Slender Man (2018) is a movie that shouldn’t be watched alone. Not because it’s scary, but rather, if one has to suffer through a movie this wretched, you might as well have someone to suffer through it with.

I am tempted to leave this review at that and call it a day because it rather sums it up. However, since 366 Weird Movie readers inexplicably voted for this dung heap more than any other movie in the 2018 summer blockbuster poll, I might as well give your money’s worth and count it as my penance for all the readers that I’ve pissed off over the last nine years.

I do recall some reader was shocked that I had never heard of the Slender Man. A co-worker (a clown actor—I mean, he literally plays a clown) who saw it before me texted that the movie was “ratchet,” but it was worth seeing because the girl was “thicc.” I thought I had detected a couple of typos. After he texted back ROTFL, I deduced I had better Google a millennial translator. Job done, I texted him back that this is why I sometimes feel, if you’re under 40, I’m probably going to hate you. (Not really, of course. Overall, I think millennials are a better lot than my baggage-saturated generation.)

Back to the movie, if we must.

Humphrey Bogart once complained that Hollywood intentionally putting out bad movies was like Ford intentionally putting out bad cars. Sylvain White’s Slender Man is such a case. It’s lazy filmmaking at its worst. This is White’s fourth American film, and although he is mostly known through television work, he has the distinction of helming a string of American feature film flops. One would think that would deter producers. Not at all, especially when their sole concern is to cash in on an internet-based urban legend, a lot of yawn-inducing fan fiction, and a 2014 fan stabbing, which was detailed in the 2016 documentary Beware the Slender Man (that received mixed reviews). White, who has made his reputation mostly for small screen work and the 2013 French thriller Mark of Angels had to have known David Birke’s script was a derivative waste. This is not going to help his resume.

Even producers were aware this is a rotten egg, extending their review blackout date by 24 hours.

The film had potential; all of which was flippantly squandered. When our 7-foot tall haunted house actor took the guise of Slender Man to pass out fliers last season, throngs of people freaked out, and it made the news. The actor didn’t actually do anything. He just walked around in the mask and suit. The scare factor lies in people’s perception from the social media history. The film unwisely focuses too much on the character, bringing him to life through a scenario we’ve seen countless times before: a group of vapid teens, hearing about the legend, Google “Slender Man” (no, I’m not kidding) and close their eyes, ding go the church bells, and lo and behold, he is summoned forth through what looks 10th generation Photoshop FX ripped off from The Ring . Of course, the teens fill every stereotypical prototype and can’t die soon enough. One of the brood gets kidnapped by Slender Man and what follows is a brief detective subplot that has all the horror of Snoopy playing Sherlock Holmes.

Slender Man apparently likes modern technology because he somehow makes cellphones squeak, messes with the kids’ jams, and even sends really wacky (and badly edited) video footage to potential victims. The hair on the nape of my neck was standing on end. Actually, it was the cinema air conditioner (we are in our third week of a 100 degree weather). How does Slender Man do all this? Why does he do all this? These are questions that the world may never know.

And of course, just when you run and turn the corner, bam! Slender Man is there! But, even the jump scares are few and far between. At least Freddy had that in his worst outings. Slender Man commits not one, but two cardinal genre sins: it’s a scary movie  that’s not scary, and it’s a total bore to boot. As for the “thicc” chick (how do you pronounce that? Does it rhyme?), I have no idea which “chick,” the clown actor was referring to but, maybe that’s because I’m in my mid fifties.

“Slender Man is so bad…”

“How bad is he?”

Slender Man is so bad, that fanboys aren’t even claiming there’s a critical conspiracy to make fun of the character.

Slender Man is so bad, that for once audiences and critics actually agree.

Slender Man is so bad, that I actually saw four patrons (there weren’t many to begin with) walk out within a half hour.

Slender Man is so bad, that our House of Shadows actor, who’s been playing Slender Man for three years, had plans to use the occasion of the film’s opening weekend to dress again as the character and pass out fliers.

Then, he saw the movie …

…and promptly canceled his plans.

If readers overwhelmingly picked this movie because they thought it was going to be “cool” (or insert whatever millennial slang one uses), you utterly failed.

However, if readers picked Slender Man as a sadistic revenge upon me, you have triumphed.