By almost all accounts, Blue Isle Studios' sequel to Slender: The Eight Pages with Slender: The Arrival wasn't too great, but that hasn't stopped the legend of the Slender Man from creeping around in the corners of our collective consciousness. As a matter of fact, the character–originally created by Eric Knudsen, under the pseudonym "Victor Surge"–will be the focus of a brand new feature length film from Screen Gems and Mythology Entertainment. Simply entitled, Slender Man, the horror movie's first trailer has now been released.

As seen in the Slender Man trailer below courtesy of IGN, it looks as if Stomp the Yard's director Sylvain White has attempted to imbue the project with the feel of a low-budget horror flick, and in the process has apparently cribbed some notes from The Ring. The trailer includes a plethora of quick cuts to creepy desaturated images like insects skittering out of mouths, girls with dark hair and even darker circles under their eyes, and of course, lots of looks at dimly lit forestry. Plus, there's plenty of screaming to be had, several eerie homemade dolls, and the classic trope of erratically drawn sketches plastered on a bedroom wall.

According to Slender Man's plot description on IMDb, the movie intends to share the story of "a tall, thin horrifying figure with unnaturally long arms and a featureless face," who is purportedly related to "the haunting and disappearance of countless children and teens." What's more is that the trailer presents the notion of the Slender Man possessing people's minds and forcing them to carry out disturbingly violent deeds that might even give someone like Psycho Mantis pause. For instance, the film's first trailer depicts one scene in which a girl unwillingly stabs herself in the face with a scalpel during a high school science class.

Slender Man is set to make its theatrical debut this May, which is almost four years to the day since a couple of incidents of preteens committing horrible acts of violence and claiming that the infamous Internet myth of the same name made them do it. For those unaware, back in June 2014, one crime involved two 12-year-old Wisconsin girls stabbing a close friend in a forest and leaving her for dead, while another case involved a 13-year-old girl in Ohio attacking her mother with a knife.

While it doesn't appear as if the Slender Man movie is attempting to overtly capitalize on the backs of such heinous acts, there's no way that Screen Gems and Mythology Entertainment didn't know that their film's release date would closely coincide with the anniversaries of the aforementioned crimes. It just seems too convenient to be a coincidence. Nevertheless, it's safe to say that horror buffs will be looking forward to this one regardless of the incidents, while more easily frightened cinephiles are likely anticipating lighter fare like Nintendo's movies in the works.

Slender Man is set for theatrical release on May 18, 2018.

Source: IGN – YouTube