Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,561
edits
Marble Hornets: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
m (Mass update links) |
No edit summary |
||
| (17 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 3:
{{quote|
''[http://www.youtube.com/user/marblehornets Marble Hornets]'' is an [[Alternate Reality Game|Alternate Reality Movie]] following discoveries made while looking through raw footage of a trite student film. The series is currently{{when}} in its third loosely-defined season. Marble Hornets was instrumental in codifying parts of [[The Slender Man Mythos]], but is not part of the [[Intercontinuity Crossover]] that includes many of the blogs and vlogs that followed it, although MH does feature in other canons as either a chronicle of real events or a fictional series... it leads to some confusion. The movie appears to have started in [http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3150591&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=14#post362207600 this post] from the original Slender Man thread on the [[Something Awful]] forums.
In 2006, film student Alex Kralie suddenly abandons his movie in the midst of production, swearing to burn the tapes and never speak of it again. Alex's friend Jay rescues the taped material and, years later, [[Paranormal Investigation|begins reviewing them]], only to realize too late that the abandoned film shoot was a [[Nightmare Fuel]] refinery and that by digging it up again he may have reawakened sinister forces.
Line 19:
* [[Affectionate Parody]]:
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mk-vG5rAEU Cooking with totheark]
** [[Little Kuriboh]] gives us [https://web.archive.org/web/20110205120614/http://yu-gi-ohabridged.blip.tv/file/4457836
** Courtesy of Neil Cicierga, of Potter Puppet Pals fame, we have [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MXYC_jX2Wc Splendorman]. A parody of the Slender Man mythos in general, though the presentation (text on black screen for intro, amateur film gone awry, visual tearing) is highly reminiscent of Marble Hornets.
** [http://www.youtube.com/user/MarbleCutboys Marble Cutboys]
Line 36:
* [[Arbitrary Skepticism]]: In Entry #38, Jay gives Alex shit for telling him a crummy ghost story. Also counts as [[Completely Missing the Point]] as certain details of the story seem to fly over Jay's head.
* [[Artifact Title]]: The second season has nothing to do with the movie, but rather continues the story set up in earlier videos. Subverted as of season three, as Tim gives Jay more tapes of test footage.
* [[Back for
* [[Backstory]]: In Entry #38 we learn a myth about [[Lost Woods|the forest Alex and Jay are walking through]]. Alex explains that criminals used to be brought there and tied to the trees, which were supposed to grow so fast that they would [[Body Horror|stretch their limbs out like a rack]]. Instead of cutting down the trees with the dead bodies, they'd burn them down... at least they did, until they found [[Would Hurt a Child|the dismembered body of a child strung up amongst the trees]]. Now put all these facts together. Who does this remind you of?
** In the Season 2 DVD commentary, [[Word of God]] explicitly says that the above myth wasn't meant to be an origin story. Troy admitted he may not be entirely opposed to making an origin story for the Operator, but he's most likely not going to.
* [[Badass in
* [[Being Watched]]: Always...
* [[Big Bad]]: The Operator of course. However there's an implication that he may be more of a force of nature and that {{spoiler|Alex}} is the real big bad.
* [[Big Name Fan]]:
** Doug Jones of Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth fame has expressed admiration for the creators on his Twitter.
** [[Roger Ebert]] recommended the series on Twitter. Troy even used his quote for the Season 1 DVD commercial.
* [[Black Comedy]]: Some moments in the second season.
{{quote|
** Note that he was referring to ''[[Mood Whiplash|Entry]] [[Nightmare Fuel|#46]]''.
* [[Black Screen of Death]]: Most noticeably in Entry #18. It fits with the format of the entries because Jay drops the camera and only picks it back up after.
* [[The Blank]]: The Operator.
* [[Blooper]]: The initial upload of "enttry" #37 had a kid wearing a [[
* [[Book Ends]]:
** Entry #27, the start of what could be called season two, starts with Jay in a hotel with no idea how he got there. {{spoiler|Entry #52, the 'season two' end, shows how Jay and Jessica got to the hotel and why they didn't remember anything.}}
Line 64:
** Entry #55 lists Tim's psychiatry problems as if it was ripped right from this very trope entry: headaches, paranoia, and lack of sleep.
* [[Call Forward]]: The trailer, a bonus on the season 2 DVD, has this via Tim's line.
{{quote|
* [[Call Back]]:
** Also in entry #54, tying in to the theme of {{spoiler|revisiting the original making of Marble Hornets}} the first shots of the tape Jay watches show the Silver Silos, which were in the very first shot of the Introduction to the series.
