As reported yesterday, the first trailer for Slender Man is now online and already, it seems like the film is facing criticism.
Slender Man is based on a YouTube video series called Marble Hornets, which partly inspired a knife attack against a teenager in Wisconsin in 2014. Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser lured classmate Payton Leutner to a wooded area in Wisconsin and stabbed her nineteen times; the two teenagers later claiming that this was done to appease Slender Man and to protect their familes. All three girls were twelve years old at the time of the attack.
Geyser is due to be sentenced in February, with prosecutors aiming for a 40-year sentence in a mental hospital. Weier, meanwhile, was sentenced to 25 years in a mental hospital after pleading guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide. Weier's father, Bill Weier, claimed in an interview with AP that the film is "popularizing a tragedy," and that it is "extending the pain all three of these families have gone through."
"It's absurd they want to make a movie like this," said Weier. Neither Sony Pictures nor the film's director, Sylvain White, have publicly commented on Weier's statements.
Via THR
