On May 31, 2014, three 12-year-old girls set off to a wooded area near Waukesha, Wisconsin. Two of the girls then proceeded to stab the third one nineteen times and abandon her to her fate. The perpetrators were apprehended soon afterward while displaying little remorse, they informed the police that they had committed the act because of the Slenderman.
This quite disturbing documentary attempts to narrate two stories; what happened to make an attempted murder happen (the victim luckily did not die), and who the man is.
The first appearance of the All-American Bogeyman was in June of 2009 on the internet and created yet another online myth. This time the hero was a tall faceless man who appeared in the photo background of the pictures entered to a photoshop competition held on the Something Awful forum.
Hence, Slenderman has increasingly almost beyond comprehension gained popularity, and can now be found in arts, games, photos, fan fictions, all sorts of memes and viral videos. In some adaptations, he has thick squid-like tendrils, in others, he can teleport and has mind control powers. Even more bizarrely he is not a benign form of entertainment that is capitalism instead, more often than not, he is portrayed as evil and pigs children away from their parents like the Piper.
To the confused and impressionable girls he targeted, he was all too real; tormenting their dreams and seemingly compelling them to murder their friend. These girls are captured on video during interning by the police, claiming to be the Slenderman’s agents and stabbed their friend because “it was needed”.
In an interview with one of the families, Brodsky tries to understand how such evil could find a place in their abode. It seems outwardly normal though – family photos and videos show two little girls who appear quite content and carefree. Rather than as well as focusing on the children, the couple’s accounts reveal some problems they face, regarding both girls raised at the same time; they exhibited feelings of isolation, rage, and lack of compassion. One of the fathers is mentally ill, and it has been hinting that the daughter has the same sick soul.
One of them, who was interviewed on Skype, gives her perspective on the situation, as does his psychologist, who talks a bit about their ‘delusional disorder’; then there is the well-known biologist Dawkins who refers to Slenderman as a virus of the mind. Although the documentary raises many hard questions, it seems very few, if any, are ever answered; the writers simply present the facts and let the viewers make their own conclusions. Which is okay for a narrative of this nature except that it seems the film has a few loopholes where it should be complete.
It is because the trial receives a lot of attention where we hear more about the crime and the controversy about whether the children ought to be treated as adults arises. However, those legal issues are also still in progress so while you’re looking forward to some sort of closure regarding that aspect, that’s it the film just ends.
Clearly quite a bit of the footage is used in making of this film capturing the families of the killers as they seek to come to terms with what their kids have done but nothing has been heard from the victim or the victim’s mom and dad. They may have in fact opted out of participating in focusing on a film that centers around a horrible instance that almost claimed the life of their child, but in doing so they skip telling both sides of the truth, and that in a way is an injustice to the narrative structure.
Beware the Slenderman is much more convincing in how modern myths work, spreading through all medias, and the effects of such myths on unstable young minds rather than little goth girls fantasies.
Thus, it stems from the effect that the internet has on children and why it is such a dangerous, and yet so necessary tool taking into account that what is harmless for some, can be harmful for others. And in a peculiar turnaround suitable for this kind of narrative, the girls have gone viral themselves, appearing in multiple pictures, clips, and other forms, with the character Slenderman’s pictures, which makes them a part of the mythology now.
The Verdict
Beware the Slenderman is mildly interesting but a full length feature something I would not want to watch often. But, it depicts the negative impact of the Internet, especially when someone with the right tools and enough oceanic drive runs free and is given the chance to put themselves in front of a target with no regard to how carefully and gently, or rather recklessly, diseased minds can end up exposing their illness to the children.
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