![]() Wren throws out a blanket rule that gives Slender Man carte blanche and Birke’s script takes full advantage (“no one knows why he tortures some and takes the rest”). These are, admittedly, the film’s highest and most exciting genre moments – for the frustratingly short duration they weasel into focus with no context. Hallie trips satanic balls and visualizes her limbs strewn about Slender Man’s woods before vines slither out of her orifices. ![]() Hallie notices she’s pregnant with a Slender Baby during one particularly spiky dream. Wren dashes through library bookcases before Slender Man elongates a single ongoing stretch like some Haunted Mansion optical trick. For shame.Īlas, surreal psychotic breakdowns between the girls *would* do well in a better-fleshed production. Hallie, pinned to a couch, witnessing her crush’s face shift uncontrollably like he’s stuck on fast-forward, yet all we see is some Truth Or Dare Snapchat filter horror. Take Tommy and Hallie’s schizo-boyfriend makeout interruption as a prime example of how fear is fumbled on repeat. Overused because what the hell were those mock internet evidence photos with Slender Man choppily overlayed into children’s events? And that online repository of Slender Man snatch-away clips? Like an Adult Swim spoof on Ghost Hunters or something. Also, both under and overused somehow? Underused in the sense of figure-outline distance teases followed by nonthreatening face-to-face camera frames. Hissing cicadas and crackling tree branches mark Slender Man’s entrance no matter the location, but as for his faceless businessman of death…meh? A wee bit CGI embossed. Javier Botet fills his usual role as “spectral lurker” by embodying Slender Man (and a red herring doctor cameo), because, really – who else are you going to enlist? Unfortunately, he’s just not scary. I mean, Hallie just wants to go on a date with Tommy (Alex Fitzalan) for gosh sakes! Slender Man’s looming imprisonment can wait (no, really, that’s a plot device).Ĭharacter actions account for strike two, strike three and up to strike seventy-nine (at least), bumbling through an inevitable plague of predictability that goes “high school horror” to an almost ignorant degree (why will no one listen). Slender Man is a cat-and-mouse game of Wren giving her friends *strict* instructions in order to survive, her friends not listening, and everything getting worse. Scenes feel written by an undercover cop posing as a high schooler who totally saw one horror movie one time and now brags about being a hardcore “horror fan.” “Ok, so Twitter Poll,” SAYS A CHARACTER ALOUD TO HER FRIENDS BEFORE, YOU KNOW, ASKING A QUESTION LIKE A FREE-THINKING HUMAN. Onto scripting, which advances under the assumption that audiences don’t understand basic horror formulas. People actually need to SEE the damn scares. Here’s a masterclass in how *not* to shoot your *hopefully* super-dark, super-scary horror flick. What *should* be paralyzing reveals are barely recognizable on the screen, whether Slender Man appears as another crooked background tree or his up-close profile monochromatically blurs with drab cinematography. The problem with Slender Man is that not only are most woodland setpieces shrouded in blackness like your television’s visual settings just wonked out, but Slender Man himself dons an equally charred suit. midnight dimness heighten terror? Absolutely, just ask James Wan. Can shadowy formulations and manipulations of daytime sun vs. Sylvain White, why couldn’t you just make The Losers 2 like we all wanted?!īasic entry-level grip: pitch-black darkness does not equate to instant tension. Could Slender Man have taken her? Yes, because this is a generic-ass paranormal blueprint where characters refuse to believe the ultimate evil they tampered with can’t possibly be real until the last moment. Then, a week later, Katie goes missing while on a school field trip. Creepy images flash some A Clockwork Orange/ The Forest Of Lost Souls hybrid shit, three bells toll, and every onlooker “feels” something. Like a scene straight out of The Ring (legit, didn’t we actually see this in Rings), White’s four slumber party kiddies play a video link with “SUMMON” in the title. Wren (Joey King), Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles), Chloe (Jaz Sinclair), and Katie (Annalise Basso). ![]() In David Birke’s script, based on “Victor Surge’s” infamous photoshopped ghoul, four girls summon Slender Man (Javier Botet, duh). “Doesn’t this new Slender Mans movie sound hashtag spoopy?!” “How do you do, fellow kids,” says Steve Buscemi’s private detective character from 30 Rock in disguise. ![]()
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