It’s taken me a while to post this review as I’ve been trying to work this film out and, to be honest, have come to the conclusion that there’s nothing to work out. Slender Man is quite simply the product of nightmares and scare stories. Quite frankly, I think this is great. Isn’t this, after all, what all scary movies should be?
When we were kids it was the products of our nightmares that used to scare us, and these nightmares, quite often, had no reason behind them; they just scared the crap out of us.
As adults we try and find a justification for everything that scares us, maybe trying to ‘unscare’ ourselves by concocting a convincing story.
Slender Man is a modern myth, invented not that long ago. Most myths are based in reality and I would love to know what created this one!
In a similar vein to The Ring, Slender Man is summoned by watching a video and listening for the tolling bells. When you hear the bells, you’re supposed to close your eyes and focus. When the three tolls cease, you open your eyes and look into the film you are watching. For those truly drawn, you will see him.
A harmless bit of scary fun you may think, well so did the young ladies whom the film follows. They watched the Slender Man video as the group of guys they were friendly with said they were going to watch it. As is expected, the girls didn’t wimp out, but the boys did.
The legend of Slender Man says that once you have seen him you can’t unsee him, and he will either haunt you, send you mad, or, if you are lucky, he will take you. There are numerous videos on the internet of him praying on young children.
He can be summoned, and this is what the girls tried to do after one of their own was taken. They offered up sacrifices (items that they truly loved) in exchange for her safe return, but it didn’t work. The sacrifice that Slender Man really required was something far more corporeal than that.
I won’t say any more about the movie as it would take the edge of it for you. What I will say is that it is a very good supernatural movie and, whilst it didn’t scare me, it certainly had me on edge as to how it was going to play out.
It is great to see a truly supernatural horror movie; a movie of nightmares. The filmmakers did a good job in convincing us that Slender Man is real AND in building a believable world around the myth.
Definitely worth a watch, especially if you were plagued by senseless nightmares as a child.