Marble Hornets
| Marble Hornets | |
|---|---|
 Official title logo | |
| Genre | Horror |
| Created by | Troy Wagner |
| Directed by | Troy Wagner, Joseph DeLage |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| Original release | |
| Network | YouTube |
| Release | June 20, 2009 – present |
Marble Hornets (abbreviated MH and sometimes stylized MarbleHornets) is an ongoing YouTube webseries and ARG.[1] The first episode was posted on YouTube on June 20, 2009, following a post its creator Troy Wagner created on Something Awful the previous day.[2] To date there are 81 entries, along with three ".5" entries, one anonymous ##### entry and several accompanying videos from the series' cryptic side-channel, totheark.
Synopsis
The series follows the character of Jay, a young man that is trying to discover what exactly happened during the filming of his friend Alex's film school project, which was titled Marble Hornets. Alex had been filming the project sporadically for about two months before suddenly stopping without any explanation. Afterwards Alex withdrew from society and his friends, never mentioning the tape until Jay persuaded Alex to give them to him. Alex handed them over, but with the explicit instructions that Jay was to never mention the tapes to him again. Alex then transferred schools and dropped out of contact with Jay. Three years later Jay remembered the tapes after reading about the Slender Man mythos in 2009 and began to research the tapes. Shortly thereafter Jay began to experience strange and eerie phenomena surrounding the tapes and a mysterious persona known only as "The Operator".
Plot
The series begins with Jay uploading various suspicious tapes regarding the production of Marble Hornets, the abandoned student film that his old friend, Alex Kralie, had been working on. Disturbed by the unexplained, faceless figure appearing on several of the tapes (the Operator), Jay decides to look into things deeper. He personally questions Tim, the only cast member of the student film he is able to find but mostly comes up empty-handed. Shortly thereafter, an anonymous tip points Jay in the direction of an abandoned house. After persistent investigation, Jay comes across a masked figure in the house, who attacks him when Jay asks if he's Alex. It's at this point that Jay starts to realise things are getting dangerous. On a third visit to the house, Jay finally encounters the Operator, which leads to him losing consciousness. Jay is prepared to quit trying to find out the truth, until he receives a mysterious tape in the mail. The tape shows Alex, living safely with his girlfriend, Amy. Amy finds Alex's old camera, which puts Alex in a state of unease. The Operator appears before the two and the tape cuts out before their fate can be made clear. Jay decides that he must find Alex.
7 months after swearing to find Alex, Jay awakens at a hotel, his memory of the past 7 months a complete blank. One of his only leads is a safe in his hotel room but he doesn't know the combination. He soon discovers he's not the only one in this strange situation, as the woman in the room next to his, Jessica, confesses to having a huge gap in her memory as well. Jay decides to give up on the safe and escape with Jessica but she disappears without a trace while he's gathering his things. A note with the combination to his safe is left behind in Jessica's room, however, so Jay is able to open the safe and retrieve the tapes that he finds inside.
The tapes document what happened over the 7 months that Jay cannot recollect. The first event documented is Jay, having found Alex, investigating the return address of the tape that showed Alex and Amy's run-in with the Operator. There they encounter the masked man who Jay first came across in the abandoned house. Jay and Alex subdue him together and remove the mask, revealing he has been Tim all along. To Jay's shock, Alex then picks up a block of cement and breaks Tim's leg, claiming it's to make sure they aren't followed. Jay and Alex form a very shaky alliance, with the intention of finding Amy. Along the way, the Operator finds Alex again and begins to deteriorate his sanity. The masked Tim, with the help of a mysterious hooded figure, attempts to take the chance to kill Alex but the Operator stops them. Jay also becomes suspicious of Alex, which leads to their alliance shattering. Jay gets the phone number of Amy's roommate, Jessica, as he has no other leads left, which might have been what led to Jessica being involved in the first place.
Jay's next move is to follow Alex and see what he does. He is unable to catch up on one particular occasion but as Jay has access to all the footage in the present day, he finds that this may have been for the best. The footage from Alex's camera shows that Alex became paranoid when a man asked him what he was doing and murdered the man. Alex then tells Jay to come along with Jessica to meet him, as he has something important to show them. Alex pulls a gun on the pair once he's alone with them but the masked Tim intervenes just when he is about to fire. Jay and Jessica take the chance to flee to the hotel, where they are attacked by the Operator, causing their memories to be erased.
Having finished watching through the tapes that documented the 7 months, Jay decides he has to find out if Alex is alive and stop him from hurting anyone else and also see if he can find Jessica. After poking around town for a while, Jay spots Tim, who is acting normally. Jay tries to enlist Tim's help in the investigation but very quickly loses all credibility. Tim, curious about his true intent, looks up about the Marble Hornets student film. He finds all the videos Jay posted online and punches Jay in the face next time they meet. Tim says that he has no memory of his masked episodes and that he hadn't had any for a while. He criticses Jay for trying to drag him back into the whole mess. He's too late to quit, however, as the masked figure breaks into his house and steals his medication, causing him to resort to his masked persona again. Jay manages to find Tim, shortly after which his sanity returns. Tim realises he has to work with Jay in order to keep himself safe from the threats that are out there and agrees that afterwards, they'll find Jessica together.
