Slender (2016 film)
Slender (2016)
Summary
"Don't believe." Two filmmakers searching for the perfect documentary subject stumble across a story that even they don't want to believe.
Details
- Release Date: 2016
- Country/Language: US, English
- Genres/Technical: Horror (creepypasta/urban legend), found footage
- Setting: small-town USA, Modern era
- Runtime: 1 hr 30 min
- Starring: Joel Petrie, Dan Schovaers, Mili Parks
- Director: Joel Petrie
- Writer: Raymund Delmar & Joel Petrie
- Producer/Production Co: Parking Garage Pictures, Rare Legend Films
- View Trailer: (link)
- IMDB Page: (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: (not rated) (equivalent to a PG-13 for Violence, Adult Content, Profanity)
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- s____ (One Half Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)
Really, not much going on here, except for the implied third-hand cosmic horror shadow of the 'Slender Man' mythos internet meme that this film attempts to stand under. The found-footage format used by this movie could be argued as comparable to the old stereotypically Lovecraftian "apocalyptic log" trope ("...and now the Tentacle Monster summoned by the monstrous, worm-eaten book, incidentally written by the thrice-cursed witches hanged in Salem in 1666, is reaching in my window, I see it's cyclopean and eldritch hand a mere few inches away from my face, I must write faster while it eats my face, you cannot imagine the horror of its gnashing teeth and clutching claws, or the sound of its squamous, amorphous, growling stomach... and now it is starting to nibble on my toe, while I proof-read the previous sentence - gods save me, Ia Shub-Niggurath! I'm done for...."), but it's really not worth the trouble of making the comparison.
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- Y.Whateley: "Of the two 'Slender Man' movies I've seen, this one was the most disposable: shot mostly on cell-phones and basic cam-corders with what must have been no budget at all and (more importantly) with no story at all. Among the film's worst crimes against the viewer is that virtually nothing scary, supernatural, horrific, disturbing, or even vaguely atmospheric happens on-screen in an hour-and-a-half-long film that feels like the old '20 Minutes With Jerks' thing (where you're forced to spend the first few minutes of a film "getting to know" a bunch of repellent characters just for the satisfaction of seeing a monster eat their faces before the end of the film) stretched to an hour-and-twenty-minutes-with-jerks, but without the pay-off of seeing anything horrible happen to the pack of miserable, nagging, back-stabbing schmucks except some vague off-camera thing in the last moments of the movie - sort of like Blair Witch Project, but without any of that superior film's charm. The screenshot included in this article is pretty much all I remember from watching it: a lot of vague, poorly-lit boom mics, cell phones, flashlights, and shadows in an empty school building at night. There might be something in there for die-hard fans of the 'Slender Man' mythos, but not much for the rest of us."
Synopsis (SPOILERS)
Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)
A couple jerks film themselves being jerks, film themselves making recordings of some poor schmuck who makes vague and probably non-copyright-infringing references to the 'Slender Man' mythos, film themselves recruiting a couple more jerks to stage a hoax at the schmuck's expense, film themselves doofing around being jerks for a while before putting their hoax in action, film themselves doofing around being jerks while the hoax is executed, film themselves doofing around like jerks while the hoax achieves predictably obnoxious and sad results, and finally, in the last ten minutes of the film, utterly fail to film themselves vaguely disappearing one-by-one off-camera, which is something, I guess.
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
Associated Mythos Elements
- deity: Shadow Man (is alluded to by one character, appears in the form of a costume in a hoax, and maybe appears off-screen somewhere)
Keeper Notes
