Beware the Slender Man.
Eric Knudsen’s modern-day boogeyman has been the talk of the town ever since that haunting trailer reveal, and though the Sony horror flick resonated with many, it’s now been hit with a fairly big delay. Originally set to be with us on May 18th, the studio has shifted it to August 24th. It’s not the end of the world, of course, but those looking forward to seeing the pic will surely be left a bit disappointed.
Lifting inspiration from the titular Internet phenomenon, one created by 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 working 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.
Of course, as with all great horror stories, that impossibly tall ghoul has inspired some half-baked clones, including The Tall Man and The Bye-Bye Man. Neither effort was really up to snuff, though, which gives director Sylvain White the chance to course-correct this online phenomenon before it loses its allure.
He’ll be presiding over a cast list that features 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. From what we’ve seen so far, it certainly looks like they’ve put together a suitably scary movie, but we won’t know for sure until this summer.
Regardless, we expect more information to creep out of the woods in the coming months as Slender Man inches closer to its August 24th release.
