"Beware the Slenderman" (2016 release; 115 min.) is a true-crime documentary. As the movie opens, we are told it is "Waukesha, WI - May 31, 2014", and the police are coming out en masse after a 12 yr. old girl is found stabbed and in critical condition. It's not long before we understand that the girl was stabbed 19 times by two other 12 yr. old girls, apparently to appease a certain Slenderman. What happened here exactly? At this point we are 10 min. into the movie but to tell you more of the 'plot' would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.
Couple of comments: this is the latest from writer-producer-director (and veteran documentarian) Irene Taylor Brodsky. She traces the lives of Morgan and Anissa and how they eventually planned to kill their friend Bella, and why. The movie does a good job giving those of us not familiar with the Slenderman phenom what it's all about, and how this may have influenced these young girls into doing what they did. One of the key legal issues is whether the girls should be tried as adults or not. The best part of the movie for me is the extensive footage taken from the (separate) interviews of the girls the day they are apprehended. You can't make this stuff up, just absolutely amazing. There are also extensive interviews with the parents, none of whom had any clue whatsoever that something might not be right with these girls. And then there are the multiple psychiatrists who pitch in whether this involves delusional disorder or even schizophrenia. Yes, for 12 year old kids! My only complaint is that, at about 2 hours, the documentary is a bit too long for its own good. Tighter editing could've easily trimmed 15 min. or so without losing any of the essence of this fascinating true-crime documentary.
The documentary originally aired on HBO in early 2017, but thankfully I found this in the HBO On Demand library just the other day. Beware: filming for the documentary concluded (roughly) at the end of 2015, so the movie is frankly a little bit out of date by now, and I ended up searching on-line what became of all this in the last 3 years. Other than that, I was transfixed by "Beware of Slenderman".
Couple of comments: this is the latest from writer-producer-director (and veteran documentarian) Irene Taylor Brodsky. She traces the lives of Morgan and Anissa and how they eventually planned to kill their friend Bella, and why. The movie does a good job giving those of us not familiar with the Slenderman phenom what it's all about, and how this may have influenced these young girls into doing what they did. One of the key legal issues is whether the girls should be tried as adults or not. The best part of the movie for me is the extensive footage taken from the (separate) interviews of the girls the day they are apprehended. You can't make this stuff up, just absolutely amazing. There are also extensive interviews with the parents, none of whom had any clue whatsoever that something might not be right with these girls. And then there are the multiple psychiatrists who pitch in whether this involves delusional disorder or even schizophrenia. Yes, for 12 year old kids! My only complaint is that, at about 2 hours, the documentary is a bit too long for its own good. Tighter editing could've easily trimmed 15 min. or so without losing any of the essence of this fascinating true-crime documentary.
The documentary originally aired on HBO in early 2017, but thankfully I found this in the HBO On Demand library just the other day. Beware: filming for the documentary concluded (roughly) at the end of 2015, so the movie is frankly a little bit out of date by now, and I ended up searching on-line what became of all this in the last 3 years. Other than that, I was transfixed by "Beware of Slenderman".