‘Slender Man’ Coming to Blu-ray in Time for Halloween

Only two months after it landed in theaters, Slender Man will be hitting home video next month. The film will be available on Digital HD on October 19th and on Blu-ray and DVD on October 30th.

In a small town in Massachusetts, a group of friends, fascinated by the internet lore of the Slender Man, attempt to prove that he doesn’t actually exist – until one of them mysteriously goes missing.

The release will include the featurette “Summoning Slender Man: Meet the Cast,” where fans will hear the cast discuss their characters, the director on scares and the monster himself.

A recent trend for home video releases of PG-13 movies is to include scarier footage that was seemingly cut from a film in order to achieve the more tame rating, though fans of the film might be disappointed that the release won’t include extra scenes. According to some reports, the film received major cuts shortly before release to deliver audiences a different film from what the filmmakers intended to make.

After the film hit theaters, Bloody Disgusting claimed multiple sources close to the production revealed that “many of the striking scenes that were teased in the first trailer, like one of the characters stabbing her eyes out, or another ripping her tongue out after encountering Slender Man in the woods, are completely missing from the film.”

It’s not uncommon for a studio to demand cuts or reshoots for a film they’re unhappy with, though these reports imply that even the filmmakers were unaware of what the studio released in theaters.

Despite the film being based on a popular internet legend, Slender Man suffered a variety of setbacks on its way to an ultimately disappointing release.

The film was based on a character created in a Photoshop contest, with editor Eric Knudsen posting a photo of a faceless character in a suit with elongated limbs in the background of an image featuring young children. Other users began to create similar images, with the internet collaborating to concoct stories about the character’s supernatural abilities.

Two young girls began reading stories about the legend and ultimately stabbed one of their friends as a “sacrifice” to the fictional creature, with the victim ultimately surviving her injuries.

“It’s absurd they want to make a movie like this,” Bill Weier, the father of one of the attackers, said during a press telephone interview. “It’s popularizing a tragedy is what it’s doing. I’m not surprised but in my opinion it’s extremely distasteful. All we’re doing is extending the pain all three of these families have gone through.”

In addition to the real-world tragedy, fans were underwhelmed with the initial trailer for the film, citing its overuse of generic horror imagery. The film was then pushed back from an April release to an August release, earning $30 million domestically in its theatrical run while review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes calculated only seven percent positive reviews.

You can get a copy of Slender Man on Digital HD on October 19th and on Blu-ray and DVD on October 30th. Pre-orders are available on Amazon now.

Will you be purchasing the film? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!

[H/T Daily Dead]