Rent Slender Man (2018)

Disappointingly dull - mild spoilers. - Slender Man review by NP

Apart from a few impressively creepy images on the internet, I was unfamiliar with the idea and concept of ‘the Slender Man’. To quote Wikipedia, ‘The Slender Man (also known as Slenderman) is a fictional supernatural character that originated as a creepypasta Internet meme created by Something Awful forums user Eric Knudsen (also known as "Victor Surge") in 2009. He is depicted as a thin, unnaturally tall humanoid with a featureless head and face and wearing a black suit.’ I’m still not sure I’m any the wiser!

This then, is the film based around the character. And sadly, despite the efforts of a young cast saddled with irritating dialogue centred around writer David Birke’s idea of teen dilemmas (affairs of the heart, usually), this is a fairly half-hearted affair. It owes some of its ideas to the central concept of ‘The Ring (1999)’ and employs much use of mobile phones to communicate events. The title character looks good, but is really just another ‘bogeyman’ whose function it is to traumatise flirting adolescents and administer death by CGI. With such a potentially creepy central character, I’m not sure this is the best use of his talents.

My favourite character is Wren. Actress Joey Taylor transcends the triteness of some of her dialogue and emerges as not only the most likeable lass of the bunch, but someone you actually do not wish to see fall victim of the machinations of the Slender Man. Director Sylvain White cloaks most scenes in an effective, sinister cold shadow and the ambient score by Ramin Djawadi and Brandon Campbell does its best to sustain the atmosphere. Ultimately however, ‘Slender Man’ is disappointingly dull.