The Slender Man Movie Is Actually Happening, Prepare To Never Sleep Again

Hey, I bet I can guess what your nightmares will be about tonight! Today it has been confirmed that infamous internet horror creature Slender Man, will be most likely getting his own film by 2017. Apparently a script by David Birke (13 Sins, Gacy) is already in the works, so it looks like it’s really happening.

For those lucky enough to have never come across Slender Man, it all began as an internet meme in 2009 when a man called Victor Surge contributed to a Something Awful forum about “paranormal images through Photoshop”. He told the tale of a tall faceless man with tentacles coming out of his back, who preys on children by abducting and traumatising them. Remember The Gentleman from Buffy The Vampire Slayer? Like them but much, much worse.

Victor Surge kickstarted the story by posting a couple of images and two small blocks of text. From there other people also contributed to the Slender Man mythology, making creepy as hell images and videos. Surge’s original story read:

One of two recovered photographs from the Stirling City Library blaze. Notable for being taken the day which fourteen children vanished and for what is referred to as “The Slender Man”. Deformities cited as film defects by officials. Fire at library occurred one week later. Actual photograph confiscated as evidence. – 1986, photographer: Mary Thomas, missing since June 13th, 1986.

The most troubling aspect of the Slender Man mythology of course, is that in 2014 it actually inspired two 12-year-old girls in Milwaukee to stab one of their friends 19 times in order to win Slender Man’s protection. If you haven’t read Lisa Miller’s profile of the three girls for New York magazine you really should, but here’s the gist: Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser lured their friend Payton Leutner (or ‘Bella’) into the woods and under the guise of playing hide and seek, they attacked Bella as a “blood sacrifice” to Slender Man, something they had been planning to do for months.

The chilling story describes how Anissa, initially reluctant, began to walk away when she heard Morgan say: “Don’t be afraid, I’m only a little kitty cat” and attack her friend. Once they had left Bella, she was miraculously able to crawl to the nearest highway and raise the alarm. Morgan and Anissa are currently in detention and will be facing trial in July.

Is it creepy that Slender Man is now getting a movie after inspiring such horrific events? Hm, maybe. Really, horror movies that are inspired by real events are very commonplace (and it doesn’t look like this movie will have any basis in reality, yet). It’ll be interesting to see how the chips fall when creepy promotional material starts being released. Gah.

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