10 Amazing Trailers That Tricked You Into Seeing Terrible Horror Movies

8. Slender Man

Slender Man
Sony

A Slender Man movie should have been an open goal for any movie studio. At the dawn of the 2010s the character was sweeping the internet, and seemed poised to be the next big horror icon. He'd already appeared in video games to great success, so why not movies?

Sony came in a bit late with their big screen adaptation, but the trailer seemed promising. Giving very little away and dealing mostly in atmosphere and unnerving images, it seemed to get what made the character so scary in the first place. It looked like more than a cash grab, and while it might have never had the chance to be a huge critical darling, it seemed poised to at least deliver solid scares.

Spoilers: the final film did not do that.

In fact, the flick was every bit the soulless, corporate hack job everyone worried it could be. Slender Man himself lost any of his terrifying impact and the film completely missed the bandwagon, with nothing new to offer people to interest them again.

Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.