BEWARE THE SLENDERMAN

US, 2016, 114 minutes, Colour.

Directed by Irene Taylor.

The brief synopsis states: Tells the story of two 12-year old girls, who attempted to murder one of their friends in an attempt to appease Slenderman, a fictional monster from a horror website.

However, this documentary is far more complex. It is in the vein of many documentaries during the 2010 is and beyond, the filmmakers gathering audio and visual interviews and making them available within the context of the investigation. This is happened with a number of American documentaries about criminals like those of Joe Bellinger on Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy.

Filming about this case began not long after the actual events, the arrest of two 12 year old girls, the interrogations of the girls, legal, psychological. There are also interviews with the parents of each of the two girls, gradually revealing the situations within the house, the fact that one of the girls, the leader, experienced psychological difficulties from an early age, and its being revealed that the father also had psychological difficulties. With the other family, the initial focus is on the mother, creating the picture of the household, later introducing the perspective of the father.

The victim survived, no interviews in the film with her but commentary about her and the response of her parents.

There have been a number of films about child killers, especially the classic original and remake of The Bad Seed, as well as documentaries about prominent cases as in the UK, the Bolger case.

What makes this documentary different is the focus on the motivation of the two girls. The had been watching social media and become very much aware of The Slenderman, and horror stories about his ominous presence, influence, control, the need to be appeased. The girls had absorbed this social media mythology (which began about 2010). Which meant then that they chose their victim, even though she was their friend, took her aside, one of them with a knife, many stab wounds, the girls leaving her but yet regretting that they had had to attack their friend, but these were the demands of the Slenderman.

Which raises questions then about the influence of social media on children. Questions are also raised about psychological conditions and their consequences, moral consequences and, with the girls, legal consequences with rather strict interpretation by the presiding judge.

Provocative and interesting, somewhat morbid, American documentary.