'Every Parent's Nightmare' Petition Aims To Stop Slender Man Film

WAUKESHA COUNTY, WI — Claiming that a movie studio is profiting off of the publicity surrounding the Waukesha Slenderman murder trial, an online petitioner is calling for Sony Pictures to stop the release of a Slender Man movie.

The film is slated for release on May 18. While the Slender Man character has been featured in video games and online stories, the Sony film would be the first full-length feature built around it. The picture was directed by Sylvain White, who also helmed 2007's "Stomp the Yard," and stars Javier Botet as Slender Man, according to a previous report.

The petition's organizer, identified as Alison Pettis, said, "It's every parent's nightmare: a child, violently attacked in the woods. Now imagine it had actually happened to your child ... and a movie company was trying to profit off her story. We need to convince the head of Sony Pictures Entertainment to do the right thing and cancel the film's scheduled May release. But we are going to need plenty of signatures if we are going to convince Sony to put basic human decency above their bottom line. The families affected by this tragedy need our voices. Please add your name now." Waukesha Patch has reached out to Pettis for further comment.

The petition can be found here: Stop Sony's Slender Man Movie

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Slenderman Trial: Anissa Weier Sentence Is 25 Years

The report stated that it's not clear whether the movie will include elements from the Wisconsin case, but in one scene a wall is covered with drawings of Slender Man that resemble sketches one of the girls, Morgan Geyser, drew. Other scenes show Slender Man stalking a girl in the woods and a girl stabbing herself in the head with a scalpel in school, showering a classmate with blood.

No one immediately replied to an email sent Wednesday to Sony's general inbox for media inquiries.

The Slender Man Murder

According to police, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier both plotted for months to kill Payton Leutner, luring her to a weekend birthday-party sleepover and then a wooded park where they stabbed her repeatedly in May 2014, according to authorities.

One child held Leutner to the ground while the other plunged the knife into her chest, arms and legs a total of 19 times, according to police. After the incident, Leutner, also 12, was barely alive when she crawled to a nearby road in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where a passing bicyclist found her the next morning.

Leutner underwent surgery at Waukesha Memorial Hospital before she made a faster-than-expected recovery and was back in school a few months later.

Fascinated With Slender Man

According to investigators, Geyser and Weier were particularly fascinated with the story of Slender Man, a killer of children. According to the criminal complaint, the girls planned to kill their friend so they could be "proxies of Slender Man." They planned to walk hundreds of miles north in the forest to meet Slender Man — a tall, thin, blank-faced figure in a black suit who is viewed both as a force of evil or an avenging angel.

Additional Reporting By Todd Richmond, Associated Press

Photo credit: Screenshot of YouTube video