292: Slender Man + _beware the slenderman

[00:00:02] Hello everybody, welcome back to the Film Buds podcast. This is episode number 287 and my name is Henry. Just me, this week Elle has been pretty overwhelmed with work so our schedules have just not really lined up as we would like to so

[00:00:30] we will be doing a show together next week. We'll be doing the Trolls animated movie franchise kind of unexpectedly but we watched them all this past week and so she will be back for that so very sorry that it's just me. You're stuck

[00:00:44] with me but hope that's okay. As always thanks for joining us. Please hit that subscribe button now, rate, review, share, tell everybody about Film Buds if you haven't already. Thank you to all of our new listeners. Please check out our bonus

[00:00:58] show page at filmbuds.bandcamp.com and there have been a lot of teaser episodes released on the regular feed if you haven't seen those already that show you a little bit of what the bonus shows are like. There's a lot of great

[00:01:09] content there so please do check that out and thank you again to all those who have. So this week a bit of a random choice like last week but I feel like with me I would rather just have an interesting discussion on a set of

[00:01:24] movies rather than just the new release always. Not that there's anything wrong with that but I figured during these slower weeks or the more chaotic weeks I figure I'd just pick things that interest me and hopefully interest you.

[00:01:34] And if you have any suggestions for things that you'd like to see reviewed on the regular show or on the bonus show page please let us know on Letterboxd, on social media at filmbuds, email, all that stuff is in the show

[00:01:45] notes we'd love to hear from you. Anyways long story short I'm going to be doing a Slender Man double feature. I'm going to be doing the Slender Man horror film from 2018 which is inspired by the real-life crime of Slender Man and the

[00:02:02] two girls which is what our other film is and that is the HBO documentary Beware the Slender Man. So I figured even though I didn't have a huge interest in watching the 2018 dramatization because I did love the spoiler I did really like

[00:02:18] the documentary I figured might as well do both sides because I think they both have interesting points some are better for that reason some are worse for that reason but I think it'll be a good discussion and yeah thanks for being here.

[00:02:30] In terms of what's going on with us not a whole lot just been working quite a bit I did get a new tattoo yesterday I got a Bill and Ted franchise tattoo on

[00:02:40] my leg which it looks pretty awesome and I might post a picture of it on the Instagram page or something but that was really cool I love getting movie tattoos that's a big thing with me so got that yesterday that took a while but it was

[00:02:51] came out really well and I'm gonna be getting a little bit of vacation time in the next couple of weeks which I'm really really looking forward to because we've both been fairly burnt out over a lot of different things so I'm happy

[00:03:04] that we'll get a little bit more time together Elle and I that is and there's more time at home catch up on sleep all that good stuff and I hope you all are doing well out there too. Well got a lot to

[00:03:16] talk about plus other stuff I watched I have that I forgot to mention that sorry but let's get to our first movie which is Slender Man from 2018 and we do have a

[00:03:25] clip so take a listen. You guys I threw up twice this morning before I got on the bus. Is it Carl's? Ha that's hilarious and also scientifically impossible. Have you been having nightmares? Have you? About what? It's nothing really it's just

[00:03:50] that video. Alright so as I said Slender Man came out in 2018 directed by Sylvain White stars Joey King, Julia Goddani Tells, Jaz Sinclair, Annalise Basso not a lot of other big names and the synopsis is in a small town in Massachusetts a

[00:04:12] group of friends fascinated by the internet lore of the Slender Man attempt to prove that he doesn't actually exist until one of them mysteriously goes missing. Since this is an older movie I'll do the box office it made 51 million

[00:04:25] against a budget of around 20 so made more money than I expected but not a huge hit by any means. I was aware of the Slender Man at the time I think I'd seen the documentary at that point but I'm not sure but I was at least aware of

[00:04:38] it but I think the biggest thing with this movie when it came out is I don't mind if you take a true crime or disaster or tragedy and find a way to

[00:04:47] turn it into a film but if you're gonna do that you need to make sure you do it at least in some ways tastefully or artfully as best you can for lack of a

[00:04:56] better term. I only saw this movie in the last week or two because I had interest in re-watching the HBO documentary I said hey what a good idea to do for film but so I figured I'd slog through this one and I was hopeful I

[00:05:10] knew it was supposed to be awful and sadly I was not wrong it is terrible I think almost entirely across the board and little backstory here the Slender Man and we'll get to it more with the documentary I don't think there's as