Line 77:
* [[Cat Scare]]: This does occasionally purposefully happen, such as the jump cut to Alex's silhouette in Entry #44, but the [[Nothing Is Scarier]] nature of the series means that any time the camera pans quickly can be this, for example, Entry #23, which comprises about 5 minutes of Jay whipping the camera back and forth around a dark, empty house.
* [[Character Blog]]: Jay keeps viewers up to date with his [https://twitter.com/marblehornets Twitter Account]. Totheark briefly took it over to wish us a happy Halloween.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]:
** The red tower in season one.
** When Jay wakes up at the beginning of season two, he finds a key in his belongings. This isn't mentioned again until Entry #46, when we see where Jay found it, and we don't learn what it opens {{spoiler|until Entry #50}}.
** {{spoiler|Jessica's phone number}}.
** The bullet casing Jay finds in the house in Entry #16 ''might'' be explained as of {{spoiler|Entry #52, wherein Alex pulls a gun on Jay and Jessica - although he had a revolver, which doesn't automatically eject spent shells, so this could raise further questions.}}
* [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome]]/[[What Happened to
* [[Cruel and Unusual Death]]: Entry #38 implies that The Operator may have something to do with a particular 1800s community's preferred method of dealing with criminals: tying them up between fast-growing trees and letting them be stretched out, like a rack.
* [[Creepy Doll]]: It looks like the Slender Doll in Entry #18 was intended to be this but just ended up oddly adorable. You know, for a faceless voodoo doll. It's not the doll itself that's creepy, but ''what it represents.'' However, the doll in Totheark's video ''[http://youtu.be/oCeBFW0KYV0 Indicator]'' is pure [[Nightmare Fuel]].
Line 96:
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Alex has shades of this.
** #42:
{{quote|
'''Alex:''' You got lost in woods you've never been in? }}
** #46:
{{quote|
** #51:
{{quote|
{{spoiler|Brian}} starts coughing up a fit.
'''Alex:''' Good take. }}
** #52:
{{quote|
** #54:
{{quote|
'''Tim:''' Is it going to be, like, dark?
'''Alex:''' (matter-of-factly) There's going to be significantly more lighting. }}
* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: In Entry #52, {{spoiler|Jay possibly runs at the Operator when he appears in his hotel room. Although we only get brief flashes of whatever struggle ensued, it obviously didn't play out in Jay's favor.}}
* [[Digital Piracy Is Evil]]: If you buy the DVD, the first thing to greet you on the screen is this:
{{quote|
* [[Disposing of a Body]]: Done by {{spoiler|The Operator}} in Entry #49. {{spoiler|Alex also does this in Entry #51. He drags Brian's body through a doorway and leaves it there.}}
* [[Do Wrong Right]]: In Entry 46, Alex seems less concerned that Jay {{spoiler|broke into his apartment}} than the fact that he did it so ''incompetently'' {{spoiler|i.e. he did it while Alex was taking out the trash, giving himself at most a minute or two to do whatever he wanted to do}}.
* [[Don't Go in The Woods]]: The entire debacle is believed to have been started because Kralie's film crew got all up in The Operator's home. For some reason, these characters just never learn to stay away from those forested areas.
* [[The Dragon]]: Seemingly totheark and the Masked Man (who may or may not be the same person) to The Operator, although this has really in no way been confirmed.
Line 120:
** The industrial-looking place that Alex gets lost in in Entry #22.
** Note that in Entry #23 {{spoiler|The entire house starts to darken, even though it's daylight out and there are no lights in the house that are on.}}
* [[En Route Sum
* [[Enigmatic Minion]]: The masked men and/or totheark.
* [[Evil-Detecting Dog]]: As quoted above, Alex's dog Rocky.
Line 140:
* [[Four Is Death]]:
** In the run-up to Entry #26, Jay gets a text message on the 4th of April. He then recieves a tape recorded on the day he got the text, showing: {{spoiler|1=Alex and Amy narrowly avoiding The Operator, who appears to them at 4:04 pm. To take it further, the first hint of his presence (the footage tearing) occurs at 4:04 on the YouTube player.}}
** As of early in Entry #26 there appear to be [https://web.archive.org/web/20160320025154/http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f384/axels_red_rose/fourmaskies.png four different Maskies.]
** Also, enttry #37 reveals that Alex's birthday is April 4th.
** The first part of the birthday is also at 4:41.
Line 149:
** In Entry #52, at 10:'''44''', {{spoiler|Jay is at the mercy of the Operator, and his face seems to disappear before appearing comatose on the ground moments later}}.
