Does anyone still care about or remember Slender Man? Initially starting life as a creepypasta story which has since elevated to meme status, the character is likely most well known for the free online PC game "Slender: The Eight Pages". The premise of the game is that you play a camera man or woman exploring the woods at night, you are tasked with finding eight elusive pages all while being stalked by a tall, thin (slender, if you will) faceless creature in a black suit, who begins more aggressive the closer you get to your goal. The game is nothing more than a jump scare nightmare but it doesn't attempt to be, and watching videos of players becoming overly scared by the game's loud noises was entertaining. The game was released in 2012, and interest in the character has been in severe decline since then. So it was quite a surprise when this movie was announced, arriving 5 years too late to pique interest and raise more than a cautious eyebrow. Even with a wise budget of $10-28 million (an exact figure has proven difficult to find), the entire concept of the movie has an air of skepticism about it, with trailers doing little to bring any reassurance that the movie would be more than passable at best. As it turns out, even rock bottom expectations could not be met, as Slender Man is an embarrassing and lazy attempt at film-making, but an insulting and tasteless mess that has cemented itself not only as the worst movie of the year by quite some margin (and so soon after The Festival, sorry) but also quite possibly one of the worst of the decade. But, why? Why is the movie such a travesty in every possible aspect? This is the question I intend to answer, but I cannot do so in a review format. To do so would be to let this movie get off lightly. This movie requires a different structure, to allow us to examine each individual aspect of film-making and point of failure. So with that in mind, I've picked out 7 subheadings to allow a complete autopsy of Slender Man. It's a long and difficult journey ahead, so let's jump in with one of the key features of most movies.
Plot
Quite frankly, I have no idea where to start with this movie, but generally most films have a plot so perhaps that seems to be a reasonable jump pad for this breakdown. As a general point, this one is fairly simple: the plot is extremely dull. In terms of the usual issues of horror movies or in a broader sense those involving spirits, ghosts, or spooky going-ons, a standard point is that nothing is ever explained, which is the case here. That said, a movie does not always need to explain everything. Look at another horror movie from earlier this year, Hereditary. The scares and effectiveness of that movie stems from the fact that we do not always understand what is happening, and to do so requires keen eyes and real thinking about what has happened on screen. Even then, if you do not want to think about it, the movie is just as effective. The atmosphere is built thick and fast, and a lack of understanding builds a real sense of tension - how can you predict what will happen if you do not understand it? This movie also accomplishes this, albeit in the completely wrong way. As soon as the movie starts, within 10 seconds you are instilled with a sense of dread. Being subjected to dull fonts and lazy plot exposition immediately, this is not a sense of dread like that of Hereditary or The Shining; immediately you know that the movie you are watching is going to be bad. As openings go, it sets the tone. The plot of the movie follows a group of teenage girls as they summon Slender Man for no reason at all other than for giggles and then subsequently find themselves haunted by the malevolent spirit. If you think that that sounds like an enjoyable watch, then I think you should perhaps see a psychiatrist. For those of you still here and not on the way to have a brain scan, of course the plot is excruciatingly dull and played out. Quite simply, the movie offers very little outside of the movie troops which we have come to expect from horror movies such of these: exposition, jump scare, exposition, jump scare, rinse and repeat. And that is the entire movie. If that sounds like a total nightmare, then I would say that is a fairly accurate feeling you experience for the entirety of the runtime. The movie attempts to establish a sense of logic through one of (many) scenes explaining the plot, but these rules do not survive 15 minutes into the movie before the writers themselves start to break and bend them as they see fit. The movie is little more than clichés and stereotypes thrown together with little regard for any semblance of sense and reasoning and it only serves to make the experience of sitting through this shambles considerably more tedious than necessary. The only thing that can be said for it is that a 90-minute runtime is mercifully short, although the length of certain scenes and the pacing of the entire movie drag this out to feel considerably longer than it actually is. Believe it or not, however, this is only the beginning, and perhaps even the least offensive of this movie's crimes.