[00:05:26] much to say about this one as there is the actual true story but I growing up I knew a little bit about the Slender Man I don't think I was really exposed to it until college a friend of mine had that Slender Man game which they actually

[00:05:41] show in the documentary where you're walking around the woods and you're searching for clues I think and then the Slender Man is in the background and he'll chase you or kill you I can't remember exactly what it was but that

[00:05:53] was probably my first exposure to it and it freaked me the heck out that was about all I knew in terms of firsthand experience I knew of the lore the concept I didn't really know about the true crime story until I saw the

[00:06:05] documentary but the movie itself if you're gonna take as I said earlier if you're gonna take something whether it's a true story a novel whatever especially if it's something like this where there is endless amounts of

[00:06:18] mythology lore designs store other stories made up by people all across the world it's really pretty shameful when you do absolutely nothing with that backstory and background because this movie does nothing it is the most

[00:06:37] generic bland shallow trite horror film that I've seen in quite some time the look of the Slender Man he's barely even in it to be real and the look of the Slender Man is boring it really does just take the generic look of the

[00:06:53] Slender Man the tall guy with the black suit and tie that's basically all you see in the movie and one big thing about the movie on a technical level the lighting is horrible I usually don't have a problem with lighting in Hollywood

[00:07:06] movies low budget or not but especially considering the budget of this movie was fairly decent it wasn't made for $10,000 it was around 20 or more the movie looks horrible it's so dark that you can't even tell what's going on 80% of the

[00:07:22] time and I'm absolutely not someone to complain about low level lighting low key lighting dark shadowy foggy I don't really care sometimes I even prefer that especially when it comes to horror but there's a level that they crossed here

[00:07:38] where I actually could not tell what was happening who was where where the Slender Man was maybe that's the point but I couldn't tell what was going on who died who's being attacked where they are the direction was sloppy it was

[00:07:52] really on a technical level very very poor quality and that was a huge detractor for me because I don't mind cheap jump-scare movies and if you're gonna make a Slender Man jump-scare movie that's fine but this could have

[00:08:07] been done so much better because I don't really know what they're thinking while I was watching this because if you're gonna take that story do some research whether it's really dark creepy stuff disturbing stuff added in if you're

[00:08:22] already making a Hollywood movie and you're crossing that tasteful boundary of making a horror film off of a real-life tragedy then do something with it it's not gonna be any better if you make the most shallow bland uninspired

[00:08:37] film I don't know what they're really thinking there because if you're gonna do that don't even make it so that was a big disappointment because there is if you just type in Slender Man artwork online there is you could spend years

[00:08:50] going through all the different designs that people have made and their own interpretations their own stories the mythology videos all that stuff and I'm sure anyone who knows about the Slender Man is familiar with that stuff because

[00:09:03] so again I it is very frustrating on that level more than anything because there are plenty of jump-scare cheap jump-scare films that I like but this is one one of the worst that I've seen quite some time as I mentioned and Joey

[00:09:15] King I like her a lot this feels pretty beneath her she's been in a lot of other good things like the act on Hulu and quite a lot of other good films so this

[00:09:25] film I don't even know why she was in this maybe it got pushed back a while or she just needed the money I don't know but she feels very out of place in this and she's mostly just screaming the whole time as is everybody else really

[00:09:38] one of the only moments that gave me any kind of chills or thrills was the library sequence where the Slender Man is in the library and there's that sequence I believe with Joey King she's in that so that really was one of the

[00:09:54] only parts of the movie that I was engaged with otherwise couldn't tell what was going on it was sloppily put together poorly written didn't care about anybody the design elements were sloppy not scary confusing frustrating

[00:10:08] everything above so I was definitely not shocked that it was this bad considering the reviews that it got and the reputation that I know it had but more than anything because if you look at something like an internet sensation or a

[00:10:23] toy or a board game or anything like that anything relative that doesn't have any story you can see the examples of studios saying all right we can do whatever we want with this let's go nuts whether no matter what the story is

[00:10:38] tasteful or not because end of the day it's a Hollywood movie off of a real tragedy so you're already there and these days it's so easy to tell when studios go full committed to that idea doing whatever they can with it or the

[00:10:53] filmmakers rather and then when they don't like all right here let's just make some money because this happened a couple years ago this is a big hit let's see what we can churn out with the least amount of effort so really

