In an era where memes and internet not-so-inside jokes transcend culture in almost every imaginable way, they may as well 
slip into the horror realm as well.
Born from an online Photoshop contest and the subsequent video series Marble Hornets, the faceless and thin-limbed “Slender Man” has come a long way since 2009. Evidence to this fact is the recently released Slender Man movie, which, with oceans of doubt from film critics and a whopping 8 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, I just had to see for myself.
True to most Slender Man stories, the movie follows a group of four high schoolers who, after watching online videos about how to summon the specter, find themselves under his influence and pursuit. “Katie” disappears first, and the other three are left with no hint of where she has gone, their only real lead being the disturbing online persona they unwittingly released the previous night.
In many ways, this plot setup feels familiar, right? It feels repetitive, samey and boring. But, this, like every single element in Slender Man, is good or bad, depending on the moment.
The plot setup feels like an homage to the horror films of the ’80s, with rambunctious teens accidentally invoking monsters by playing what they thought was just a game. This can make the movie predictable, yes, but it also feels somewhat appropriate, seeing as Slender Man himself is somewhat symbolic of a mature force that imposes on innocent youth, much like “Freddy Krueger” or other such villains of the 1980s.
From the start, though, Slender Man fights an uphill battle because its title character’s name and lack-of-face are already familiar to the audience. Either you know who he is, or you’re probably not coming to this movie, and this jeopardizes the element of the unknown that makes or breaks a horror story. But, the film seems to acknowledge and almost counteract this with neat cinematography effects that make any background shadow seem like it could be Slender Man, or a tree, or a streetlamp, or just the shadows of the characters themselves, similar to The Woman in Black. This keeps the suspense and unknown element high enough that the experience isn’t ruined if the viewer already knows about the title character.
The scares are unpredictable and unsettling at times, and, at others, they’re formulaic jump scares. The cinematography is eerie and atmospheric at times, and, at others, it’s too murky and dark to see anything. The teenaged dialogue sometimes succeeds in mimicking the 2017 It, and at other times it results in hilariously awkward and unrealistic moments. Slender Man’s true sin is not terrible filmmaking—it’s inconsistent filmmaking.
Slender Man deserves more than 8 percent, and viewers looking for a campy, old-style horror film will find some fun in this movie. But, with all of its sins, formulas and predictabilities, Slender Man will never break the bar of “mediocre” and ultimately brings nothing new to the table of horror cinema.
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