The Dead Are Watching
The Dead Are Watching is an Alternate Reality Game taking place in The Slender Man Mythos. It follows Leo, a reclusive man in Campbell Country. With his Ouija Board, a Necronomicon, and a need for proof of the paranormal Leo is hoping to summon something. He preforms a ritual that should bring the dead to him. Little does he know that what he summons is much more malicious than expected. When symbols and a certain faceless slender man appears things really take a turn for the worse.
View the series, with ordered playlist provided, here.
Tropes used in The Dead Are Watching include:
- Altum Videtur: "Reconciliation and Penance (Leo)". This message was translated from binary to Latin then from Latin to English.
- Arc Symbol: There are two symbols prevalent so far. The symbol of the Watchers and a new symbol which has been identified as Choronzon's mark.
- Brown Note: The Slender Man, as always.
- Beige Prose / Minimalism : The entries are short, as is the text, to keep viewer's attention.
- Big Bad: The Watchers and their cultists who wear white masks.
- Bigger Bad: The Slender Man in the form of Choronzon, The Lord of Hallucinations?
- The Call Knows Where You Live
- Captain Ersatz: Of Maskie.
- Dark Secret: In Entry 37 Leo mentions some previously undiscussed personal history while suffering some Sanity Slippage. He has yet to elaborate.
- Follow the Leader: The account is subscribed to Marble Hornets, Tribe Twelve and Dark Harvest. Coincidence?
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Sometimes highlighted in an "exerpt", but occasionally without.
- Haunted Headquarters: Leo's home.
- Humanoid Abomination: The Slender Man and the Watchers
- Nightmare Face: In Entry 37 a face of faces appears and momentarily blocks out the screen.
- Oh Crap: In Entry 30 Leo goes into his backyard to confront some masked strangers, but ends up getting an even bigger surprise.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: We only have the videos and Leo's word that something is wrong, though it is. Considerably.
- A True Story in My Universe: The Necronomicon that is written by the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred
- Sensory Abuse: Videos get very loud and distorted when something paranormal happens.
- Show, Don't Tell: Leo's wife gets all of ten seconds of screen-time, but apparently she was dragged across the room towards a closet by an unseen force. Later she is seen during a distortion of reality.
- Slasher Smile: A particularly chilling one is given by Leo at the end of Entry 32 and again at the end of Entry 42. Could he be a Reluctant Monster?
- Spooky Photographs: His captured video and a picture found in a journal are Leo's first hints that something is wrong.
- Religion of Evil: The main villains of the series for the time being.
- Unreliable Narrator: Leo. He seems to be hiding personal information about his past.
- Wham! Episode: Entry 27The Slender Man's first appearance.
- Entry 39 A literal one in which Leo has apparently been brained in the back of the head with a shovel.
- Entry 40 Reality manipulation similar to what has been seen in Marble Hornets and Tribe Twelve.
- Entry 43 Reality manipulation similar to no other Slender Man vlog. Very akin to Asian or Silent Hill style horror.
- X Meets Y: Marble Hornets meets Silent Hill.