Qui a peur du Slenderman?

This documentary is an interesting look into how a supernatural internet meme can influence young minds. In this case, 2 young girls were convinced that an an internet creation, Slenderman, made them stab fellow classmate in the woods.

The documentary delves into the mental illness and how dangerous unsupervised internet can be for susceptible minds. I also took away how unprepared the court / prison systems can be when dealing with mental issues and how there is no real rehabilitation process in place - these young girls can only have 2 contact visits with their family each month.

There are some genuinely creepy parts - especially the part where one of the girls tells her family that the "others" decide what she watches on TV in her cell at night even though she is kept in solitary confinement.

However a bit too long and one sided - the 2 girls are not really the victim

Others have summarized this documentary far better than I can. I will just reiterate that the movie is far too long. There is a lengthy description of folklore and horror stories, which could have been cut down considerably.

Then there are the interviews with the parents of the two perpetrators, which also could have been cut down. It seems like there is a lot of repetition.

This movie could have been tightened up and submitted as a short- subject documentary, and I think it would have been better.

I did like the courtroom sequences; however, the cases are not yet resolved. Perhaps the film-maker could have waited another six months to give the story a better conclusion? Obviously the appeals are going to drag on for years, but at least show the audience the outcome of the trials, which apparently are taking place in the spring of 2017.

I also would have liked to have heard from the victim, or a member of the victim's family.

It's like there wasn't even a victim in this story. So sad. You would have thought the two criminals were the victims. I kept waiting to see a statement about how the victim and her family declined to participate. It never came. Their voices were so painfully absent. All tangled up in all the wrong things.

Overall it was certainly interesting, even captivating. But I found myself wanting so badly to hear from poor Payton. The only victim, along with her loved ones.

It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

All the details about how internet myths start was so scary. And how kids are being raised now is scariest of all.

I found this to be a well done documentary that effectively portrayed our society the way it is today. The film glossed over the plight of the victim just as these girls did, and we expect them to show empathy? Did the filmmakers?

It's true kids are overexposed to a lot of things on the internet, but when HAVEN'T kids been exposed to awful things? Just look at the history of the world!! It is RIFE with horrific wars, oppression, persecution, poverty, death...children have always been exposed to these things.

The justice system is ridiculous. Trying 6th graders as adults, questioning their beliefs and labeling them mentally ill at age 12 when the brain isn't even developed? There's a reason we don't diagnose psychopathy until age 18.

I'm not excusing what these girls did. Its horrific. But why are we so baffled? Wars have been raging for millennia, and even in the 21st century society ADULTS are killing each other in the name of "beliefs," which are quite honestly no less rational than internet demons.

Seriously.

This started off as a fascinating insight in to a horrific crime and it's young instigators but it is far too insular in its focus. By the 60 minute mark I was satisfied that the assailants motivations had been biasely justified, the whole "slenderman" and mythology in general had been thoroughly covered and I was craving for the story to expand in to the physiology of the young impressionable mind, into psychopathy (a blatantly obvious trait of at least one of the girls) and for the focus to switch to the victim and her family (in a respectful way, considering they didn't want to be involved), their complete ommission from the documentary plays out as an indifference to their horrific experience instead. I was also surprised with the multiple mentions of "believers" needing a group to belong to and the brainwashing involved in that dynamic, that the documentary makers weren't brave enough to bring up religion in that discussion (especially as a world leading expert on the subject Richard Dawkins was on a Skype call at one point)... But no they only used santa clause and the tooth fairy as examples.