Review: HBO's Beware the Slenderman is thin on content and unsatisfying

After seeing the pretty chilling (or so I thought) trailer for HBO’s Beware the Slenderman documentary a couple of weeks ago, I was fairly convinced they’d offer up an engaging and well constructed piece that would terrify, chill, and provide me with the type of structurally progressive docs we’re used to.

But it wasn’t to be.

Don’t get me wrong; Beware the Slenderman isn’t god-awful or a complete mess. It just fails to live up to its peers.

In a nutshell, it’s about two girls that, after convincing themselves Slenderman exists, plan to murder their friend by stabbing her to death. However, despite 19 horrific stab wounds and being left for dead, she somehow survives. The question now is, once the girls are in custody, whether it can be proven they actually believe Slender is real and ordered them to commit the crime.

In my opinion, the doc doesn’t quite hit the right beats or even the required levels of intrigue, for a number of reasons.

Read more: Is Taboo the first great series of 2017?

Firstly, on reflection it’s clear to see that it’s overblown – and at around two hours it’s got to be something pretty gripping if you’re to sit through a long and enduring process to learn about this nasty crime. Only we don’t really do a whole lot of learning.

Secondly, the findings of the entire film are in itself inconclusive. The two girls who stand accused are yet to be sentenced – that’ll happen some time this year – so we don’t get any sort of resolution or clarity on what’s actually going on and what may happen to them. Nor do we see or hear from the victim, which is totally understandable. Let’s be honest, no one expects the victim to come forward and talk about it on camera – I do not blame her for remaining 100% out of it. Yet it leaves a massive gap in the narrative the crew attempt to piece together. Which leads me onto who they do speak to: apart from the accused’s parents, a handful of experts via webcam, and a few people who knew the girls or were connected in some way, we aren’t presented with a whole lot of concrete evidence to base judgements on.

Thirdly, the idea of its explorations is largely based on subjectivity – mainly in terms of Slenderman being fictional and if the girls truly thought he was real. It hinges on whether they believed that the mythical being made them commit the crime, or if they’re in fact trying to play the system. Either way, it seems that, from the relatively little exposure of them w’re offered, the perpetrators appear to be mentally unstable, yet we’re never given an conclusive evidence or statements from anyone to suggest much of anything.

Read more: 9 famous actors who nearly appeared in Game of Thrones

In fact, the entire middle section – so the hour or more that transpires after a contextualising opening and vague conclusion – becomes a slow and laborious journey via a number of very drawn out interviews that almost had me nodding off at one point. (I did actually battle to keep my eyes open at one point; it was warm and late, but I digress.)

With well edited documentary productions like Making a Murderer, The Jinx, Welcome to Leith, West of Memphis, and many others, the lack of quality Beware the Slenderman possesses is obvious. It’s not slick enough; its editing isn’t as ruthless as it needs to be in order to keep its audience’s attention, which is something all great docs need to do as a necessity.

After expecting something that’d leave me goosebumpy (yes, that’s a word) and fearful of the idea of getting into bed alone, I was actually left rather dissatisfied – almost like I am when the end credits roll for a terrible horror movie that isn’t even so daft that it’s enjoyable. I came away from Beware the Slenderman feeling as uninformed as I had been going in. Aside from some minor insight, there were no twisty setups or revelations or anything to encourage you to sit up and pay attention.

Read more: Arrested Development is returning, but does anyone care?

If we’d dived into the Slenderman mythology a bit more – and in truth we do get some insight into the psyche of the girls, as well as the impact Slender’s had on the internet crowd – it may have benefited from focusing on the ‘down the rabbit hole’ internet exploration that would’ve disturbed viewers.

As it stands, Beware the Slenderman is tame and feels like an incomplete documentary, mainly because it is. Once the girls’ trial and sentencing is complete, we’ll likely see another instalment. But, as Making a Murderer so effectively proves, you don’t need a completed story for it to be mesmerising and, most importantly, informative.

Have you seen Beware the Slenderman? What did you think? Leave your comments below…

Mike is a freelance TV, film, music and entertainment writer, with an unhealthy obsession for Game of Thrones. He’s written for Shortlist, MTV, GamesRadar+, Total Film, GoThinkBig, Loaded, and regularly scribbles for Yahoo Movies, BBC Radio 1, BuzzFeed, VODzilla, and Metro.

Read more:
6 essential TV shows that stand out from 2016
Stranger Things: What we can expect in season two