I think it only works well in the analogue found film format, in that it looks like some kind of animate glitch in reality, something which shouldn't be able to move but does, and you barely get any good glimpses of the creatures so your mind kind of fills in how unnatural they are. Their weird glitchy movements and appearing to clip through the environment seem more eldritch in that format whereas in a more high-budget production they would look more like bad CG.

As a still image it doesn't work as well because you can just look at its whole body and see it's just a malevolent stick man.

Well, if I wanted to play D&D or LARP I would go do those things or watch/listen to the many, many D&D streams or podcasts out there. If a high-budget TV show has storytelling and acting which is worse than my home game or which is akin to bad/average DMing, something has gone wrong.