Slender Man is a 2018 American supernatural horror film produced by Mythology Entertainment and distributed by Screen Gems, a subsidiary of Sony Pictures. The film's plot is written by Victor Surge and David Birke.
It is directed by Sylvain White and stars Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair and Annalise Basso, in addition to Javier Botet as the titular main antagonist.
Following its release, the movie was heavily panned by various critics while also drawing the ire of a large amount of its audience. The films scores on review sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Meta-critic steadily dropped for a week following its release until settling at abysmally low scores.
Development[]
In May 2016, Mythology Entertainment, Madhouse Entertainment, and No Dream Entertainment acquired the media rights to Slender Man. It was later sold to Screen Gems, a subsidiary of Sony Pictures. In late 2016, it was announced that David Birke would be making the script for the movie.
On January 4th, 2017, it was announced by Deadline Hollywood that Sylvain White would be directing the film. Additionally, Deadline stated that filming was set to begin by spring 2017. The film was scheduled to be released in May 2018.
On May 22, 2017, cast was announced including Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, Annalise Basso, Talitha Bateman (who would later be replaced by Taylor Richardson) and Alex Fitzalan. In July 2017, Kevin Chapman joined the cast as an emotionally defeated, alcoholic father.
On May 23rd, 2017, the film's main cast and release date was revealed.[1]
On May 29th, 2017, it was revealed by The Boston Globe that the film will be shooting in Boston, Massachusetts. It was also revealed that shooting will run from June 19 to July 28.[2]
In August 2017, it was announced Spanish actor Javier Botet were to play Slender Man.
An official poster for the film was released on January 2nd, 2018. The official teaser trailer was released the next day.
On January 23rd, 2018, the film's release date was delayed. The film is now set to release on August 24th, 2018.[3]
On May 31st, 2018 - the film began searching for a new distributor, due to disagreements with the film's production company and distributor. Candidates include Amazon and Netflix.[4]
On July 18th, 2018 - the MPAA gave the film a rating of PG-13 for "disturbing images, sequences of terror, thematic elements and language including some crude sexual references". Additionally, the release date was updated to August 10th.
On July 26, 2018 - A second trailer was released by Sony Pictures. Actress Joey King later announced on her Twitter an international release is in the works.
The movie was released in the United States on August 10, 2018, by Screen Gems, and received generally unfavorable reviews from critics.
Marcus Theaters decided not to screen the film in their theaters in Waukesha and Milwaukee Counties in Wisconsin, out of consideration and respect for those impacted by the real-life events.[1]
After the film was released, it was reported that Screen Gems mandated a PG-13 MPAA rating and reworked the original script, as well as forcibly editing out several major scenes over fears of public backlash, which resulted in massive transition and continuity issues. This came after Bill Weier's comments on the production. The studio also reportedly had never shown any support of the development of the project to begin with.[2][3]
The film is set to become available digitally on October 19th, 2018[5] . A Blu-Ray release is set to be released on October 30th, 2018.[6]
Special Features:
- "Summoning Slender Man" - Meet the Cast
Cast[]
- Wren - Played by Joey King
- Hallie - Played by Julia Goldani Telles
- Chloe - Played by Jaz Sinclair
- Katie Jensen - Played by Annalise Basso
- Lizzie - Played by Taylor Richardson
- Tom - Played by Alex Fitzalan
- Mr. Jensen - Played by Kevin Chapman
- Allison Riley - Played by Kallie Tabor (uncredited)
- Slender Man - Played by Javier Botet
Synopsis[]
Terror strikes when four teenage girls in a small town perform a ritual to debunk the lore of a tall, thin, horrifying figure known as the Slender Man. They soon fear that the legend is true when one of them suddenly goes missing.
Reception[]
The Slender Man movie is generally hated by both critics and audiences. Almost immediately after its release, its Rotten Tomatoes score for critics was set to 11%, rising steadily to 18% in 2019, a score that is still considered extremely low for the website. While the audience score would meander up and down by a percent for a week, it would eventually even out by August 25th at 8%, although by September 17th, it would further drop to 6%, and rise to 7% by November 15th.