Characters and Acting
Okay, well the story isn't the best but perhaps the movie can still make up for it with its characters and its acting. After all, plenty of movies can make up for a ridiculous story by making the movie an interesting character piece that focuses on the deteriorating relations between the characters, and in this movie in particular the madness they start to suffer. Naturally, however, expecting anything other than cardboard cut outs from this movie was too much and thus we are left with a merry band of morons to lead us through the proceedings. At the helm we have a troupe of four teenage girls who do not speak like girls and so I can only imagine have been written by a middle-aged to elderly old man who has no idea how teenage girls today talk and interact with each other, leading to some suitably hilarious dialogue. Unintentionally hilarious of course, much like the rest of the movie. None of these four girls are particularly interesting, and have very little character. Indeed you will struggle to keep track of exactly who is who. Even their names seem inconsistent. I could swear at one point a girl is called "Ally" but then later another member of the same group calls her "Hal", which only served to left me confused until the credits finally (and mercifully) rolled to solve the mystery of this poor girl's name. None of the girls have any particularly memorable character traits, and so in the absence of being able to remember their names you typically find yourself referring to them by whatever small detail you can recall, which does not tend to be particularly flattering. One is missing, one screams a lot, one is really boring, one is a psychopath, and they all share the common trait of being idiots. Oh the sheer, complete, and frankly insane idiocy on display from these girls is enough to leave anyone with a number of brain cells significantly lesser to when you went in, enough even to justify a visit to the hospital. You may have to be driven there though. Perhaps the most ridiculous issue of character is the identification of a main protagonist. Even in movies with groups of characters at the helm, especially in horror movies there tends to be a main character who uncovers everything that is happening and who acts as the audience surrogate. This movie seems unable to decide who it wants to be said character. The perspective of the movie frequently changes to different character, at some points leaping back and forth between them all while each uncovers different pieces of information much of which does not come together. This scatter-brained approach served only to leave me confused as to who the main character is meant to be, and it is impossible to rule someone out until they leave the movie (whether decidedly or you just realise they are never coming back, which I'll come back to later). Naturally the order in which this happens is from the most talented actress to the least talented, leaving us with an extremely dull and uninspired performance to round out the flick. That said, to say the "most talented" in this movie is more akin to the "least awful", and even then all of the performances are fairly terrible even outside of the main group. Nobody seems to have been told about this little thing called "subtlety", which is fairly key to a good emotional performance, rather than just screaming at the top of your lungs at everything or to quickly cut to a shot where they have an apparent monsoon streaming down their face. Even when they are meant to be happy they come across as barely teetering above tears. Ultimately, this is a band of misfits who you will have no fun spending time with, and truth be told cannot wait to see get picked off. I feel like there is one more character I'm forgetting though...
The Slender Man and Visuals
The final key character in the movie is of course the Slender Man himself. After the nonchalant set-up for the story and build-up to that reveal of the character himself, you would be forgiven for hoping that the crew behind the film might at least put some effort into the look of the titular monster. That they might create a design to strike fear into the audience, and rise to the difficult task of making the concept of the Slender Man into an intimidating reality. I'll give you three guesses what happens. That's right, the reveal is laughably out of the blue, with little to no subtlety or dramatic tension; all of a sudden you are greeted with a hilarious close up of a wrinkled up creature that looks like a lemon or a lime has gone off after being left out too long. That off-fruit has been placed on top of an effigy in a bad second-hand suit and hey presto we have our monster. As you might imagine, the reveal is not especially intimidating. The only thing funnier than how Slender Man looks is his antics and strategies to scare these girls silly. These involve the usual possession (although this tends to involve making someone shake their head and roar a lot in the funniest scene of the movie), and knocking things over, but also more innovative tactics. You see, Slender Man is a spook of the 21st century, and so employs devices such as FaceTime and Messenger to contact and scare the girls, but the writers failed to realise one thing: this is so stupid that it is impossible to take seriously.The only positive I might be able to give at a stretch is that the creature is at least practical, and that an actual bodysuit and mask is being used as opposed to making the creature completely CGI. Of course, this is all irrelevant when we consider just how terrible the costume here is, to the point where it looks as lifelike and believable as it would have done had it been a complete visual effects job in the first place. That being said, there is a reveal in the third act of the movie which I suppose is meant to be the true form of Slender Man. The whole look of this attempts to meld the practical suit with some ropey to say the least CGI, and, as you can imagine, it looks absolutely ridiculous. There are a few other scenes scattered throughout the movie where the Slender Man is shown to have silly tentacles that sprout from his back, again making an attempt to blend the dreadful visual effects with the equally dreadful practical costume. Of course, this makes the movie even more hilarious. At no point can you take this creature seriously when it looks as ridiculous as it does, naturally detracting from the tension and fear you are meant to be feeling through out. The same can be said for the occasional scenes scattered throughout where visuals are used to alter appearances or have a character to do something unnatural. The visuals throughout the entire film are frankly laughable and embarrassing considering especially how far movies have come in recent years in this department. There are a number of key things that can kill the serious atmosphere of a horror movie stone dead. A silly monster and dreadful effects are two, and this movie couples both together in a nice little package.
