Why 'Slender Man' Failed

So everyone has heard of the movie that was released recently; it is a supernatural thriller surrounding the man with no face and a group of teenagers who summoned him and now have to face the implications.

I can't say that the movie was terrible. One factor that I can give the movie was that it was visually beautiful, it had the kind of aesthetics that the youth today find interesting. The cast ensemble did a satisfactory job so where was the problem?

Easy: the writing for the movie. The movie was full of potential, it could've been an amazing movie if the synopsis was done right. It seemed like the writers were worried more about conveying some sort of social-generic message about the dangers of the dark side of the internet.

We seldom go into a horror flick expecting a message coming out. It is usually about the jump scares. The jump scares in the movie were based on anticipation which then ended up in nothing, another negative side of the movie.

The storyline had plot holes so big that were just unignorable but the potential that the movie had was noticeable; the movie wasn't terrible, it was just disappointing and a waste of a talented ensemble.

If this was planned as a series with no restrictions or strings holding it back, it could've been one of the most well-received series of the year unless it came into the hands of a sensitive-Millennial movie critic who would somehow ingeniously draw a similar link to the real-life crime 'inspired' or 'connected' to Slender Man.

There were so many relationships to explore from the movie: the lives of the four main characters who summoned Slender Man by watching a video online and how one friend's obsession with the supernatural creature and sacrifice to Slender Man led to the start of the fiasco. Another question was: who was ALEEYCAT93? It was established later in the movie for a mere three second that she was a patient in a mental institution but what was her connection and history? This could've been something that could've been explored in a TV series.

Even the message about the dangers of 'sharing Slender Man's word' and sharing the story is dangerous to today's youth was vague and nobody in the theater took interest in the message and was more involved and interested in leaving it.

So, how unsuccessful was the message conveyed at the end of the movie? First of all, the underlining point of the message was that we should basically stop online communication and sharing stuff from the internet. Some of us like conspiracy theories and we sometimes risk visiting some weird site where we get information from.

Second of all, there was some irony in the message; the audio was played over haunting visuals of dolls, the woods where Slender Man infamously lived in, so my question would probably be, what is the point conveying a message while portraying visuals of the exact same thing that you are going against?

That is just something that does not make sense and should've been thought of throughout by the production team before making the final cut.

At the end of the day, the movie was one of the most disappointing releases of the year, a movie that had so much potential that is just depressing knowing the end result was something like this. This is one of the first movies to be made based on a digital myth, some sort of dark meme, and it is not a good start if this is a tradition that directors are interested in continuing.

Rating: 3.5/10