Beware the Slender Man.
Eric Knudsen’s modern-day boogeyman has been the talk of the town ever since Wednesday’s haunting trailer reveal, and though the Sony horror flick resonated with many, Bill Weier considers the Slender Man movie to be “extremely distasteful.”
Weier’s 12-year-old daughter, Anissa, was one of two 12-year-old Wisconsin girls who stabbed their classmate in order to please the fictional entity. It’s unclear as to whether Sony’s feature film will incorporate this disturbing true-life incident into its story, but that hasn’t stopped Bill Weier from voicing his opinion via the Associated Press (with a tip of the hat to The Hollywood Reporter):
It’s absurd they want to make a movie like this. It’s popularizing a tragedy, is what it’s doing. I’m not surprised, but in my opinion it’s extremely distasteful. All we’re doing is extending the pain all three of these families have gone through.
Sony is yet to issue a response to Weier’s accusations at the time of writing, though we’ll keep you right up-to-date as this situation unfolds.
Truth be told, there are numerous examples of films that have handled true-life tragedies with care and craft – it’s all in the execution, really. For Slender Man, the onus is now on writer-director Sylvain White, whose credits also include The Losers and slasher sequel, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer.
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.
Expect more information to creep out of the woods in the coming weeks and months, as Slender Man sees a release on May 18th.
