If the story behind this chilling internet creation could have matched the quality of those aforementioned strong points, Sony would have a real horror gem on their hands.

In a movie this flat-out dull, even a tasteful lack of direct exploitation feels like a failure of nerve.

Give this literally and figuratively bloodless spooker a pass.

The movie is a big disappointment, because ultimately Slender Man does not get the full-on creep-out treatment such an intriguing character deserves. Here he's just a generic horror bad guy, doing standard horror-bad-guy things. He could be anything, really, and therefore winds up, like the movie, being not much.

Birke's script is plainly straightforward, a simple supernatural chase story. It doesn't plumb the depths of what might make Slender Man scary, so Slender Man isn't scary at all.