Creepy, meme-inspired Slender Man trailer doesn't skimp on scares

Slender Man‘s titular character might be watching his figure, but the film’s new trailer certainly doesn’t skimp on scares.

Based on the creepypasta meme first introduced on an internet message board in 2009, Slender Man fleshes out the story of the cyber legend featuring an ominously tall, humanoid supernatural entity with no facial features and a penchant for haunting teenagers.

The Sylvain White-directed horror film follows a group of high school classmates, Wren and Chloe (Joey King, Jaz Sinclair) led by Hallie (The Affair‘s Julia Goldani Telles) searching for a friend after she goes missing. A subsequent trek into the woods surrounding their small town proves to be a very bad idea, as Hallie encounters Slender Man himself, bringing his threatening presence with her and, ultimately, into the group’s lives.

“He gets in your head like a virus,” Wren says in the preview. Later, Hallie adds: “Some he takes. Some he drives mad. Once you see him, you can’t unsee him,” as several shocking images—including a particularly startling shot of Slender Man’s elongated fingers rising up behind a frightened Chloe, unbeknownst to her—flash onscreen.

Though Slender Man is the first major theatrical film to center itself around a dramatization of the original meme, it’s not the only narrative that features the character. In 2009, Joseph DeLage and Troy Wagner created the genuinely disturbing web series Marble Hornets, which charts a found footage-style journey through a world haunted by Slender Man as well.

Slender Man slips into theaters Aug. 10. Watch the new trailer above.