‘Slender Man’ Meme Finally Becomes a Movie in First Bizarre Trailer
“But wait,” you say, “wasn’t there already a Slender Man movie in 2016?” Well, yes and no: You’re probably thinking of the terrible horror flick The Bye-Bye Man, or maybe you’re remembering the HBO documentary Beware the Slender Man, which examined the internet phenomenon that inspired two 12-year-old girls to attempt murder. Slender Man is the first official — or as official as it can be for something based on a meme — film about the sinister internet boogeyman, although if you didn’t know the title of the movie, you might think this trailer is actually for a fan-made sequel to The Ring.
The trailer includes several eerie shots and a few time lapse sequences of creepy things like maggots, evoking Gore Verbinski’s similar approach with his remake of The Ring. Other than that, there’s not much to suggest that this is a movie about Slender Man, the creepypasta meme first introduced in 2009 on the Something Awful forum. Since then, the character — a tall, white-faced man in a black suit who lurks around kids — has inspired countless fan-fics, artwork, video games, urban legends and yes, even an attempted murder.
While last year’s The Bye-Bye Man was definitely loosely based on the character, Slender Man is the first horror movie to actually feature him as the titular antagonist — though you don’t really see him in this weird trailer, which focuses instead on the deadly effect he has on kids.
Directed by Sylvain White (The Losers) from a script by David Birke (Elle — um, yeah…), Slender Man stars Joey King, Jaz Sinclair and Annalise Basso, and hits theaters on May 18, 2018.
By the way — if you’re looking to watch something based on creepypastas that’s actually good, I suggest you catch up with the first two seasons of Channel Zero on the Syfy network. Created by former Hannibal writer Nick Antosca, the series takes popular creepypasta stories and adapts them into short, atmospheric seasons (six episodes each) with great, disturbing designs and imagery.