The urban legend is officially headed for theaters as IGN has premiered the inaugural trailer for Slender Man, Screen Gems and Sylvain White’s horror flick due to arrive on May 18th.
Lifting inspiration from the titular Internet phenomenon, one hatched by Eric Knudsen almost 10 years ago, Slender Man is a long-brewing thriller from the mind of David Birke, who’s perhaps best known for his contribution to Paul Verhoeven’s Elle. This time around, he’s dealing with a modern-day myth, as Slender Man has spawned countless memes, video games, and even an attempted murder in 2014, when two young girls stabbed one of their classmates in an alleged ‘sacrifice’ to the online boogeyman. Chills.
And like all great horror stories, that impossibly tall ghoul has even inspired some half-baked clones, including The Tall Man and The Bye-Bye Man. Neither film was really up to snuff, though, which lends Slender Man the chance to course-correct this online phenomenon before it loses its allure.
For the uninitiated, Slender Man is a creepy, wire-thin figure that needs no introduction. Revered as something of an Internet legend since its inception in 2009, ol’ Slender has stalked nightmares and effectively clawed his way into popular culture thanks to a string of nerve-shredding short films, an appearance in Microsoft’s über-popular Minecraft and even two video games of his own in Slender: The Eight Pages and Slender: The Arrival.
As for the film adaptation, it stars Jaz Sinclair (Paper Towns), Joey King (The Conjuring), Julia Goldani Telles (Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life), Annalise Basso (Ouija: Origin of Evil) and Alex Fitzalan, and at least based on this first-look teaser, Sylvain White (The Losers) and Co. look to have delivered a truly unsettling take on the titular monstrosity.
Slender Man will come knocking on May 18th, so batten down the hatches.
