The urban legend is officially headed for theaters as we now have a brand new trailer for Slender Man, Screen Gems and Sylvain White’s horror flick which is due to arrive next month.
Taking inspiration from the titular Internet phenomenon, one hatched by Eric Knudsen almost 10 years ago, Slender Man is a thriller from the mind of writer David Birke, who’s perhaps best known for his contribution to Paul Verhoeven’s Elle. It’s been in development for a long, long time and after facing numerous delays and setbacks, it’s finally ready to haunt audiences – as evidenced by this chilling new footage from the film.
For the uninitiated, Slender Man is a creepy, wire-thin figure that really needs no introduction at this point. Considered to be 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 number of creepy 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.
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 of those movies was really up to snuff, though, which gives Slender Man the chance to course-correct this online phenomenon before it loses its allure.
Behind the camera for this one is the aforementioned Sylvain White, who’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 he’s put together a suitably scary film, but we won’t know for sure until next month, when Slender Man creeps out of the woods and into theaters on August 10th.