[00:11:05] terrible won't ever feel the need to watch it again if they want to remake it in some way or do a better version of it I would watch it sorry if that's a hot take but I would because I think there is something at least interesting about

[00:11:18] the Slender Man and there is a lot you can do with it even unrelated to the actual true crime you know or you could do a reinterpretation of that I don't know but I would be up for another film a better version of this film but highly

[00:11:32] not recommend this movie do not watch it I thought it was horrible a big big misfire for me that is a one and a half out of five alright let's get to the true crime HBO documentary beware the Slender Man which

[00:11:51] is now as you would guess on HBO and we do have a clip as well so take a listen she appears to be stabbed she appears to be what stabbed stabbed wire and geyser are accused of stabbing the friend and leaving her for dead

[00:12:22] police say the suspects were inspired by a character on a website Slender Man a faceless ghoul we never thought she could possibly believe that it was real all right beware the Slender Man as I said is on HBO now or max it came out in

[00:12:40] 2016 it's directed by Irene Taylor and the synopsis is tells story of two twelve-year-old girls who attempted to murder one of their friends in an attempt to appease Slender Man a fictional monster from a horror website

[00:12:54] so as I said I I maybe had heard of the actual crime here before this came out I can't remember maybe I heard someone mentioned but I didn't really know anything else about it who was involved why it happened anything like that so

[00:13:09] I'm really glad that this documentary came out because like Slender Man it's easy to get details lost and people to make their own interpretations and twist things and you actually have the real-life girls and families and crime

[00:13:22] and investigation presented in a form like this that does a good service to people in getting a real understanding which is the point of point of documentaries to document things as you can imagine the film itself I have seen

[00:13:38] it twice now saw a couple years ago and then I rewatched it for the show I think it is very well done I don't consider a masterpiece but for what it is and true crime cautionary tales it's one of the better ones that sticks out to me going

[00:13:55] back to the the background with Slender Man and the documentary really gets into this where he first appeared in these if you're familiar with creepypasta on these horror websites and other things and other forms and it just got bigger

[00:14:10] and bigger and bigger it's one of those really is an internet sensation where there's no money involved in all this marketing or marketing quote-unquote and spreading it's just people are fascinated by it and it spreads and

[00:14:23] spreads and spreads like a virus what the documentary gets into a lot is and I can I can see this because I in for better or worse I there are intriguing things about the Slender Man people call him the internet boogeyman and he was

[00:14:38] seen not only as the boogeyman but he was considered by some to be this weirdly a comfort or a savior for them because all these people who use the internet to feel safe to feel social to get away from their lives who were maybe very

[00:14:54] lonely or isolated anti-social whatever he was this character who you could go write stories about that you and the Slender Man went did this or the Slender Man tried to find you or he was watching over you and you know I can see

[00:15:07] that growing up even though I wasn't involved in that really I can see if I was around that I probably would be interested in exploring that world as well for better or worse sorry if that sounds weird but I think most people

[00:15:19] probably would he's one of those characters that there's a dark fascination with and obviously the true crime of these and we'll get to that in just a minute in which it went from being an internet sensation to really a

[00:15:33] horror story not a internet horror story a real-life horror story a real tragedy and so it got this really bad dark mark on it forever because of these girls and so the documenter itself if you're unfamiliar there are these two young

[00:15:48] girls middle school age ish girls who one of them well they both were interested in the Slender Man online and their parents were fairly familiar with this but they didn't really see the harm in it all that much which that happens I

[00:16:02] think it's hard to keep track of all that stuff I don't blame them at all but one of the girls especially was wanting to please the Slender Man quote-unquote by killing their best friend because then they in their own minds or through

[00:16:18] stories or whatever else they read or watched or heard they thought that if they didn't kill this girl the Slender Man would come and kill their families so long story short one of the girls was diagnosed with early onset

[00:16:32] schizophrenia and then I don't know if the other girl was diagnosed with something in particular but they've both been imprisoned now one of them might be out at some point and they spent time in mental institutions and

[00:16:44] it's a whole mess so and the documentary does a good job of explaining that so you can explore those details for yourself but they took their best friend out into the woods one day and they held her down and the girl the main girl this

[00:17:01] schizophrenic girl stabbed her dozens of times I can't remember just how many but it's insane to think about anyone going through that the girl ended up surviving somehow and in the documentary they say that one of the stab wounds

