailer for Insidious: The Last Key, which is perfect for this film as it also, is made for mainstream kids, boring as batshit, by the numbers horror. This trailer is also accessible from the Extras menu… if for some reason you felt the need to watch it again.

The only other extra is called Summoning Slender Man: Meet the Cast is exactly what the title would suggest. It’s interviews with the young cast and the director as they desperately try to sell a turd and pretend it’s a piece of gold.

Score: *

WISIA: Nope.