I just got back from seeing “Slender Man”, and it was awful. Maybe no surprise there, but it truly was terrible. Instead of bashing it, here is how I would have made the movie. Give me a bit of a budget and here is what I would have done.
1. No summoning of Slendy. Why summon him? Why watch some stupid video wanting to summon him? I would have started off with the missing girl and gone from there. Slowly introduce the supernatural elements. Maybe have Slendy pop in a corner here and there, but keep him hidden until maybe the 35 min mark. Don’t even MENTION his name until that mark either. Make it a mysterious missing persons case.
2. No / fewer Jumpscares. Why do we need a huge BANG everytime the shadowy figure emerges? Silence is much scarier than noise. They’re so many instances where a character is walking and Slendy appears in a corner and all the music does is a loud thud noise. It’s stupid. I didn’t jump once. Have Slendy appear in a corner with only natural sounds. See if the audiences notice him on there own. Have ONE really good jumpscare instead of 100 stupid ones, OR none at all.
3. WAY Too Much CGI. Come on? CGI for a tall call in a suit? You only need to use CGI for things that you can’t do in real life. Why can’t you find an actor who’s maybe 6-7 feet tall, lanky, put him a black suit and apply some faceless make-up? That would have been effective, maybe put some cool lighting on him too. Have him walk slowly or maybe slightly off? The Marble Hornets movie did a great job with this (and everything else.)
4. Better Script. One of the major downfalls was the story. Slendy has so much lure and mystery, why couldn’t something more unique be done? With a monster that abducts kids, maybe have it from the parent’s point of view? Show his / her grief. Show how devastated they are. If you must use teens, maybe have one search for her / his missing sibling? Build up the characters instead of throwing us a bunch of cliches.
Check out DeviantArt for Slendy art and ideas. Fans have come up with great ideas and concepts, Slendy should not be a cookie cutter horror movie. It should be so much more. With all the fan theories and all the mystery, I do think Slender Man could have had a really nice story-maybe even excellent. Slender has been around for 10 years, and the script was most likely written by someone who didn’t even KNOW who Slendy was. I would have given ideas to REAL fans. Give them a chance to shine.
5. Better Direction and Editing. There’s a movie I loved, called “The Strangers.” Came out in 2008. The direction was fantastic. Just little things he did with the camera were awesome. The lack of music, using your surroundings as a character, build up to things, make us feel suspense. This is Slender Man, not Jason Voorhees. The point of Slendy is a psychological terror. I’d even say “The Conjuring” would have been good inspiration as well with its incredible sound design. If I could, I would have hired maybe the guy who directed “The Descent”, Neil Marshall, or my dad suggested Ryan Murphy, who does “American Horror Story.” For writing? I’d say Victor Surge, let him write his character and his vision. If not him, maybe James Wan? Or, an unknown? Have Blumhouse pictures release it or A24.
Final Thoughts. This is so sad. Slendy has SO much potential. So many cool pictures and short films, and this is what we get? Again, it’s sad. It makes me want to make my own feature-length Slender Man movie and give fans what they deserve.
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