Publication Date: 05-19-2026

Slender Man (2018) review

Dir. Sylvain White

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

Chalk up Sylvain White’s unassuming, late-summer offering Slender Man alongside The Gallows and Wish Upon, other unfairly maligned films of the genre. Despite bearing more issues with its presentation and exposition than those other two flicks, Slender Man showcase of how intense preoccupation with web-based phenomena for the sole purpose of trying to find a good scare rises above the tropes of most routine teen slashers, and its shortcomings in other areas don’t obscure its low-key ambition.

A bit of backstory before we proceed. Conceptualized by Eric Knudsen (known as “Victor Surge”) and given life by the popular website creepypasta, Slender Man is a boogeyman for the internet age. He’s depicted as a faceless, lanky humanoid with no face, distended arms, and a snappy suit. His demands are different for everyone; for some, he wants sacrifice, whereas for others, he wants to transport them someplace where they’ll never be seen again. The figure became hugely popular on the internet in the early 2010s, but really gained national notoriety after two young girls mercilessly stabbed one of their peers claiming they were trying to impress Slender Man. Since then, the character has lived on in the form of message boards and generations of people claiming that, like Bigfoot and Resurrection Mary, he’s out there, somewhere.

The film revolves around four friends — Wren (Joey King, who also starred in Wish Upon), Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles), Chloe (Jaz Sinclair), and Katie (Annalise Basso) — who decide to summon Slender Man by watching a video during a sleepover. A week later, Katie disappears prompting the three girls to look into her disappearance. They raid her laptop and find a hard drive full of proposed Slender Man sightings and a chat-room that has Katie admitting that she wished to be taken by the obscure man, largely due to the alienation she felt due to the sorry state of her family. The three girls then proceed to communicate with Slender Man in hopes of bringing their friend back, in turn leaving them with permanent scars.

The trick with Slender Man is that actually seeing him will determine your fate; you’ll either be dead or kidnapped before you know it, or perhaps worse, you’ll carry on in a state that renders you totally disconnected from everything around you. One by one the girls begin growing more detached from their surroundings, becoming gradually more confused by visions of the abstract and the demonic. Wren remains steadfast in trying to find her friend, while Hallie’s opposition only renders her more vulnerable when the inevitable comes and Slender Man overtakes her; during a date with her crush nonetheless.

Slender Man moves in an intriguing way, not quite in the same manner that most derivative films of the genre would. It’s commendably atmospheric, drenched in fog with a lingering presence of allusion in the sense that what we’re seeing is a construct of our imagination. It’s the uncommon chiller where two people could be watching the same scene and come away with drastically different reactions. Some might see it as disingenuous, others might feel captivated largely because of their interest with the titular figure and nothing more. But there’s an effectively unsettling mood that stems from the film’s strong grasp on all of its characters and the vibes everything around them produces. It’s spooky and ambient.

Writer David Birke also shows that he can conjure up believable dialog amongst teenagers without it feeling vapid or wasted. The sarcastic cadence and age-appropriate communication, even with a PG-13 rating making any real vulgar bursts all-but-impossible, are commensurate with the same individuals who would do something like try and summon Slender Man on a Friday night. Birke finds humor and realistic nuance in the girls’ dialog, and oddly enough, doesn’t make an attempt to use it as a comedic crutch to make sure viewers closer to the “13” part of its MPAA rating aren’t scared. Rather, the moments gel well with the tone of the overall project.

There’s nothing in Slender Man that reinvents the wheel, but its subtext has seemingly been overlooked by a rash of critics quick to bill it as a shameless rip-off of The Ring. The film suggests the way urban legends and myths metastasize into fanatical subcultures is through impressionistic young people, now emboldened free information and armed capability of sharing their every move and thought with the world. What transpires, according to Birke and White, is the creation of another consuming subculture that can devour your spirit just as much as it can your free-time.

One final note: the aforementioned case where two girls stabbed another girl in the name of Slender Man happened in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 2014. Many theaters in Waukesha and Milwaukee Counties have elected not to screen Slender Man out of respect for those impacted by the terrible incident. Given the subtext, it’s strange to ponder that perhaps those areas are the ones that need to see the film the most.

Starring: Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, Annalise Basso, Javier Botet, and Kevin Chapman. Directed by: Sylvain White.