Lighting, Sound, and Cinematography
These are another few aspects of the film that go hand-in-hand with each other, and generally this encompasses the technical aspects of the movie. The entire movie quite simply looks...ugly. It sounds incredibly simplistic, but quite frankly it is also the best way to summarise all of these points. The daytime sequences all look incredibly grainy and on the verge of being out of focus. These are not the main issue, however, given that all of the conversations these girls have seem to be outside in the dead of night, and so it is the night aspects of the movie which deserve the most attention. Not only because they take up the most screen time but also because they are the most incompetent. Let us start with lighting, and from there lead into cinematography. For the most part, the movie is incredibly underexposed. For those of you who does not know what that term means, a good movie or TV episode should be neither over nor under exposed as you might have guessed. Overexposed movies tend to have too much light, with the team behind the movie utilising so much light in an attempt to get that perfect shot that the film looks blown up and in no way realistic. Underexposed - which is this movie's problem - refers to when not enough light is used, and the issue which stems from this is quite simple then. The audience cannot see what is happening. This is the key problem in the indoor sequences, particularly when tension is attempting to be built by having characters wander through empty corridors or houses while the next lazy jump scare lurks around the corner. If the audience cannot see what is happening, then when characters turn and run, we do not see it and do not feel the same fear. The movie becomes considerably more meta at this point as characters are literally, at least from the audience point of view, being scared and running away from loud noises. This is the key reason that the poor lighting and hilariously generic sound design go hand-in-hand as failures of the film, with the clichéd and overplayed violin building up to a fright that we cannot see while a loud crash plays that causes a character to run away. This is the structure that every "scary sequence" in the movie takes. And trust me, once you've seen it a few times, it gets old and you stop laughing, really really quick. The cinematography is for the most part bland and unimpressive, so I don't want to linger too much on it, but there is one key element that must be mentioned. Around 75% of the movie takes place at night (because that's where these girls have ever conversation apparently but I've discussed the stupidity of the movie to death so let's move on). One might think then, that at the very least, the filmmakers would have the decency to shoot the movie at night. That being said, there are some scenes that look to this not being the case. At least not always the case. A strange green filter is often put over scenes. The sky often looks blown out and overexposed. The colour correction and aesthetic of scenes often looks like the blues and the blacks have been crushed in post production. I am not saying this is the case, and this is for you to make your own mind up about, but all of this looks incredibly suspicious and almost makes the night sequences look as if, horrifically...they were filmed during the day. In 2018. In a Hollywood blockbuster horror movie, with alleged talent working on this movie. What are we coming to as a species when the film industry has got to the point where professional filmmakers cannot be bothered to film at night? With all of this, how could the technical elements of this movie get any more embarrassing?