** Totheark's video entitled ''Decay'', which came out on April 4, 2012, really emphasizes this. It begins by showing distorted footage from Entry #26, effectively showing two timestamps for 4.4.2010 and 4:04 PM. {{spoiler|An encoded message in the video also declares: "[[Prepare to Die|Today is your last birthday.]]"}}
* [[Freeze
** Watch Entry #23 carefully. There are a few instances of this occurring in the video. One includes someone reaching their hand out towards the camera.
** In totheark's ''Forecast'', pausing roughly 31 seconds in allows you to get a glimpse of the person who {{spoiler|filmed Jay in Entry #39}} in the rear-view mirror. It seems to be {{spoiler|a masked man, though the pattern on it is different from Tim's}}.
Line 172:
* [[Hell Hotel]]: The hotel Jay wakes up seems pretty normal until he notices that he and Jessica are the only customers staying there. This ends up being creepier than it sounds.
* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: The creators of the series, Troy and Joe. It gets [[Up to Eleven|taken up to eleven]] in the DVD audio commentary. You definitely come to realize how close the two of them are as friends in real life.
{{quote|
'''Joe:''' I would buy a shirt with your face on it.
'''Troy:''' BEST FRIENDS FOREVER. }}
* [[Here We Go Again]]: In #53, after {{spoiler|finding and getting back in contact with Tim}}, Jay receives a call from {{spoiler|Tim}} stating that he has "found more tapes" from when they were originally filming Marble Hornets.
{{quote|
* [[He Who Must Not Be Named]]: The Operator is never explicitly named in the series, although the word comes up a few times in totheark's videos. The closest the entries come to naming him is in Entry #11, where one of the drawings on Alex's bedroom wall is simply the word "OPERATOR" beneath the recurring crossed-out-circle symbol. Until [[Word of God]] confirmed it towards the end of Season 1, this was the only time that the name was associated with the character, even in totheark's videos.
* [[Hidden Depths]]: From the very beginning, there's more to all of the characters than meets the eye. Then, once we get into the second season, we see just how much the characters are keeping from the surface. However, it almost always seems to do with them hiding their slow spiral into madness.
Line 182:
** Entry #11, right before... *shudder*.
** Entry #46:
{{quote|
{{spoiler|Cue the distortion from hell and the Operator standing right behind Alex.}} }}
* [[How We Got Here]]: {{spoiler|Entries #34 to #52 are the events leading up to Entries #27 to #33.}}
** {{spoiler|Entry #57}} also shows how {{spoiler|Tim got to the abandoned building in Entry #51}}.
* [[Humanoid Abomination]]: The Operator.
* [[Idiot Ball]]: Even when it becomes clear that there are ''several'' people stalking and possibly trying to kill him, Jay continues to telegraph his next move over [[YouTube]]. {{spoiler|This comes back and bites him on the ass in Entry #52, when Alex threatens to kill Jay at gunpoint for posting the videos and incriminating him, amongst other reasons}}. He also returns to the same haunted house multiple times, often at night, and has a habit of wandering off into the woods despite nothing good EVER happening to people who do that in this series.
* [[Idiot Hero]]: Jay's not necessarily holding the idiot ball - he's just kinda dumb.
Line 199:
*** Most notably, we hear him coughing at the end of Entry #56 {{spoiler|after Alex attacks him and leaves him for dead}}. In Entry #57, {{spoiler|which takes place immediately after}}, he's coughing violently throughout the whole entry. {{spoiler|It also explains how he wound up in the abandoned building in Entry #51}}.
*** In #58, he starts coughing just as strange stuff starts happening to him and Jay in the hospital.
* [[It's for
{{quote|
'''Jessica:''' Oh? What's it about?
'''Jay:''' Uh, [[Blatant Lies|hotels!]] }}
* [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot]]: As told by an [[Unreliable Narrator]]. The story is comprised of clips Jay edits and uploads while looking through a mass of largely unlabelled tapes, some of which have been tampered with, some of them featuring Jay himself in situations he has no memory of. Sometimes someone will log into his [[YouTube]] account and upload clips in his name, and a couple of times he's revealed that he hasn't been telling us the whole story... Much of the timeline for the season 1 tapes can only be guessed at, and as of #53 it's still unclear when entry #37 took place.
Line 211:
** And again in Entry #49 when {{spoiler|The Operator appears out of nowhere with loud distortion and leaves just as quickly, taking the body with him.}}
* [[Lame Excuse]]: In Entry #47.
{{quote|
'''Jay:''' *defensively* Alex, calm down! I had a good reason!
