Monday, January 23, 2017
AP Television Writer
NEW YORK
The Slender Man craze swept the younger digerati while their unwitting elders occupied themselves online with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Only in May 2014 did the general public hear of Slender Man when news erupted that two 12-year-old Wisconsin girls had lured a friend into the woods and stabbed her 19 times.
Why did they do it? Turns out, to appease and curry favor with this Slender Man character.
Slender Man, it turned out, was all the rage for youngsters worldwide.
He flourished as a communal boogeyman and, at the same time, an abiding savior who found global expression in fan fiction, artwork and videos.
Airing tonight at 10 p.m., “Beware the Slenderman” it promises to examine “how an urban myth could take root in impressionable young minds, leading to an unspeakable act.”
So sharply focused on the perpetrators, the film scarcely even acknowledges the victim, Payton Leutner, who, apart from her role as attackee, seems extraneous to the film’s intended narrative.
The film tries, but fails, to put the crime in a cultural context.
As for the current status of Slender Man among global youth (has the craze mushroomed further or leveled off – or is it soooo over?) the viewer is told nothing.
Instead, the film festishizes a single ghastly crime for which it seems to hold Slender Man accountable.
Expect no answers in this dreary documentary.