review - The Spooky Stuff by Alex Matsuo

The newest “Slender Man” (2018) movie was released last night. I don’t normally write reviews unless I feel inspired to do so. Sometimes this is a good thing. In this case, it wasn’t. I have been fascinated by the Slenderman (Slender Man?) phenomenon for quite a while. I’m not even talking about the subsequent crimes that took place by mentally ill teenagers. I’ve been fascinated by the idea of how legends can be created so quickly and go viral thanks to the innovation of the internet.

One of my side jobs is being a writer for TheRichest. I had the awesome chance to write a script about Slenderman before the new movie came out. You can check it out here. I recommend watching this before or after you see the movie, because frankly, the real story is more interesting than what the movie portrayed:

Now that we’re on the same page, here are my thoughts on the new “Slender Man” movie.

It was a huge disappointment. It had amazing source material to draw from, and it failed on epic levels. If you don’t want spoilers, then I recommend you stop reading now.

My first major issue with it was the movie dragged. There wasn’t a lot of meat to this movie at all, and it seemed like the writers didn’t have a lot to work with. The result was every mediocre action was dragged out much longer than it should have. There were moments where the pace picked up, usually with when SM made an appearance or attacked, which didn’t happen often. The movie felt like 3 hours when it was about an hour and thirty minutes.

My second issue is how the world was built. It started okay, but then it went downhill from there. First off, you summon Slender Man by watching a video on the Internet. Once I saw this, I immediately thought of “The Ring”, but this concept wasn’t as well executed. But an online video? Sure. I suppose one could argue that since SM was born from the internet, then it would make sense. But, there is a plot hole that derails this theory later on in the movie. One of the characters, named Wren, goes to the library to do more research on SM and finds that his origins and child-stealing activities could even date back to him being the Pied Piper. If you can only summon SM from an online video, how does that explain his child-stealing activities before we had the internet?

After the first girl , Katie, disappeared, there was some scratching the surface on potentially having the father involved, or at least aware of some occult activities. But that is never revisited again.

The mystery girl who the characters chatted with online was never fully explored besides a follow-up news article that she went nuts. How did she know so much about SM? Was her mind being controlled by SM? Why didn’t the character speak to her more since she was so knowledgeable? Another plot hole that wasn’t further explored.

The biggest thing that bothered me was that the main character were incredibly whiny and weak. When Katie first disappears, all they can question is whether it was SM. At first, they are proactive in trying to find their friend as they deal with their own nightmares and hallucinations. Then, that drive wanes off for two of the characters. When Wren tries to do more research, she comes across a theory that SM is bioelectric, and he is using that bioelectric energy to break down the minds of his victim. Again, this was interesting, but once again, unexplored. There was no attempt to really try to STOP Slenderman from his ghastly agenda. Hallie (with the last name Knudsen in honor of the creator of SM, Eric Knudsen/Victor Surge), doesn’t seemed to be bothered trying to figure out what’s going on despite having her own SM sightings. All the while denying things were going on and trying to explain everything. If her sightings were trivial and debunkable in the movie, that would be one thing, but she was having full-out sightings and intense nightmares. And yet, that didn’t drive her to do more? Her love interest, Tom, also ends up watching the video. All we see is that he’s shaken up coming into class sometime after with bruises on his arm. Again, this plot point is not revisited.

Given that Slenderman has no real canon besides what people on the internet have conjured up, this movie had the potential to bring something new and fresh to the legend. Unfortunately, this fell incredibly short. As mentioned in my video, it would have been cool to explore the idea that is was US who created Slenderman through collective thought. Then, the girls go into this whole thing of trying to get people to STOP thinking about Slenderman, which of course, would never happen. It seemed that the girls were doomed from the beginning because they didn’t do anything to try to stop him. The movie dragged on and on with questions on what SM was, their boring nightmares, and trying to brush it off as if it were nothing.

There was also no violent crimes mentioned or even performed in this movie. I assume it was for the respect and sensitivity to the crimes that Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser committed in 2014. There were a few other SM crimes that year as well. However, the movie could have done something…like a desperate attempt by one of the girls to try to save herself?

