HBO’s upcoming documentary tells the chilling tale of the Slender Man stabbing about the internet meme that inspired two 12-year-old girls from Wisconsin to try and murder their classmate. What the fuck is wrong with you Wisconsin? First Making A Murderer and now this?
On June 8th, 2009, a paranormal pictures photoshop contest was launched on the Something Awful Forums. User Victor Surge, whose real name is Eric Knudsen, posted two black and white photographs of a tall and lanky creature wearing a black suit named “Slender Man,” who stalked children. Slender Man has a blank face and has tentacle-like appendages protruding from his back. Slender Man was quickly embraced by the Internet and the urban legend was born.
Then in 2014, two 12-year-old girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, lured their friend into the woods of Waukesha, Wisconsin. The two girls then stabbed their 12-year-old friend 19 times, to the point she came within inches of death. They later claimed they committed the horrific murder in the name of Slender Man and that they needed to do so to prove he’s real, and so the mythological creature wouldn’t kill their families. Both girls have been charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
HBO is making a true crime documentary based on those stabbings called Beware the Slenderman.
Here is the official synopsis:
“Shot over 18 months with heartbreaking access to the families of the would-be murderers, the film plunges deep down the rabbit hole of their crime, a Boogeyman and our society’s most impressionable consumers of media. The entrance to the internet can quickly lead us to its dark basement, within just a matter of clicks. How much do we hold children responsible for what they find there?”
The documentary was directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2009 for The Final Inch and won an Emmy in 2004 for Heart of the Country. Brodsky got exclusive access to the families for over 18 months to create Beware the Slenderman.
Beware the Slenderman debuted at SXSW premiere on March 11, and will air on January 23rd, 2017 on HBO.