First Slender Man trailer throws creepypasta at the wall to see what sticks

If you don’t already know who or what the Slender Man is, this trailer for the film—inspired by the legend that emerged from the Something Awful forums in 2009—won’t give you much to go on. Instead, the first preview for Sylvain White’s film, which stars Mama’s Javier Botet López as the titular ghoulish figure, is just a montage of vaguely eerie tableaux with no real connective thread. The synopsis for the film indicates that a group of girls looks into the disappearance of some other girls, but the trailer is bereft of any nod to that plot, though it does manage to include shots of maggots, a hospital room, and of course, a gloomy forest. It’s all rather reminiscent of the video in The Ring, with its seemingly random collection of images, which we now think means that we’ve all been doomed to die in seven days after watching it. (Quick, show the trailer to someone else.)

Slender Man ambles into theaters May 8, 2018.