“It’s a classic story of four girls who become curious about [the mysterious bogeyman) Slender Man and end up falling down the rabbit hole,” explains director Sylvain White of his new horror thriller Slender Man, opening in Philippine cinemas September 26.
“The night starts off as an ordinary slumber party, a get together like the girls have had many times before, but tonight they’re trying to do something they heard the guys would be doing doing, an absurd notion of conjuring Slender Man online. Curious, they follow the links but certainly don’t think much of it—it’s just another fun evening, and after they watch the weird video, they’re completely unaware that its effects already taking hold of them.”
“A couple of weeks later,” continues producer Brad Fischer, “these four best friends— Hallie, Wren, Chloe and Katie, are on a class trip to an old historic graveyard. Katie’s acting a little bit weird and ends up disappearing, and it’s through trying to find out what happened to their friend that the other girls start to believe that it could be Slender Man that’s behind it all. And they too start to fall down the same rabbit hole as their friend.”
“The story is about the relationships between these girls who have different emotional lives and triggers that ultimately lead them to believe in Slender Man and fall for his manipulations,” says Julia Goldani Telles, who plays sensible Hallie. “It’s about each of them fighting herself and all of them fighting each other as they try to figure out what the truth is and what the lies are. It’s about mass hysteria, how a secret subconscious language can lead to hysterical beliefs that originate from your brain.”
“These four friends decide one night to try and summon Slender Man. It’s just something like a Ouija board,” notes teen actress Joey King, “and they think nothing will come of it. Of course a week later, weird little signs begin. It’s a gradual buildup and it’s really creepy because you don’t want to hit the audience full on in the face in the first twenty minutes of the film. You watch these friends, who are so tight, as each of their worlds start to crumble and desperation takes over.”
“The girls have known each other for a very long time. They grew up in this small eastern industrial town that’s probably had its heyday in the ’50s and ’60s but has now been left behind,” observes director Sylvain White. “The unemployment rate is high; it’s a town that’s struggling, so we see this generation of kids that’s growing up within that environment. Their common bond and goal is to leave the town to try and look for something better. Boredom with their current environment drives them to look for something more exciting and their need to move on drives a curiosity that leads them to Slender Man and their true destiny.”
About Slender Man
In a small town in Massachusetts, a group of friends perform a ritual in an attempt to debunk the lore of Slender Man. When one of them goes mysteriously missing, they begin to suspect that she is, in fact, HIS latest victim.
Columbia Pictures’ new horror-thriller Slender Man stars Joey King (The Conjuring), Julia Goldani Telles (The Affair), Jaz Sinclair (Paper Towns), Annalise Basso (Ouija: Origin of Evil), Alex Fitzalan (Season and I Miss You), Taylor Richardson (A Most Violent Year) and Javier Botet (The Conjuring, Insidious 4, IT).
Slender Man is directed by Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard and The Losers) and produced by Bradley J. Fischer, James Vanderbilt, William Sherak, Robyn Meisinger and Sarah Snow. The film is written by David Birke (Elle).
Slender Man is distributed in the Philippines by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.