Slender Man (2018) is coming out to theaters worldwide this August. The movie is directed by Sylvain White, a man specialized on TV series but that surprised the world with his award-winning The Losers (2010), and was written by David Birke. Spanish monster performed Javier Botet brings to life the nightmarish creature of the title and will terrorize a cast formed by Joey King, Annalise Basso, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, Kevin Chapman, Michael Reilly Burke, Taylor Richardson, Kallie Tabor and Jessica Blank.
For those who are not familiarized with The Slender Man, it was created on June 10, 2009, on a thread in the Internet forum Something Awful. The thread was a Photoshop contest in which users were challenged to edit everyday photographs to appear paranormal. Forum poster Eric Knudsen, under the pseudonym “Victor Surge“, contributed two black and white images of groups of children, to which he added a tall, thin spectral figure wearing a black suit. Although previous entries had consisted solely of photographs, Surge supplemented his submission with snatches of text—supposedly from witnesses—describing the abductions of the groups of children, and giving the character the name “The Slender Man“.
The invented creature became sadly popular when on May 31, 2014, two 12-year-old girls in Waukesha, Wisconsin allegedly held down and stabbed a 12-year-old classmate 19 times. When questioned later by authorities, they reportedly claimed that they wished to commit a murder as a first step to becoming proxies for the Slender Man, having read about it online. They also state that they were afraid that Slender Man would kill their families if they did not commit the murder. The victim survived the attack. Both attackers have been diagnosed with mental illnesses but have also been charged as adults and are each facing up to 65 years in prison. One of the girls reportedly said Slender Man watches her, can read minds and could teleport. Experts testified in court she also said she conversed with Lord Voldemort and one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Some of these events are depicted in the documentary Beware the Slenderman, released by HBO Films in March 2016.
Check out the second trailer for Slender Man (2018) here:
