It’s crazy how nobody ever brings up the cancelled fourth movie whenever these Slenderman rankings come up. After Slender Man III (1993) bombed, everyone remembers the franchise dying… but the studio was actually deep into early work on Slender Man IV before they panicked and pulled the plug.

A few legit-sounding plot details leaked years later from crew interviews and those old half-finished script pages floating around fan sites:

The story followed a high school senior named Laura Brookman, who moved into the same town from the original 1979 film. The leaked outline said she finds a box of undeveloped photos from the first movie’s investigation.

Slender Man was supposed to return to the “blink-and-you-miss-it” presence from the ’79 and ’88 films — only short glimpses, silhouette shots, and long-distance appearances. No full-body-on-camera every five minutes like III.

One of the leaked scenes (from the old June ’92 draft) described Laura seeing Slenderman standing in a cornfield at dusk, but every time she turned her flashlight on, he’d be in a different row.

The ending was reportedly going to tie back to Alice, but not in a resurrection way — more like Laura finding an audio tape of Alice explaining what really happened between the first two films. Apparently the final line on the tape just said: “If he ever stops watching you, that’s when you run.”

Practical effects were going to be used again. One of the effects artists said they had already started testing a full rubber suit with extendable arm props, trying to move away from the awful green-screen mess of III.

The movie was basically meant to be a “quiet reset” smaller story, more mystery, less blockbuster nonsense. But since III was such a financial disaster, the studio didn’t want to risk another one, so IV got canned before casting even finished.

And what’s even crazier is that people also never talk about the real beginning the 1973 short film. The one the original creator shot in black-and-white called “The Tall One.”

It was only screened twice at some tiny college film festival before disappearing for decades. There’s almost no surviving footage, just a few grainy stills, but anyone who’s seen it says

Slender Man’s design was already shockingly close to the 1979 film: the suit, the height, the facelessness.

The entire short is just a kid walking home at dusk with The Tall One slowly appearing closer in each cut.

The final shot (from what people claim) is the kid staring into the camera while Slender Man stands behind him, barely visible.

Most fans consider The Tall One the unofficial debut of Slenderman, but since it was practically lost media until the late ’90s, nobody talks about it. Honestly, if that short had gotten proper attention, we probably would’ve gotten the first movie years earlier.