'''Alex:''' And what would that be?
'''Jay:''' *lost for words* I...had a hunch. }}
* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: In Entry #46:
{{quote|
** And in Entry #53, when Jay finds more production tapes from Marble Hornets, he audibly groans 'Great, more tapes', about the same time most of the audience was thinking the same thing.
* [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]]/[[Mind Rape]]: Quite a lot of it, and probably why both Jay and Alex have been constantly filming themselves. Jay even forgets the seven month gap between season one and season two and must piece it together via video.
* [[Late to
* [[Lean and Mean]]: The Operator
* [[Leave the Camera Running]]: While the entries themselves are mostly cut down to just the relevant parts, the source footage is primarily taken from someone ''literally'' leaving the camera running. For example, Jay inherited hundreds of tapes from Alex, but most of them contained nothing of interest.
* [[Le Film Artistique]]: Alex's original film has traits of this, judging by the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJDJO2hc24A trailer on the Season 2 DVD.]
{{quote|
* [[Line-of-Sight Name]]: A behind-the-scenes example, according to [[Word of God]]. The actors wanted something that sounded like a stereotypical pretentious student film, and Troy (Jay) picked the title based on the next two things he saw while driving.
* [[Lost Episode]]:
Line 240:
* [[Mistaken Identity]]: Alex thought either the man in Entry #49 was one of the Masked Men or Jay. {{spoiler|It ends poorly for the guy.}}
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: In Entry #46, the funniest line in the series is immediately after Jay {{spoiler|spots The Operator staring at him out the window}}, and ''seconds'' before what is quite possibly the [[Nightmare Fuel|most effective]] [[Jump Scare]] in the whole series.
* [[Morality Kitchen Sink]]: The [[Shades of Conflict]] are all over the place.
** Jay, the protagonist, seems to be genuinely good and is willing to help others if he can. But he's not above committing criminal acts like stalking and breaking-and-entering to get what he wants.
** Alex is either dangerously insane or consciously villainous. It's hard to tell.
** The Masked people often switch between antagonizing and assisting Jay.
** Totheark is always cryptic and ominous to the point that we don't know what side he's on, if any.
** The Operator and his motives have gone unanswered.
** Jessica appears to be innocent. Maybe.
Line 252:
* [[Murder Water]]: In Entry #17, Tim is drinking from a water bottle and inadvertently caused the destruction of that ''entire'' tape.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: {{spoiler|Jay just had to call Jessica and get her involved after a previous lie from Alex ensured she was safe and uninvolved.}}
* [[Nightmare Face]]:
** A subtle one near the end of Entry #22.
** One occurs in totheark's video called ''Inquiry'', which appears again with even more distortion for [[Freeze
* [[Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book]]:
** Kralie draws hundreds of pictures of The Operator, among other things, in his more distressed states.
** ''Intermission'' has some drawings presumably belonging to Totheark, depicting trees and...''something'' lying at the base of one of the trees.
* [[Nothing Is Scarier]]:
** He doesn't do anything! He just ''stands there''!''' ''[[
** Traditional scary unreveals are rife throughout the series. Entry #11 sets up a nigh-legendary scare when Kralie wakes up, walks around his empty house, checking out each window. Satisfied at finding nothing, he returns to his bed and falls asleep. {{spoiler|And then a shadow passes by. You will never sleep again.}}
* [[Offscreen Teleportation]]: Possibly one of The Operator's abilities. Demonstrated in Entry #26, when {{spoiler|Alex sees his girlfriend playing with one of his old cameras...which calls the Operator to their location.}} Entry #54 suggests it might not be teleportation at all - he just moves ''really, really fast'' when no-one's looking.
* [[Ominous Save Prompt]]: Jay's eerily timed uploading of Entry #32 before going into Jessica's room.
* [[Only Known
** When typing about himself, Jay is usually just called J. Could be a [[Shout-Out]] to [[The Simpsons]].
** Also an example by the fandom, if the interview on their alternate channel is anything to go by. It's 'The Operator', not Slender Man.
* [[Only One Name]]: Save for Alex Kralie, no last names are given. Jay stated his (to Jessica) once, but muted the sound afterward.
* [[Orphaned Punchline]]: From the beginning of Entry 17:
{{quote|
'''Alex:''' That's a good story. }}
* [[Paranormal Investigation]]: It's basically a detective show, suffused with a thick air of dread and peppered with infrequent and [[Jump Scare|completely unpredictable]] moments of horror.
