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10th Mar 2016

This chilling new crime documentary could be the next ‘Making a Murderer’

'Beware the Slenderman'

Ben Kenyon

Making a Murderer was a seminal piece of film-making

The Netflix docuseries gripped the world with the true story of Steven Avery, who was wrongly imprisoned for two decades before being convicted of murder after his release.

But the hard-hitting series left us wanting more. While we wait for the follow up film from Avery’s case, a new true crime documentary has emerged to fill the void.

It looks like a real bone-chiller too. The HBO series is called  ‘Beware the Slenderman’ and tells the story of  two teenagers who allegedly stabbed a 12-year-old girl 19 times in woodland in Wisconsin, America.

The two 13-year-olds charged with the infamous 2014 stabbing had claimed they did it to show devotion to the Slenderman and prove he was real.

They have since pleaded not guilty and are now awaiting trial in the US.

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The Slenderman is a fictional figure – or ‘Bogeyman’ –  dreamed up on the Something Awful internet forum in 2009 – supposedly embodied by a tall, thin, faceless man who stalked and traumatised children.

The synopsis of the new documentary reads: ‘Shot over 18 months with heartbreaking access to the families of the would-be murderers, the film plunges deep down the rabbit hole of their crime, a Boogeyman and our society’s most impressionable consumers of media.

‘The entrance to the internet can quickly lead us to its dark basement, within just a matter of clicks. How much do we hold children responsible for what they find there?’

It is set to premier at SXSW Festival this week but the HBO release date is yet to be confirmed.