Spoiler Warning: the following article contains major plot details for Bodycam, which is now available to stream on Shudder.
Ideas evolve over time, and horror fans are more aware of this than most. After all, Friday the 13th first began as an Americanization of whodunnit Giallo pictures and later turned into an episodic rival to Halloween – and who can forget how John Carpenter took Christian Nyby’s classic sci-fi flick about an alien vegetable man and transformed it into a paranoid piece of body-horror cinema?
My point is: while not every change is necessarily positive, narrative evolution has always been an inevitable part of human culture, and this process was only accelerated by the rise of the internet.
In fact, easily accessible online spaces have led to the creation of countless communities obsessed with establishing modern mythologies. These communities often condense entire generations’ worth of narrative adaptation into the span of just a few days, with some of these works of collective fiction (such as the SCP Foundation and even the Backrooms phenomenon) going on to influence mainstream genre fiction in increasingly curious ways.
This is what was going through my head as I watched Brandon Christensen’s Found Footage gem Bodycam during a special theatrical screening last week. While the movie itself is a highly entertaining piece of standalone horror fiction, using the titular bodycam gimmick to great effect as it places viewers in the unenviable shoes of a pair of morally questionable police officers who bite off more than they can chew when they encounter a supernatural cult, there was a certain familiarity to the experience that made it even more enjoyable.
You see, what stood out to me the most about Bodycam was how Brandon (alongside his brother Ryan Christensen) somehow made the best big-screen adaptation of Slender Man despite not actually including the faceless monster in their movie. This peculiarity then got me thinking about how the complicated legacy of Slender Man continues to influence the horror genre despite the once-popular entity now being mostly regarded as a dated relic of the digital past.
But what a past it was!
For those who aren’t aware, Slender Man was originally the result of a horror-themed Photoshop contest on the Something Awful forums. User Victor Surge came up with a series of eerie photographs and accompanying text describing children being abducted by a mysterious faceless figure, with these creative seeds soon blossoming into a terrifying urban legend that grew more complex as fans of the character began adding their own unique spins to the lore. This is how Slender Man became a meme, with the online folklore surrounding the entity inspiring incredibly successful web series (such as Marble Hornets) as well as a viral horror game that helped to revolutionize indie genre releases.
For a while there, it really seemed like the monster had joined the ranks of Dracula and the Wolfman as a folkloric nightmare that would continue to stalk movies, games, and literature for decades to come. Yet, this collective work of fiction would eventually come crashing down as overexposure began to reduce the meme’s scare factor, with this downfall being accelerated by a real-life tragedy involving Slenderverse fans using their obsession with the character as an excuse to hurt others. It soon became taboo to even reference Slender Man media altogether, with the urban legend’s uncomfortable associations even affecting Sylvain White’s cinematic adaptation from 2018 (an alleged good movie that ended up being butchered by the studio).
It now seems like enough time has passed for folks to begin to look back fondly on the heyday of collaborative internet mythology. Filmmakers like Alex Hera have waxed nostalgic about the rise and fall of the original Slenderverse creators, and even the team behind Marble Hornets returned last year with a meta sequel series about an alternate universe version of the main characters once again falling victim to the Operator after visiting an iconic filming location from the original series.
This brings us back to Bodycam and all the ways that the film appears to be connected to the Slenderverse. While there’s no need to do a deep dive into all of the film’s Slender Man references, I think it’s safe to say that these elements were put there intentionally. Not only does the ultimate big bad resemble Victor Surge’s nightmarish creation with its pale complexion and spindly tentacles (not to mention its hunger for children and the eldritch influence it exerts over its followers), but Bodycam even depicts the entity’s thralls almost exactly like the “Proxies” featured in the Slender Man ARGs that once dominated the internet.
The supernatural forces at play even make the cameras glitch out almost exactly like Jay’s footage in the aforementioned Marble Hornets, and don’t even get me started on the recurring graffiti that looks like an alternate universe version of the classic Operator symbol.
Details like these seem like they were deliberately placed by the filmmakers in order to pay homage to the stories that inspired their latest project, and from “The Demon of Memes” episode of Evil to the Rosswood miniseries, I’d argue that this reverence towards the early days of the Slender Man phenomenon is something of a recurring trend in modern horror. This makes a lot of sense, as we’re finally seeing a new generation of filmmakers who actually grew up alongside the mythos.
Sure, plenty of horror critics have (rightly) criticized the Slenderverse for its repetitive tropes and entry-level takes on Lovecraftian terror (and that’s not even bringing up valid criticism concerning the fandom’s questionable actions in the real world), but original projects like Bodycam serve as further proof that the Slender Man lives on as something of an unseen influence hovering over the entire horror genre – a position that I think is appropriate considering the entity’s description as a “living meme”.
At the end of the day, it’s doubtful that the Slenderverse itself will make a full recovery (especially since younger internet users are now more familiar with recent creations like Trevor Henderson’s Sirenhead), but it doesn’t really need to. The idea of a viral entity spreading through cult-like followers and pulling strings from behind the scenes continues to be a poignant parable for modern times, so it stands to reason that we’ll continue to see Slender-Man-inspired media for years to come. However, while I can’t wait to see how this new generation of filmmakers manages to update our favorite internet-borne monster, I think it’s worth looking back on the online scares of yesteryear as both an inspiration and a potential warning about the dangers of memetic horror.
After all, you can’t kill an idea – especially one with a mind of its own.
