Beware the Slenderman: Screening and Conversation about the Culpability of Minors, Mental Illness, and Internet Culture in Capital Court Cases

The news horrified the world: Two 12-year-old American girls lured a friend into the Wisconsin woods and stabbed her 19 times in an effort to appease a faceless mythical entity known online as Slenderman. But there’s more to the story than the dark headlines it generated. Delving deep into this shocking crime, the sobering documentary Beware the Slenderman examines how an urban myth could take root in impressionable young minds, leading to an unspeakable act.

In separate interrogation rooms, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier both explained to detectives that they were compelled to kill their friend in order to become proxies of Slenderman, a fictional Internet character they believed was real.

Directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky (HBO’s Oscar-nominated The Final Inch), the documentary draws from an eerie array of Slenderman-inspired art, games and self-produced video, all culled from the Internet, along with heart-wrenching, unprecedented access to the two girls’ families, courtroom testimony and interrogation-room footage.

Join us with Director Irene Taylor Brodsky, developmental psychologist Abigail Baird, and Anissa’s father, Bill Weier, for this conversation on the culpability of minors, mental illness, and Internet culture in court.

Free general admission, $20 suggested contribution

HBO Theater
1100 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036