Beware the Slenderman

Abstract

Cleary reviews Beware the Slenderman directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky, an HBO/Warner Bros television movie.

Beware the Slenderman, dir. by Irene Taylor Brodsky (HBO/Warner Bros., 2016)

Sleek, polished, and undeniably emulating the recent trend in gripping, Netflix-style truecrime documentaries, Irene Taylor Brodsky's Beware the Slenderman (2016) begins in a tone similar to its predecessors. Ominous dark music pulses in time with dislocated images of a child jumping in the air, leaves falling, sunbeams penetrating woodland canopies, and snippets of computer screens. As the title music changes to softer, more melancholic piano, drone footage of blue skies and the sound of police sirens provide the backdrop to a dispatch call via an officer who has information received from a distressed passer-by: 'He came upon a 12 year-old female. She appears to have been stabbed.' 'She appears to be what?' asks the dispatcher. 'Stabbed', the officer states. 'Stabbed?' 'Correct', confirms the officer.

On 31 May 2014, twelve year-old Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, having spent the previous night together at a sleepover with their friend Payton (Bella) Leutner (also twelve) stabbed Leutner nineteen times and left her for dead in a wooded area in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Reports surrounding the case claimed that the two girls had plotted to kill for over a year, intending to deliver the victim as a form of sacrifice to the online fictional character known as the 'Slenderman'. Though seriously injured, Leutner survived the stabbing. After being reprimanded in a juvenile detention centre and psychiatrically assessed for over a year, the girls (now fifteen) will, it has recently been announced, be tried as adults. While the manner in which these teens will be tried has caused a degree of debate concerning juvenile culpability, arguably what has dominated this case from the start is the alleged correlation between the girls' actions and an internet meme. So intertwined and sensationalised have the attempted murder and the fictional character become that the majority of media reports have dubbed that case 'The Slenderman Stabbing'. And unfortunately, symptomatic of this sensationalism is Beware the Slenderman. Aired earlier this year, HBO's documentary conceals its own brand of sensationalism behind an exploration of the genuine grief of two sets of parents, whose lives have been irrevocably torn apart by the actions of their daughters on that day in Waukesha. The documentary is ostensibly ambivalent, but this ambivalence betrays a greater goal - creating a narrative that reinforces the notion that two girls were ultimately corrupted not by the ravages of mental illness, but by an internet meme.

It seems that the very artificiality of the Slenderman's past grants internet users licence continually to reproduce his origins in more 'authentic' ways. His myth grew out of a Photoshop competition on the horror forum somethingawful.com in 2009, when Eric Knudsen - known on the forum as 'Victor Surge' - edited a sinister-looking figure into the backgrounds of two images of children. At every opportunity, Brodsky uses clips and images taken from depths of the internet, presenting this meme in every conceivable format. The opening shot is of a point-of-view camera, running through woods in the dark. With panting in the background, the screens crackles every so often, implying this is streamed footage intermittently disturbed by signal faults. As the handheld camera pans over the dark branches and bushes, momentarily illuminated is a pale-faced, tall, and slender figure watching her, only to disappear. Still unidentified, she begs for help. 'Please', she calls, before stumbling, seconds before her scream pierces the image of a glowing white face, pixelated and distorted, spliced with imagery that evokes a satanic ritual. Suddenly a computer mouse click is heard and the screen goes black, reinforcing the digital nature of the meme's cyber-mythology.

Thematically, the documentary follows quite a compelling narrative as the audience is presented with academic and digital expertise, alternating with courtroom interviews and online content. This cornucopia of footage is intertwined with grainy, unnerving CCTV footage of the police interrogations of the two young girls shortly after they were taken into custody. This CCTV footage, which is not unlike the coarse Slenderman-related short film of the opening, frames the majority of the documentary. These clips, however, make for more troubling viewing when we consider that before us are two young girls, unaccompanied by their parents or guardians, answering a series of questions about the attempted murder of their friend with a disconcerting coolness. In scenes reminiscent of the young Brendan Dassey in Making a Murderer (2015), whose learning difficulties made for uncomfortable watching as detectives probed the depths of his limited knowledge of the murder his uncle was charged with, both Morgan and Anissa are asked a series of questions which reveal less about the actual murder and more about how complex and disturbing their relationship is with the reality around them. 'Morgan and I were gonna be like lionesses, chasing down a zebra', Anissa tells the detective. Asked why she stabbed her friend, she confesses to Detective Tom Casey that Peyton's stabbing was 'necessary'. This, compounded with Casey's own account in court of Morgan's lack of emotion and remorse during the interrogation, creates a stark juxtaposition to the scenes which follow: a home movie of the infant Morgan, cherubic, gurgling and sitting in a high chair as her mother repeats, 'Hi Morgan, Hi Morgan'.

