‘Slender Man’ Release Date Pushed Back to August 24

Merely weeks after the film’s first official trailer debuted, Sony Screen Gems has shifted the release of Slender Man from May 18 to August 24. It’s unclear why the distributor has made the decision, but the news also came with their film Cadaver being pulled from release completely.

In a small town in Massachusetts, four high school girls perform a ritual in an attempt to debunk the lore of Slender Man. When one of the girls goes mysteriously missing, they begin to suspect that she is, in fact, HIS latest victim.

Shortly after the trailer debuted, many people immediately voiced their concerns over the film’s mere existence.

In 2014, two 12-year-old girls stumbled across images and stories about the Slender Man and, having difficulties comprehending these were mere works of fiction, were led to believe that the entity would come after them and their families if they didn’t take action.

These girls lured one of their friends into the woods and, in a park restroom, stabbed her 19 times. The goal was to offer this sacrifice in order to become one of Slender Man’s “proxies,” which would ensure their safety.

The victim recovered from her injuries and the attackers received varying sentences in mental health facilities.

“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.”

The film Beware the Slenderman documented the real-world events that led to the horrible tragedy, with this upcoming film marking the first attempt at a major studio bringing the internet legend to life.

Weier’s personal connection to the character caused an expected dismissal of the film, with much of the rest of the social media expressing that the film just looked like a generic cash-in on mythology that the internet has been exploring for almost a decade.

Whether the film was pulled for some creative re-tooling or as a response to the controversy surrounding it is yet to be discovered.

Slender Man hits theaters on August 24.

[H/T Bloody Disgusting]