Audience scores initially started out significantly higher, and showed a bad 44%. This percentage would also drastically drop, and by November 15th, the score would be dropped to an appalling 20%.[4]
On metacritic, the movie would sit at a low 30. The audience score started at a 2.9, and would fall to 2.5 by December 9th, dropping even lower in 2019 to 2.2.[5]
Many of these reviews in particular call out specific details ad-naseum. The story is referenced as being boring, confusing, poorly edited, lackluster, and uninspired. The actresses have been either considered as good actresses in bad roles, or bad actresses who poorly performed in a large majority of the scenes. The CGI has been called out as horrendous and laughable. In particular a number of reviews make reference to the fact that Slender Man has not been particularly relevant to the public eye for many years.
Sara Michelle Fetters of moviefreak.com wrote "Slender Man is as gigantic a missed opportunity as anything I’ve seen in ages. Director Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard, The Losers) and writer David Birke (Elle, 13 Sins) have crafted a motion picture that’s never as interesting as it wants to be and does a poor job of maintaining tension and suspense throughout the majority of its 93-minute running time."[6]. Adam Graham of the Detroit News wrote ""Slender Man" doesn't touch on that story, it's purely a work of fiction, but it never puts a stake in the ground and decides what to make of the figure at its center. The friends ("The Kissing Booth's" Joey King among them) are interchangeable, and director Sylvain White ("Stomp the Yard") employs quick-cut techniques from 1990s music videos and blaring soundtrack cues when trying to produce scares."[7]
Audience reviews were not much kinder, with critics such as Adam Johnston of yourmoviesucksDOTorg saying in his video criticism "Pretty much all of the effects in the film were god-awful. The Slender Man himself looked like he was plucked straight out of that low-budget "Slender: The Eight Pages" game. The computer animation in this film just looked like an unfinished product. It was all pretty garbage. There were several jump-scares in this movie that were literally just people walking by like normal. "Oh no a librarian in the library!". The film's score <EXPLETIVE> sucked and was either the result of lack of talent or lack of effort. I don't think any composer would waste their good material on a movie like this." and ended his review saying "Don't show up to this one expecting anything even remotely competent" and gave the film a 1/10[8], a score shared with his review of Unfriended: Dark Web [9], and beaten by both Truth or Dare (2/10) [10] and The Meg (4/10) [11].
In particular, the families of the 2014 Slender Man Stabbing voiced heavy disapproval for the creation of this film, citing parallels to the actual case and the movies plot. The disgust in particular was so bad, that the film was not shown in theaters in the Wisconsin area[12][13]. A petition to stop the film was enacted prior to the films release, and the petition closed in November of 2018 with 24290 signatures, only 720 short of its goal.[14]
Slender Man finished 2018 with an IMDb rating of 3.2[7], a spoiled Rotten Tomatoes rating at 7%[8], and a Metacritic rating of 30%[9]. The film was reputed as one of the year's most controversial motion pictures.
Awards[]
| List of awards and nominations | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Award | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | |
| 2019 | Golden Raspberry Awards | Worst Supporting Actress | Jaz Sinclair | Nominated | |
Trivia[]
- During the library scene, Wren cllcks on a link to Abilities of the Slender Man. But, in the next shot, an entirely different website is shown.
- Additionally, a forum resembling our Theories and Speculation board appears. But instead, it is titled "Suppositions and Theories".
Images[]
Trailers[]
Clips[]
Links[]
References[]
- ↑ http://www.wisn.com/article/marcus-theatres-wont-show-slender-man-movie-in-milwaukee-waukesha-counties/22669308
- ↑ https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3515065/sonys-fear-killed-big-screen-debut-slender-man-exclusive/
- ↑ http://collider.com/slender-man-cut-scenes
- ↑ https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/slender_man/
- ↑ http://www.metacritic.com/movie/slender-man
- ↑ http://moviefreak.com/slender-man-2018-movie-review/#.W3jSP8NodPZ
- ↑ https://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/movies/2018/08/10/movie-review-adam-graham-slender-man-slight-its-own-details/902292002/
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oleNG3ou7Gk
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uajP8-POr_k
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8KtKp9v750
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hf9Pp2eyjI
- ↑ https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2018/08/08/slender-man-movie-wont-show-milwaukee-theaters-heres-why/943637002/
- ↑ https://people.com/movies/slender-man-film-not-showing-near-counties-teen-stabbing/
- ↑ https://www.thepetitionsite.com/820/804/773/stop-the-slender-man-movie/