Beware The Slender-Man

So I was hanging over at Planet of Terror and I noticed a Tweet conversation between the site's owner, Cortez The Killer and another fellow.  They were discussing a web series called Marble Hornets and I was intrigued by a comment that Cortez made (I'm paraphrasing here)  "I'm only on the 9th episode and it's creeping me the fuck out!".   Well, now I had to know what had The Killer creeped out!  So I did a little investigating.  One google search later and I was brought to Marble Hornet's You Tube page.

I watched the introductory video:

I haven't been the same since.  I sat and watched the first 20 something episodes (which are referred to as "Entries") in one sitting.  I was disturbed.  As I stated in my last post, I love films done in the cinema verite style, and this one is quite possibly the best I've seen!  The plot is unfolds from the point of view of Jay, our narrator and the person responsible for the entries uploaded to You Tube, who starts to find some strange occurrences while looking through tapes that he received from a friend and fellow film school student, Alex.  Alex was working on his student film entitled Marble Hornets, but shut down production quite suddenly and refused to talk about it.  Jay convinces Alex to let him take the tapes and look at them.  He starts to notice strange anomalies and events that seem very out of place.  As Jay watches the tapes, he starts to notice the same sort of weirdness occur around him.  It becomes clear that Alex was being stalked by......something.  Jay has now attracted the attention of this supernatural entity.

What I find most incredible about this series is that it's not just a series of videos.  It is an entire interactive experience....the likes of which I have never seen before.  Using the comments section of You Tube as well as Facebook and Twitter viewers can help Jay try to solve the intricate mysteries that are unfolding.  Things took a creepy turn when a poster known only as totheark, who started to post video responses to Jay's videos.  Tothearks videos often seem to include possible clues and puzzles for the viewer to solve in order to try and further understand the events befalling Jay.

The videos....when watched out of context, or individually may not seem to be frightening or even really coherent, but I urge you to watch the chronologically and you will find that the fear starts to creep into your mind.  I found myself constantly thinking about what I'd seen....trying to piece it all together.  Some of the videos have images that are outright disturbing.....especially those that show encounters with The Slender Man and the masked person that also seems to be stalking Jay (as he did Alex).

After watching all the videos up to date (which are updated at random...sometimes weeks go by without a new post.....sometimes months.  The latest video was posted on May 25th) I did some more research and found that The Slender Man is a boogey man that was created over at the Something Awful Forums by Victor Surge.  The image inspired others and took off like wildfire.  Everything from art to short stories has been created about The Slender Man.  Marble Hornets is Jay's take on the mythology.

Join an ever growing army of fans (myself included) of The Slender Man.  Check out Marble Hornets.  Check out Something Awful.  Let the horror ensnare you, like is long, tentacle arms......