Jay and Tim's first steps are to investigate some of the key areas Jay and Alex went to throughout the investigation. While in the area in which Alex killed a man, Tim suddenly suffers from a coughing fit and collapses. The Operator appears and approaches fast. Jay runs away, later finding Tim back in his car. Tim stares emptily and drives away. Tim eventually comes back and gives Jay his camera, showing that following the Operator's attack on him, he retreated to an abandoned hospital, in which he eventually passed out. Tim asks Jay to go there with him, where Tim confesses to having been a former mental patient and that it's fully possible that the Operator was what he had been seeing, which would mean that Tim was the one who caused everything. Jay isn't so quick to dismiss Tim and after looking around the hospital some more, they find a tape left behind by the hooded figure. The tape shows Alex searching the hospital for Tim and being stopped only by the hooded figure's intervention. Jay is so frightened that he flees the town with Tim. Eventually, however, they must return, as Alex has been hiding out in Tim's house and the hooded figure has been stealing Tim's spare pills.
Having returned to the town, Jay and Tim search the house for Alex and the hooded figure but they are already gone. What they do find is a photo of Amy left behind, with the address "79, South Creek Road" written on the back. While searching the rest of the house, Jay becomes suspicious of Tim's shifty behaviour and confronts him. He finds Tim is trying to conceal a tape that was stashed in the house and takes it away with him. The contents show the hooded figure and the masked Tim taking Jessica away from the hotel, the night of her disappearance. They are stopped by Alex, who tries to lure her into a secluded area and kill her. Jessica disarms Alex and runs, only to be attacked by the Operator. There is no trace of her body afterwards, leaving her fate unknown. Jay goes back to Tim's house and demands answers. Tim confesses to hiding the tape, as he knew Jay would blame him for what happened. Tim ties up Jay to keep him from acting recklessly and heads out to 79 South Creek Road alone, which turns out to be a college campus filled with disused buildings. Jay is freed by the hooded figure while Tim's gone and follows after him. While searching an old basement, Jay suddenly finds himself cornered by Alex, who wordlessly shoots him in the gut. Jay attempts to get away but is taken by the Operator. Tim later comes across his camera, the contents of which reveal Jay's fate to Tim. Tim is horrified and swears to carry on in Jay's footsteps.
Characters
- Alex Kralie: Alex used to attend the same school as Jay, but transferred schools. He is the director of an unfinished student project entitled Marble Hornets, which he dropped without any explanation. He is portrayed by Joseph DeLage.
- Jay: A friend of Alex, Jay has uploaded several entries in an attempt to discover exactly what happened during the filming of Marble Hornets. He is portrayed by Troy Wagner.
- Tim: A former actor from the Marble Hornets student film, and initially the only cast or crew member that Jay can find. He becomes a prominent character in the third season of the series. He is portrayed by Tim Sutton.
- totheark: An unknown persona that has uploaded several responses to Jay's entries. Their true identity or nature has yet to be revealed.
- The Hooded Figure: A person of unknown identity or alliance. They have appeared in videos posted by totheark, strongly suggesting they run or are working with the persona.
- Jessica: A woman that Jay meets in the second season and is somehow connected to Alex and the Operator. She is portrayed by Jessica May.
- The Operator: An entity of unknown origin. Begins appearing to Alex during the shooting of Marble Hornets. When Jay personally investigates Alex's disappearance, he encounters The Operator as well.
Development and reception
Wagner and DeLage began working on the webseries after reading about the Slender Man mythos and because both liked the ease of creating a YouTube series.[3] The initial budget for the series was about $500, which the two used to create the first 26 episodes.[3] They decided against making a set time for each entry, as they both determined that the characters filming the entries would not consider the length of the episode and that the random entry times would help add to the realism.[4]
After its release the series' popularity grew,[5] bringing comparisons to Lonelygirl15 and Connect with I.[6] In 2013 Dread Central named Marble Hornets one of their "Top 10 Horror Fan Films", noting that while it "isn’t technically a film" it still contained an "interwoven examination of the mythical Slender Man" and that they felt it was "what quality fanfare and found footage is really all about."[7]
Early during the airing of season 1, the series has received praise from Roger Ebert.[8]
Film adaptation
In February 2013 Variety announced that plans were underway to produce a film adaptation of Marble Hornets.[9] They also announced that the script will be written by Ian Schort, that James Moran would direct, and that Doug Jones would be portraying The Operator in the film.[10][11] In October of the same year Wagner announced on his blog that the movie had finished filming and that the movie would not be a continuation of the YouTube series but would be set within the same universe.[12]
References
- ^ "YouTube Horror Series Marble Hornets Will Bring Slenderman To Theaters". Cinema Blend. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ "Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren't: The Marble Hornets Project". Crushable. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ a b "The 'Marble Hornets' Web series becoming a smash on 'Net". Post-Gazette. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ "Webseries interview: Marble Hornets creator Troy Wagner". Hypable. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ Powell, Kathryn. "Stalked by Slenderman: A review of "Marble Hornets"". The Gargoyle. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ Alexander, Bryan. The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media. ABC-CLIO. pp. 87–89. ISBN 0313387508.
- ^ Molgaard, Matt. "Dread Central Presents: The Top 10 Horror Fan Films". Dread Central. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
- ^ Ebert, Roger. ""Marble Hornets," a YouTube serial. A forsaken indie film meets "Paranormal." All episodes to date". Retrieved 28 January 2014.
- ^ "Mosaic adapting horror web series". Variety. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ "WEB SERIES MARBLE HORNETS FLYING TO BIG SCREEN". JoBlo. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ "Web Series 'Marble Hornets' Getting Its Own Movie". Spill. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
- ^ Wagner, Troy. "So about that movie". Troy Wagner. Retrieved 21 December 2013.