Remember the whole Slender Man creepypasta that was all over the internet around a decade ago that spawned countless videos, shows, and even a 2018 movie? Slender Man is back streaming for anyone with a Netflix subscription in time for the spooky season, but there’s another documentary about the phenomenon that you should probably watch instead.
One of the best documentaries on HBO Max, Beware the Slenderman is honestly more terrifying than some of the scariest horror movies of all time, and something that everyone should watch at least once. Sometimes, especially in the case of this great true crime documentary, truth is stranger and more unsettling than fiction…
Beware The Slenderman Is One Of The Most Unsettling Documentaries Of The Past 10 Years
If you’ve never watched or heard of Beware The Slenderman (here’s the official trailer), just know that it’s one of the most unsettling documentaries of the past 10 years, and perhaps of all time. Directed by Irene Taylor (Hear and Now, I Am: Celine Dion), the doc breaks down the story of two 12-year-old girls who stabbed a friend in an attempt to reach out to the Slenderman.
Watching this as it premiered on HBO back in 2017 was one of the most traumatic experiences as a young parent, and revisiting a few times over the years hasn’t made it any less unnerving.
It Primarily Recounts The Story Of The Slender Man Stabbing, But Also Dives Into The Phenomenon
Filled with chilling interrogations, interviews with investigators and residents of Waukesha, Wisconsin, the small town where it all went down, and one of the most traumatizing stories of obsession and the power of myth, this doc will leave you with an unshakable uneasiness. While the focus is primarily on the 2014 attempted murder case that rocked a community, it also spends a lot of time digging into the origins of the phenomenon.
The history of the creepypasta that was all over sites like Reddit, 4Chan, and YouTube in the early-to-mid 2010s provides a tremendous amount of context that helps you better understand how something like this could happen.
Like The Slender Man Movie, The Documentary Is Available Streaming
While Slender Man, the 2018 movie that ruffled the feathers of people connected to the stabbing, was one of the new movies added to Netflix in October 2025, Beware the Slenderman has been streaming for anyone with an HBO Max subscription for years. HBO tends to keep its documentaries available on the streaming platform for years, but that’s no reason to put this off any longer.
It’s hard to say how long the Slender Man movie will stick around on Netflix, as things come and go all the time, but now is a good time with it being spooky movie season. Though not as traumatizing as the documentary, this horror flick has its share of scary moments.
If you’re looking for a documentary that digs a little deeper and is far more terrifying than the 2018 horror film, Beware the Slenderman, is going to do the trick. But you have been warned…