Leigh Paatsch: Very little to leave you scared

REVIEW: With Slender Man, one of the creepiest urban myths in internet history becomes one of the un-creepiest horror movies in motion picture history.

Joey King (Wren) and Julia Goldani-Telles (Hallie) in Screen Gems' SLENDER MAN.

SLENDER MAN (M)

Rating: one star (1 out of 5)

Director: Sylvain White (Stomp the Yard)

Starring: Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, Annalise Basso.

Now you see him ... now you won’t.

With Slender Man, one of the creepiest urban myths in internet history becomes one of the un-creepiest horror movies in motion picture history.

The undeniably haunting faceless visage of the Slender Man started life as a single Photoshopped image on a message board almost a decade ago.

As the figure went viral over the years, associated memes gifted the ghastly dude a myriad of disturbing back stories (one of which spawned a notorious attempted murder case at a US high school).

Wren (Joey King) is terrorised by Slender Man while researching "paranormal" activity in Slender Man.

This exponentially dull (and weirdly self-contradictory) movie cherry-picks the blandest bits of the Slender Man bio, downgrading him from his hard-earned gig as king of all 21st century nightmares into an all-purpose, old-fashioned bogeyman.

Taking a hard line, this wispy, watered-down version of the Slender Man is best likened to a distant uncle of the mysteriously malevolent girl in all of those Ring movies from back in the day.

While you don’t have to watch a cursed video loop to get the Slender Man a snoopin’ and a spookin’ in your world, there are videos available online that can help speed up an introduction. It has something to do with hearing a sequence of three bells striking particular notes, which seems perfectly reasonable enough.

Joey King (Wren) and Julia Goldani-Telles (Hallie) in Slender Man.

Especially when compared to the late-breaking, utterly ridiculous revelation that the spectral whereabouts of the Slender Man can be tracked on an everyday mobile phone. (Go into your settings, and look for something like ‘Find My Ghost’ would be my best guess.)

As for the story - sigh - it centres on a hapless quartet of boy-crazy young ladies who accidentally summon the S-Man during a slumber party. They are then slowly pursued by the paranormal pest across a succession of poorly-lit rooms and less-than-illuminating dreams.