Why do I have “false advertising” in the title of the review? Let’s get into that.

Also, if we look at the original trailer, there were plot points brought up in the trailer that didn’t make the cut in the movie:

The part where Chloe stabs herself in the eye doesn’t make the cut. Instead, she gets visited and choked by Slender Man and becomes catatonic. The girl writing, “Can you see him?” seems to be the mystery chatter from the beginning of the film. But this is a scene we never see. Also, we never see a girl walking out of the woods, to be greeted by police cars. It looks like the mystery chatter again. AGAIN. Why wasn’t this plot point explored? We also never see the guy taking his own life by jumping off the roof. It looks like they had planned for maybe a more violent movie and then postponed the release from May to August to completely change the movie? It would make sense as to why we got this final product. However, the movie that the official trailer sold to us was not the final product that we received in the theater.

Screen-Shot-2018-01-03-at-10.16.09-AM — See this scene? You won’t see it in the movie.

At the end, SM is the winning champion of the movie, as the girls (predictably) falter and join him in the other world. The most interesting part of the movie is the last 10 minutes. But even the last shot of the movie was mediocre and boring as it showed a school hallway. It definitely left you feeling a void of wasting 90 minutes of your life on wasted potential.

On Wednesday night, I had the chance to see a special preview of Annabelle before it opened this weekend. I sat on the idea of whether to write a review of the movie or not, and while it’s Sunday, I decided to just do it. It’s going to be short, especially since there are numerous people out there who don’t like spoilers, so I’ll give my initial thoughts. Keep in mind that I’m not a film critic.

If you’re looking for accuracy in terms of the real story of Annabelle, you best look elsewhere. Before even walking into the movie, you have to accept that this is a “Hollywood” film, so there will be embellishments, overly dramatized actions, and more. If you approach this as a fiction film, then you’ll probably enjoy it more.

On that note, you can probably tell that I walked into the movie with really low expectations, which might be why I didn’t hate the movie. In fact, I actually liked it.

In the “prologue” of the film, we get a glimpse of two nurses and a man being interviewed by who we assume is Ed and Lorraine Warren about the doll. Then there’s a quick cutaway to “One year earlier…” (and the poor girl next to me read it as “One year later” and proceeded to be really confused the rest of the movie).

The real Annabelle doll at the Warrens' museum in Connecticut — The real Annabelle doll at the Warrens’ museum in Connecticut

In terms of plot, even though the movie’s start was a bit slow, it quickly accelerated as the premise of WHY the doll became possessed or haunted in the first place was established. The movie starred (ironically) Annabelle Wallis and Ward Horton as a young couple expecting their first child, named Mia and John. Well, John (Horton) gifts the creepy doll to Mia. Even before the doll becomes possessed and evil, it is a creepy doll and makes you wonder why Mia wanted it in the first place, but it turns out the doll is a rare collector’s item that is part of a collection. While still a bit unbelievable when Mia called the doll “beautiful”, the sense of realism as to why the doll was there to begin with kind of makes sense.

Of course with any horror film, there are jump moments and plot twists just for the sake of shock value, along with moments where people were literally yelling at the screen to tell the characters to turn back or not go into the creepy basement. But as the film closed out, I was actually moved to near tears as one of the characters makes the ultimate sacrifice to bring peace to the young family and their baby. The movie also ends with a full circle with the interview in the very beginning with a blurb about the doll’s current whereabouts.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie and recommended my friends who are horror fans and/or into the paranormal to see it.

If you go in with the assumption that this sequel/prequel to “The Conjuring” is going to be an exaggeration of the real Annabelle story and understand that it’s just Hollywood, you might enjoy it. If you’re new to the whole thing and don’t know the story of Annabelle, you best check it out and learn where the story came from. I imagine that the movie will help drive interest in the Warrens and Annabelle, and more people than ever will want to see the doll.

Tag: review

Slender Man Movie Review: False Advertising & Wasted Potential

My Review of “Annabelle”