Editing
Oh, of course, the editing, how could I forget. You don't often see technical elements such as lighting, sound, etc. brought up in a lot of reviews, solely because at the very least movies do these competently. It should then be a testament to this movie, or more accurately a point to its detriment, that I have not only raised all of these, but have felt the need to devote an entire point to the somewhat niche point of editing. You know, that if I have chosen to bring this up as its own separate point that it must be truly terrifying. You do not know the half of it, take my word on that. The movie is honestly completely incomprehensible. This is an issue which extends far beyond a ridiculous story. There are plenty of movies out there with insane stories or films which have complex reveals, twists and turns. Think of a movie that you would describe as either of those things. At the very least, you should be able to follow what is happening, or, in a situation where information is being withheld, be able to consider it and establish what has happened in the movie you just watched. Most movies succeed. This one does not. Characters flit in and out of the movie at a moments notice, and you will almost certainly lose track of what each of them are doing at different points. Random time jumps are inserted throughout the movie for no real reason, and it only serves to confuse the placement of the characters further. The two biggest issues of editing in the movie relates to two of the main characters in the movie who fall victim to Slender Man attacks. You never see either of these characters die, although the film attempts to put across the madness that they are being infected with thanks to his presence in their lives. What we never see is either of these characters die. And yet they disappear from the movie at different points. No other line in the movie mentions them ever again, no hint is ever given to their fate, and for all we know they could be dead, in a mental institution, or absolutely fine. In a horror movie, where the events of the movie are meant to impact characters lives massively and even threaten them, we do not know what has happened to numerous of them by the time the credits roll. The worst part is, I cannot tell whose fault this comes down on. Is the editor competent? Were certain scenes not even in the script in the first place to be cut out? Was the 90-minute runtime studio mandated, thereby forcing the editor to trim scenes in the first place and those were the best options available to him? These are questions we will never know the answer to unless a making-of documentary on this travesty is put together and released (which to be quite frank, I would be incredibly interested to see). Whatever the reasons for this, the editing in the movie ensures that this product is a horribly incoherent mess. At the very least, I should be able to follow a film and understand what happens to its characters, even if the story is ridiculous and the script embarrassing. When a horror movie cannot even be bothered to include the deaths of the main characters and instead just has them disappear from the movie, this should be more than enough to set off the warning lights.
Insulting - A Conclusion
I think it is clear that from all of these points that one for the best words that can be used to describe this movie is "lazy". A script, editing room, cast, visual effects crew, and general filmmaking team who seemed completely content to offer the bare minimum, almost as if they were aware that nobody cares about Slender Man anymore (not that that gives them an excuse). However, I've watched terrible movies before. I've ripped other movies to shreds. What sets this movie apart? What justifies this becoming a rant over a review, and a new format? What is the source of such a deep disdain for this movie in particular? Disregard all of my previous points. Imagine this movie had a smarter plot; better performances; the most impressive effects work of the year; it was competently edited and it actually bothered to fill nighttime sequences at night. Imagine all of that. This movie remains the worst movie of the year and up there with the worst of the decade solely because of its final 30 seconds. I won't spoil the exact nature of the scene here (as if you should care), but it involves one barely developed character reflecting on the events which have happened throughout the movie. They regard the Slender Man as a virus who corrupts people, and the more people speak about him and spread word about him, the more likely they are to become obsessed with him and commit violent acts in his name. The movie is intending to leave a lingering sense of fear, hoping to suggest to the audience that just by watching the movie he might corrupt us. What in actual fact is is extremely distasteful and quite frankly insulting. Back in 2014, in Wisconsin, you might have heard that there was an act of violence carried out by two young girls against a third girl, with near fatal consequences. The reason provided by the girls for the stabbing: an attempt to prove their loyalty to Slender Man, who they believed to be real, and via this become his "proxies" and prevent him from harming their families. The details of the case are not pleasant, and of course this happening relatively recently all things considered has made this a point of controversy for the movie. Certain cinema chains in Wisconsin have refused to screen the movie out of respect while the communities and families associated with the incident have called the movie "distasteful". And I can't say I disagree with that statement, particularly having seen it. The fact that this movie even dares to include not one, but multiple scenes, of characters explaining the madness Slender Man inflicts on people and trying to explain that that is why people commit violent acts, without any meaningful self-awareness, screams of an extreme disconnect - or perhaps blatant nonchalance - for the real life tragedies associated with this character. The fact that the movie even further opts to bookend the movie with this message is the final slap in the face. Ultimately, this movie is not only incompetent and outright embarrassing as a film, but as a concept is tasteless and insulting, cementing it as the worst film of 2018 so far. There is no reason for you to watch this movie, and I cannot recommend enough that you avoid it like the plague.
Pros
- For the second time this year, absolutely nothing
Cons
- A story which is an absolute bore to watch unfold
- Horrendous characters
- Awful acting
- Frequently more funny than scary
- Terrible CGI
- Editing
- The lighting and cinematography
- The laziest movie of the year?
- An outright insulting and tasteless movie
Rating: 0/10
Original Release Date: 24th August, 2018
Starring Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, Annalise Basso, Taylor Richardson, Alex Fitzalan, KEvin Chapman and Javier Botet