* [[Properly Paranoid]]: Alex, and later Jay, seem like insane paranoids taping themselves 24 hours a day, but examining these tapes shows that they have VERY good reasons to worry.
** In Entry #50, Jay thinks he hears footsteps behind him as he and Alex walk through the woods. {{spoiler|There was. He later catches Tim following him and chases him around for a bit}}.
** Entry #50 again. Though one might think Jay to be [[Genre Blind]] again to due agreeing to meet Alex after their fight in Entry #47, he appears to be using his head by {{spoiler|bringing a pocket knife, just in case Alex tries something. He doesn't, but can't be too careful.}} This is brought home in Entry #52, {{spoiler|when it was revealed that Alex intended to murder him. Not that the pocketknife would have helped since [[Never Bring a Knife
* [[Public Domain Soundtrack]]: The audio in ''Forecast'' may be from Beethoven's Fifth, fourth movement, played backwards with other obfuscations.
* [[Public Execution]]: Done within the bounds of a [[Lost Woods]]. This may be tied to The Operator's origin.
Line 292 ⟶ 290:
* [[Scrapbook Story]]: It starts out as one of these, and then Jay learns he has problems of his own.
* [[Seeker Archetype]]: Jay. At first he just watched out of curiosity, but his focus quickly changed to trying to find out what was going on, and eventually he settled on the goal of finding Alex. This Twitter post indicates he may have been becoming obsessed.
{{quote|
* [[Shout-Out]]: In Entry #51, Alex says that the footage is to be from the main character's old elementary school that burned down, which is the premise of the entry "I'm Okay" in [[Everyman HYBRID]].
* [[Slender Man Mythos]]: It was/is the first video series featuring Slender Man (although they like to call him the Operator). Can be credited with a large portion of the mythos' popularity.
Line 303 ⟶ 301:
* [[Stock Footage]]: Some old clips from what looks like 50's cinema are used in two of totheark's videos. Surprisingly, it's quite effective.
* [[Stop Trick]]: The Operator appears and disappears by way of one of these a few times in season 2 (most noticeably in {{spoiler|#49 and #51}}).
* [[Stranger in
* [[Stylistic Suck]]: What little we see of ''Marble Hornets'' the student film [[Contemplate Our Navels|underwhelms]]. Lampshaded in Entry #58:
{{quote|
* [[Tempting Fate]]: In Entry #51, Alex keeps mentioning that they're in an abandoned burnt-out building and that nothing could possibly go wrong a lot. ''Far'' too much for a genre-savvy viewer to feel safe. {{spoiler|Slightly subverted in that Alex was ''intentionally'' leading Brian to the Operator.}}
* [[Throw It In]]:
Line 312 ⟶ 310:
** Tim's line in Entry #9 about Alex spending too much money on tapes was improvised by Tim Sutton himself.
* [[Title Drop]]: The final line of Entry ###### drops totheark's (account) name.
{{quote|
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Jay's persisting [[Genre Blindness]] has been posing him some serious health risks.
* [[Troubled Production]]: The student film, to say the least.
Line 330 ⟶ 328:
* [[Wham! Line]]:
** Jay tweets,
{{quote|
** Another one from totheark's first response of season three:
{{quote|
* [[What Happened to
** Rocky, Alex's dog, is mentioned in an early video. Alex tapes himself for weeks. We never see or even hear Rocky. totheark's ''Forecast'' video hints at something very bad happening to the dog, though. That weird pulsating thing at the start, what could it be? A heart of some kind, perhaps. Some eagle-eyed fan spotted that the clip was taken from a video called "Experiments in the Revival of Organisms", in which Soviet scientists reanimate the organs of a dead dog. Oh dear...
** The interview with Tim in Entry #15 brings up Alex finding dead animals on his lawn.
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]:
** Jay calls out Alex after their ambushing of {{spoiler|Tim}}. "You broke his leg with a block of cement!"
Line 342 ⟶ 340:
* [[White Mask of Doom]]: The masked men.
* [[Whole-Episode Flashback]]: Technically the whole series is a mish-mash of non-linear chronology and footage filmed in the past, but some entries tend to stand out more than others. Entry #22 and Entry #51 are the most notable, as they both jump backwards in time from the chronology of events the viewer and Jay are currently following, and they {{spoiler|show footage of the student film which is integral in explaining the disappearance of the cast.}}
* [[Word of God]]: Two interviews so far that mostly cover behind-the-scenes information, the first [
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Horror Web Originals]]
▲[[Category:Sandbox (New Media)]]
[[Category:Web Video]]
[[Category:
[[Category:
[[Category:
[[Category:New Media]]
| |||