[00:17:15] missed one of her major arteries around her heart by a millimeter or something like that pretty insane to where if she'd gotten it there she would have been dead and somehow she managed to survive crawl out of where they were and

[00:17:30] the girls ended up just leaving her there to die and the girl crawled and or walked I don't know exactly what but found her way to safety or to where the authorities could come get her and then of course these two girls were charged

[00:17:42] and it's really insane and so horrible to think about where you can see in this day and age especially with the digital world and the internet and it probably has affected many more people in a variety of ways that's obvious that a

[00:17:57] character like this which has a darkness a horror angle to it a mythology a mystery and it tends to cling for lack of a better word to younger people anti-social people who aren't fully developed who other people within that

[00:18:14] world other users so to speak can take advantage of them can put the wrong malicious information on there regarding the Slender Man or play tricks and people can get their minds completely warped and I know that if I've been

[00:18:27] growing up in that world I probably would have had my mind warped in one way or the other but at the same time the Slender Man wasn't really meant for that either because it was mostly seen as just a horror story online that people

[00:18:39] can make their own stories up with which you know there's nothing wrong with that and everyone has their dark fascinations and people like horror obviously people love horror and they don't want to admit the things that they're intrigued by or

[00:18:51] whatever it might be and considering the amount of true crime documentaries out there in the world right now obviously that's a big fascination with people whether they readily admit it or not but this one is definitely worth a watch

[00:19:03] it's very unsettling obviously because you have a lot of interviews with these two girls where the police are asking them all right who made you do this and they say the Slender Man and he said he would come kill my family if I didn't

[00:19:16] kill this girl and then the other girl really expressing I guess you can say almost sociopathic behavior saying oh well you know we took her there and we killed her and this and really not showing much emotion or remorse at all

[00:19:30] and that's partly due to her mental illness as well but just a mixture of those things in those actual real documented interrogations where these cops I can imagine being one of those police officers trying to ask these

[00:19:44] girls questions about that and figuring all this out but the documentary has a lot of that it has a lot of injects of Slender Man stories, artwork, interviews with other people who have been involved in the Slender Man world online as well

[00:20:01] psychologists everyone you can imagine so it's very well researched it's very well told and directed and edited very compelling despite the darkness and unsettling nature of it it also has interviews with the two families where they did one of them who had the schizophrenic daughter the story they

[00:20:20] bring up is when we went and saw Bambi together my daughter wasn't upset when the mother died in Bambi spoiler and she said that there were a lot of other weird little things that made the kid not seem as normal as she should be in

[00:20:35] terms of emotional responses and behavior and so that was pretty interesting to watch and then also the other family who are basically having to deal with their daughter being this accomplice in this attempted murder and

[00:20:48] them never really being able to recover from it having to take care of their other child live in a world where everyone knows who they are knows who the kid is what they did and they're having to live in this world of complete

[00:21:01] confusion and guilt and shame and or really so it's a very upsetting sad documentary but it also does present you a lot of different angles and perspectives and gives you a lot of information on the actual Slender Man

[00:21:14] sensation as well so if you want to learn about that you don't know anything about it or if you're curious check it out this is a good one to start with because I'd rather people do that then what just go online and type in Slender

[00:21:25] Man see what they can find out this is a really good cautionary tale one that everyone should watch especially in terms of talking about mental illness the dangers of the internet interpretations of art and related

[00:21:39] things so there's a lot of interesting things to talk about there to think about it's just one that you really have to be in the right mood for and if you're gonna watch anything about the Slender Man this or the 2018 film

[00:21:51] absolutely watch this don't bother with the dramatization so yeah it's really really good I would highly highly recommend it give it a look you know that would be a heavy four out of five all right well hope you enjoyed that

[00:22:05] again that was a little bit random but I figured it was a good discussion good things to have out there and the the good and the bad of the Slender Man when it comes to media all right well I can end off with other stuff I watched have

[00:22:20] a handful of things nothing too crazy though I rewatched with some co-workers Anchorman 2 the legend continues which I love Will Ferrell as most people do I think he's hilarious I love that first Anchorman movie and anything Adam McKay

[00:22:36] does I'm there for sure I've seen it probably three or four times now there are three different versions of it maybe two I watched the theatrical cut this time and I do like the movie overall I preferred the first one but most of the

