Review: Beware the Slenderman

A 12 year-old girl is stabbed multiple times by two peers, who are obsessed with a fictional boogeyman called Slenderman, popularised online on several websites. A fascinating real-life crime story goes begging in this frankly poorly told documentary by Irene Taylor Brodsky from 2016, who either doesn’t realise where the real story is, or is for some reason slanting things in the wrong direction. This is quite clearly the story of two mentally disturbed girls who attempt to kill another girl. The girls were interested in the creepy internet-era cultural phenomenon of The Slenderman, a figure who crops up online, in games, and other media. That’s not quite the story that gets told here, unfortunately. Instead we seem to get the story of two girls who were influenced by the evils of the Internet and the creepy Slenderman, whom we get quite the history lesson on. And then we get the schizophrenia thrown in as an afterthought/plot twist. Even then, the filmmaker manages to botch the hell out of things by not making a strong enough case in the first hour that schizophrenia or some other illness/condition is at play here. I don’t for a second doubt the diagnosis, but it’s so horribly integrated into the story which also only brings in the victim after 90 minutes! Sure, the victim and her family probably declined to be involved due to wanting to move on from the incident. However, surely something more coherent and narratively free-flowing could’ve still been made out of this story. I mean, it’d be better if the film had waited until after the girls’ trial was well and truly over before making the film. But putting that aside, it could still be done: Downplay the Slenderman aspect significantly and introduce the victim into the story far earlier, and even if you don’t interview the victim and her family, you’ve still got a much stronger film. As is, you’ve got a frustratingly poorly told, rather elusive story with no real ending, and too much emphasis on the wrong details (And even when the film does try to focus on the issues the girls may be suffering from we get idiotic moments like the one early on where one of the parents relates a story of their little girl watching “Bambi” and having a weird reaction to ‘that’ scene. I personally didn’t think it was that odd).

I don’t for a second truly believe that the director thinks these girls were influenced by the evils of too much unsupervised online consumption and an internet boogeyman. It’s eventually established that one or both of these girls are mentally disturbed in the first place. However, early on it appears to be suggesting sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies (The interviews they give with authorities are pretty alarming for the girls’ complete lack of empathy). Then we get all the internet meme stuff. Then it’s apparently schizophrenia. It almost feels like they’re throwing stuff out to see what sticks, when some combination of the sociopath/psychopath and schizophrenia feels right.

I just feel as though the film overemphasises the role Slenderman played in this crime purely because Slenderman offers up a cool marketing gimmick that helps sell the film a little easier. Apparently you live under a rock if you’ve never heard of Slenderman. Well, I probably live under a boulder because when I saw Slenderman in this it was only when they showed a video game that I even slightly recognised him. Otherwise, nope. Not on my radar at all. But this film? Oh it’s obsessed with Slenderman, and even brings in evolutionary biologist and frequently quite rude atheist Richard Dawkins (I’m an Agnostic Atheist and even I can’t stand him) for fuck knows what reason to discuss how internet memes work. Richard Dawkins. Memes. It has nothing to do with anything, but then this is a film that also wants to tie the fucking Pied Piper of Hamelin and even Santa Claus into things too! I’m sorry, but Slenderman had nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of this case. These two disturbed girls tried to kill another girl. The fact that they were also users of the Creepypasta website and had an obsession with Slenderman is irrelevant. It’s about as relevant as heavy metal and Wicca was to the West Memphis Three, except those guys were 99.99% likely to have been not guilty (Bravo for all the “Paradise Lost” rip-off overhead shots, btw. That’s not stylistic plagiarism at all. Nooooo). These girls did the crime and this film is doing its damndest to not even focus on the crime. Or the girls. Instead it’s…hey, look at this heaps wicked cool Slenderman artwork montage! I know the girls went on to YouTube and all, but spending so much time on this side issue bullshit. It’s only relevant insofar as these girls had an interest in it. Yes, these girls were mentally disturbed individuals who felt that Slenderman made them commit the crime, or at least inspired them. That doesn’t mean you need to keep showing heaps of Slenderman stuff and have Richard Bloody Dawkins pontificating about Santa Freaking Claus. The important part is that they were mentally disturbed! They could’ve been influenced by a giant creepy rabbit named Frank, for all it ultimately matters.

The crime itself is fascinating and horrifying. Unfortunately, this documentary was made by someone who didn’t think it was fascinating and horrifying enough to stand on its own, and not being able to get the victim’s POV doesn’t help, either. Too much emphasis on the wrong parts of this story lead to a not terribly interesting film, when it really ought to have been riveting stuff. Who thought this was good enough to be released? Probably someone who though that parent’s story about “Bambi” was just mind-blowing, I guess.

Rating: C+