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‘Slender: Source’ Aims To Bring Slenderman And Multiplayer Into One Terrifying Package
If you haven’t heard of a little indie horror game called Slender, than I recommend you check it out. It’s free, and it’s shit-out-your-spine terrifying. I actually enjoyed watching other people play it more than I did when I played it myself, because the reactions are priceless. For the uninitiated, Slender has you running around a forest collecting eight pages of a diary. With each page you collect, the Slenderman gets closer to creeping up behind your unsuspecting ass so he can do whatever it is he does to his victims. It’s freaky, and that’s thanks to the tension that builds up as you hunt for the pages while something else hunts for you. The music is pretty fantastic too. Now, it looks like the Slenderman legend could be getting the multiplayer treatment, as well as a graphical overhaul and new features (it’ll essentially be an entirely new game) in a new mod dubbed Slender: Source. More after the jump.
From the ModDB website,
“Now, our aim with this game/mod is to really frighten players, and give them that experience we will want & crave for when we play a horror game, or even watch a horror film. That feeling of being scared. With Slender: Source, players will be able to play with up to three of their friends and traverse a variety of environments trying to uncover who/what the Slenderman really is, all while collecting strange little dolls that resemble children; which the player can try figuring out the purpose of these dolls. Were they victims of the Slenderman, or are they just normal, creepy, dolls? That decision comes up the player’s imagination. So, yes that’s right. We’re making a multiplayer version of the Slenderman story, and we’ve gotten inspiration by the game “Slender” which was a Unity project developed by Parsec Productions in which you must avoid looking at the Slenderman to go insane. It’s a wonderful, and terrifying experience which everyone should check out, which you can find right here as well as some gameplay of the said game, to hopefully interest you in what WE plan on doing with the legend, and the creature.”
This isn’t an HD remake, it’s an entirely new game based on the Slenderman that’s received quite a bit of extra attention thanks to Parsec’s Slender game. If you want to try Slender, you can get it from this website. Feel free to play the game and share your Slender stories with us in the comments below!
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Let’s start with the good news. Lockbox looks far better than its misleading marketing materials suggest, a supernatural horror movie so darkly lit and color graded that you’ll have to squint your way through jump scares. It’s also anchored by reliable genre performers. That’s also about where the good news ends with this rote adaptation of Knifepoint Horror Podcast story “Winthrop.”
The empathetic Carla Gugino gives her all as Ellen, a saint of a woman with boundless patience who takes on life’s hard luck with a kind smile. After giving up her career as a fashion designer to become caretaker for a dying mother, she’s then forced to reinvent herself once more when her caretaker role ends. That catches us up to the events of Lockbox, where Ellen is asked to take in a cousin she hasn’t seen in quite some time who’s dealing with severe PTSD.
Just as Ellen finally establishes a real connection with Winthrop (Lou Taylor Pucci), it’s interrupted by the arrival of peculiar neighbor Vahna (Katharine Isabelle), who spells clear trouble. When Vahna shows up dead, it sets in motion a supernatural battle of possession.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
Director Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism, Prey for the Devil) and screenwriter Justin Yoffe approach Lockbox in the broadest of brushstrokes, dooming it from the start with clunky storytelling and woefully underdeveloped themes of heady topics like PTSD. Winthrop is a character that comes loaded with emotional baggage and trauma that’s piled on throughout his tragic life, but much like its title, his interiority and history are treated like a tightly guarded secret meant to prolong the supernatural mystery.
The problem here, though, is that Lockbox is too sparse to sustain mystery at all, and it instead robs Winthrop of characterization. It winds up trapping the talented Pucci without anywhere to go, toggling between wounded animal and mentally disoriented.
From there, Lockbox bounds through plot developments without any sense of stakes or purpose, peppered by a smattering of haphazard paint-by-numbers jump scares. The only unwavering constant is Ellen’s resolute faith, and Stamm seems to leave it entirely to Gugino to guide confused audiences through this inconsequential story right up until its supernatural climax.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
To give more credit, Lockbox at least injects an unconventional exorcism here; just don’t expect much in the way of explanation. When the film finally reveals the meaning behind its title, it dangles a fascinating carrot it has zero interest in delivering. More than a severe lack of fleshing out its characters beyond plot drivers or devices, this faith-based flick also seems terrified to offer any worldbuilding whatsoever.
Yoffe’s script stretches the short story beyond its means instead of fleshing it out, and Stamm fills out the gaps with cheap CGI scares and overwrought performances; Isabelle’s Vahna is beyond cartoonish in her villainy. It’s also pretty nonsensical, treating only Ellen’s faith with the utmost sincerity and largely squandering its typically reliable talent. So much so that the final imagery, pure sunkissed saccharine sentimentality, leaves you with the feeling that this horror movie might be better suited as an entry in Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Lockbox releases in select theaters on July 3, 2026.
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