He lurks lecherously in dark corners of Thrillvania Haunted House Park in Dallas, Texas, and seems to blend into the background. He also haunts playgrounds and schoolyards where he’ll be sure to find plenty of adolescent victims but he’s not picky, a shadowy alley or a dark closet will do just as well. He’s Slender Man, after all, and it’s not where or when he shows up that really matters – it’s his appearance that scares the daylights out of everyone who sees him.
Who is Slender Man? He’s the modern-day equivalent of Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers or The Boogeyman of yore. He haunts your dreams like Freddy and he appears and disappears at will, like Michael, and he’s used as a warning to get naughty children to quiet down and go to bed – something parents have been doing for centuries with little success.
Like Krueger, Myers and The Boogeyman, Slender Man is simply a figment of someone’s imagination (and thank goodness for that!) but this time it’s a collective effort. Slender Man arose from somewhere deep in the misty realms in 2009. Victor Surge accepted a challenge issued to all the members of the Something Awful forum to use Photoshop to place supernatural entities into real photographs and Slender Man was born.
Slender Man has since become an internet sensation and can be found lurking around corners and hiding behind trees, stalking and abducting innocent children. He’s also become one of this year’s most popular Halloween costumes.
As his name suggests, Slender Man is extremely tall and slender. His arms, legs and fingers are disproportionately long and …slender. Seen from a distance he looks like a cross between those horrifying trees in “The Wizard of Oz” and a monstrous praying mantis, his long arms swaying at his side, his long legs stretching out in great strides, his gnarly fingers clutching and grasping, always clutching and grasping…
He dresses in a black suit, wears a white button-down shirt and a dark necktie. On his head he wears either a black top-hat or bowler and his shoes are similarly stylish – something black and leathery.
So far it seems like it would be relatively easy to dress up as Slender Man for Halloween. All you need is a black suit, a white shirt, a dark tie and some nice shoes, right? But if you really want to pull it off you’re going to need super long arms and a mask, otherwise you’ll just look like one of the MIB.
Let’s start with the mask because that’s the easy part because… Slender Man has no face. In every picture, Slender Man just has this vague white blob where his face should be. The idea is, the less you know about him, the scarier he seems.
Check your favorite costume store for a Slender Man mask, or a Morph Mask. If you’re creative use some white, stretchy fabric to create a form-fitting hood that completely covers your head and neck. Since this hood completely covers everything – including your eyes, nose and mouth – you’ll want to be sure to get fabric you can see through and breathe through.
If you don’t like the idea of using a store-bought mask and you’re not creative with a needle and thread, a pair of white tights will work nicely, even if they’re a little opaque. Slender Man’s face may be a big, white blog but there are vague hints of facial features in some of the pictures and he is human, after all, isn’t he? Isn’t he?!
Now, for the super-long arms you’ll need to finish pulling off the illusion. Pick up a cheap black suit coat at your local thrift store. (Please – do NOT raid your father’s closet!) You’ll also need some inexpensive black cotton fabric and a hot glue gun.
Slender Man’s arms can be as long as you want them to be, but the longer they are the better. You’re going to use the black cloth to lengthen the sleeves of the suit jacket so first, at the cuff, measure the diameter of the sleeve and add one inch.
Next, decide how much longer you want to make the sleeves and cut two pieces of fabric that measure your desired length plus one inch by the diameter of the sleeve plus one inch.
First, fold down the top, bottom and one side of the sleeve 1/2 inch. This will give you a smooth edge without any sewing.
Using your hot glue gun, glue the top edge of your extension to the cuff of the first sleeve, all the way around.
Once the glue sets, glue the side seam together, placing the folded edge on top of the raw edge to give it a nice clean finish. NOTE: If you’re making extremely long sleeves be sure to leave an opening in the middle of this seam on each sleeve so you can free your hands for eating and drinking during the party.
Most people who dress as Slender Man either don’t worry about the arms and just wear a dark suit coat or they add the extended arms but don’t worry about the hands. (In some pictures you can’t see Slender Man’s hands at all.) However, to be even more realistic, stuff your sleeve extensions with fabric or crumpled newspaper and add some creepy hands with long, gnarly fingers poking out the ends.
Of course, the name “Slender Man” suggests that the ideal person for this costume would be tall and slender but everyone knows there are no rules regarding Halloween costumes. If you’re willowy or lanky, so much the better, but we kind of think a short or chubby Slender Man would be even more terrifying because it’s unexpected – and that’s what Halloween is all about.
For an award-winning performance it’s important to remember that Slender Man does a lot of lurking and very little mingling. He lurks, he pounces and he disappears. But the good thing about all that lurking is that very few people know any actual details about this scary character so you can write your own script and be whoever you want to be. Remember, though, the less you tell your audience the scarier you’ll be!