Beware the Slenderman does suffer from its own sensationalism, but, perhaps to its credit, the way in which it humanises both of the girls' parents and conveys the depth of their suffering is commendable. Brodsky delicately balances sentimental accounts of the girls as babies and nostalgic anecdotes from their childhood with interrogations and court hearings. As such, at the centre of this documentary is a recognition that while, two little girls attempted to murder their best friend, in doing so they also destroyed their parents' lives. Interestingly, the parents are quick to sideline Slenderman in favour of discussing the few - if any - warning signs they should have perceived, and their struggle to come to terms with their new lives. 'My focus is Anissa', Anissa's father remarks, 'not Slenderman'.

As their parents strive to locate the girls and their own suffering at the centre of this case, however, the focus of this documentary is unequivocally Slenderman. Subsequently, in an effort to emphasise their suffering and stark bewilderment, both the Geysers and Weiers are ultimately presented as victims not of this sad situation, but of the ubiquitous meme. Justification for such a suggestion is compounded by the wealth of academic and expert scrutiny, which Brodsky layers throughout the documentary, in order to imply dramatically the alleged that hold Slenderman had and continues to have on the lives of young teens. In gathering such validations throughout her documentary, by the end of the feature it is suggested that we should all be wary of Slenderman and his alleged powers.

While Brodsky does pay particular attention to invoking a more academic and professional analysis of the meme and the case surrounding it, speaking to a panel of experts on folklore, digital culture, and memes, the director must also be praised for giving special attention to Anissa's childhood friend Maggie, and allowing her evaluation of the situation some considerable weight. We are first introduced to Maggie sitting in the Weier's kitchen speaking to an overly enthusiastic Anissa, who has collect called from prison. Recommending that Anissa does not smile 'too much' when she sees her in court the next day, Maggie's insight into exactly what happened is arguably the most measured, coherent, and poignant of all. Dismissing Slenderman as a principal factor in the case and seeking to undermine the influence of the meme, she maintains that she never knew 'where the whole Slenderman thing started because Anissa never talked about anything like that. Nobody ever talked about Slenderman.' Offering an alternative she adds, '[Anissa] is easily frightened. ... Maybe she did it because she wanted to be noticed.' Explaining how Anissa would regale her with tales of how popular she was at school, when the reality was that she was marginalised and bullied, Maggie continues her analysis of the case with a simple, 'she was a follower ... I just think that some kids are big believers. They can't help but believe everything they hear.'

Her simplified diagnosis that some kids just 'believe everything they hear' contrast with an astute understanding of a condition which court-appointed psychiatrist to Anissa, Dr Michael Caldwell, describes as a 'delusional disorder caused by schizotypy'. Considered to be a 'diminished ability to determine what's real and what's not', which many people exhibit, Caldwell is quick to add that Anissa did not display psychopathic characteristics. When she was examined, Morgan's diagnosis proved even more illuminating. Explaining her condition, Dr Kenneth Casmir explains in court that Morgan was diagnosed with schizophrenia, amongst other issues, and that her delusions were created by her untreated schizophrenia and manifested in the desire to appease a fictional character that she was fixated upon. Despite being hinted at by Morgan's mother earlier in the documentary, when explaining that her daughter didn't respond to the death of Bambi's mother the way she would have anticipated, the issue of the girls' mental health is only considered in any great fashion within the final twenty five minutes of the two-hour documentary.

Charged with attempted first-degree murder and awaiting a trial which may constitute a 65-year sentence, the girls will be tried as adults. 'That was the biggest moral question here', states Brodsky. 'Not whether they did it, but how accountable do we hold children that commit crimes we call adult crimes.'1 Unfortunately, such an exploration is never fully realised. In an effort perhaps to sidestep issues of juvenile culpability in cases such as this, Beware the Slenderman makes an age-old case for the dangers of the media. Following a well-trodden road, we see decontextualised images from the girls' internet history, stories emulating Slenderman, and tales of how Slenderman is the refuge of the 'odd'. Yet in questioning juvenile culpability, Brodsky misses a superb opportunity to delve into childhood mental illness and de-mythologise its place in society. Instead, the film chooses to analyse an internet meme and locate its fleeting relevance at the centre of an attempted murder case.

Morgan and Anissa are two friends that met by remote chance, one with delusional schizophrenia and the other with schizotpy. It was a perfect storm in which their respective conditions complemented each other and created a space for a shared delusion to be nurtured and executed. We need not be wary of the Slenderman; rather, careful attention must be given to a society that would rather learn about the black magic of the boogieman then give credence to the depths of illness that the human mind is capable of.

Sarah Cleary

Footnote

1 Abigail Jones, 'Beware the Slenderman: HBO Goes Inside the Story of the Girls Who Tried to Kill for an Internet Meme', Newsweek, 19 January 2017 <http://www.newsweek.com/beware-slenderman-hbodocumentary-544221> [accessed 10 April 2017].