[00:22:50] time when I watch these movies I or watch this one I have it on in the background or I stop and start it because I'm doing other things etc etc but watching it as I said on my letterboxd review watching it uninterrupted

[00:23:05] one sitting was a bit of a slog it's almost two hours and while I love those characters I love the cast I love the world there were just points where it felt so dragged out so bloated to at 11 out of 10 all the time where I was like

[00:23:22] alright I'm laughing consistently but some scenes just went on too long certain plot points like where he goes blind and there's the recovery all that stuff is just too much the shark it's clever and stupid and witty but there

[00:23:36] are points where in terms of the runtime where I was like I this does not need to be there so I still like the movie it's very entertaining there's a lot of I guess it resonates with me a lot more than a lot of other comedies but still

[00:23:48] not amazing went down a little bit this time around but still worth a watch for sure if you like that kind of comedy then I rewatched American Psycho with Christian Bale which remains one of the most insane movies that I've ever seen

[00:24:01] Christian Bale is incredible goes without saying he's amazing in the movie and has a very good cast overall not one for everybody it's very unsettling darkly very darkly funny weird bizarre unpredictable violent but it is clearly

[00:24:17] a very influential film made a huge impact when it came out and it's one of again Christian Bale's best roles for sure in my opinion then I rewatched Isle of Dogs the Wes Anderson film which I still really really love and I did do a

[00:24:32] Wes Anderson bonus show on our bandcamp page which is film buds bank camp calm and there's about 65 bonus shows there now maybe more really really like it love stop-motion and you can hear my full review there so I won't go in too

[00:24:45] much into that and then one thing I did review on letterboxd that I think made some people comment and I appreciate that is I did show a co-worker of mine Evil Dead Rise from last year and I did also did the Evil Dead franchise on a

[00:24:58] bonus show so I can check that out too he was losing his mind in this movie he had never seen one of the Evil Dead movies before and I think it's and I was talking about this on the regular show or the bonus show if you're a newer

[00:25:10] person to this franchise I don't know if it's better to start with the originals or these newer ones I think they're all great but my friend was losing his mind scared beyond belief and I was I really really liked the movie as

[00:25:23] well but he was going crazy and it was a pretty enjoyable or experience so that was really good so check that out if you haven't yet I would really get into the Evil Dead movies if you are unfamiliar and then lastly I watched Kurt Cobain

[00:25:40] montage of heck which is the fairly recent Kurt Cobain documentary biopic documentary which takes you really from all the way to when he was born through up to his death and it's one of the best music documentaries that I've ever seen

[00:25:56] one of the best rock and roll documentaries absolutely there's so much footage so much emotional resonance very unsettling to watch because it is about Kurt Cobain and just his unraveling and up-and-downs and has a lot of interviews with Courtney Love a lot of concert footage interview footage

[00:26:16] everything you can imagine has animation incorporated into certain parts of the storytelling it's not only one of the best but I would say if you want to know how to make a good documentary that has a variety of styles of storytelling

[00:26:29] of visuals watch this movie it's done by Brett Morgan who also just did the Moon Age Daydream documentary about David Bowie which I have watched a little bit of and I'm loving so yeah if you are interested in watching a great

[00:26:43] documentary or you're interested in seeing how someone can incorporate so much versatility into one movie especially if it's a documentary watch this because it there aren't many that would match it in my opinion so yeah

[00:26:57] that is a must watch and that is currently on HBO along with Moon Age Daydream those are both there or Max excuse me all right well that is about it I believe as I said earlier Elle will be back next week we're gonna be

[00:27:11] doing the Trolls franchise doing all three movies Trolls Trolls World Tour and then the new one Trolls Band Together so that should be fun and I'll probably put that up on the Bandcamp page as well I think I'll re-edit it

[00:27:24] after the fact so that way we can have all the franchise episodes together if you want to add that to your collection there keep an eye out for that should be a great time we watched them all in about a day or two and that was really

[00:27:36] fun so that should be great follow us on social media at FilmBuds Elle and I are also both on Letterboxd email us the filmbudspodcast at gmail.com tell your friends rate review subscribe check out our bonus show page there's years and

[00:27:53] years hours and hours of good content there please let everybody you know about FilmBuds please share it around we really do appreciate and thank you to all of our new listeners our longtime listeners we hope you'll stick around

[00:28:04] because we love having you all right well I hope you enjoyed even half as much as I did and I'll see you next time y'all