Inspired by, and found through, Cuckoorex’s “Scariest Web Site” thread. Browsing around the Encyclopedia Dramatica’s creepypasta entry, I stumbled across the Marble Hornets, ostensibly the story of a guy’s investigation into why a friend of his stopped shooting his student film (“Marble Hornets”) and moved away from home.
Horrific hijinks ensue, during which a character/creature is revealed which I think has a LOT of horror-genre staying power. The Slender Man, without revealing too much, hits a lot of psychological buttons. He’s vague and mysterious. He may be deformed. Or maybe not. He’s definitely Uncanny Valley material. He’s obviously paranormal, but subtly so. He preys on children (sometimes).
He’s just a big ol’ load of creepy bastard, and we never have a clue as to why he’s doing it all.
I learned of MH thru the ontd_creepy Live Journal. That has been one of the few things I’ve shown my hubby that has scared him to small bits. Correct me if I’m mis-remembering this, but didn’t he [it] start out as a “let’s start a hoax!” over on rotten.com?
Slendy has taken on a life of his [its] own [so to speak] and I’ve seen some really amazing artwork and photography based around him [it]. Watch the whole series all the way thru even though it gets a bit slow in parts. And yes, during the daylight.
It’s not only great, it’s an epochal moment in web/viral/memetic horror. The level of legitimate quality is so high, it’s so scary, and it’s such a product of its medium and couldn’t exist in another form.
I watched it up to around episode 9 and gave up out of boredom. Is there some point where the “scary” is supposed to start coming in, because up to that point it seems to be sort of meandering. It seems very Blair Witch-like in the setup.
It is. It’s not a slasher. It’s not gore. It’s a Lovecraftian “my friend disappeared and now I have to find out what happened” investigative horror. I’m afraid if you don’t have the patience to make it through the collecting of the clues, you wouldn’t enjoy it anyway.
The “scary” seems to begin in Entry 14, which is as far as I’ve gotten. I can’t say it exactly has me breathless with anticipation for the rest of the sequence.
Such cynicism! I’m as jaded as you guys. Just turn down the lights and let your imagination run off with you.
Another hot button the Slender Man hits is the whole “dark heart of the woods” thing. He’s almost like an avatar of Shub Niggurath or something. Or maybe Nyarlathotep. I dunno. And there’s a macabre sense of malevolent humor to him, too. I mean, he’s so dapper. Why?!
Maybe I missed something in the setup, but this is basically the narrator going through the video tapes of a friend that got freaked out, dropped him film project, moved on with his life and gave them to the narrator. No one is dead or abducted or missing in the current context. Other than bad acting in the “Marble Hornets” production there’s not much of sense of menace (so far).
This is all true (except for the “menace” part). If you can’t find an unnaturally tall guy with no face who watches you in your own home menacing, well, um, I don’t suppose I can help you.
Every two minute video (at least up to #14) seems to be filled with boring filler right up until a big reveal two seconds before the end, where OMG THE SLENDER MAN IS . . . uh . . . in the far distance standing in the background/sitting in a tree/walking by the bed.
I like suspense. But how can there be suspense when I already know what’s going to happen? The little Youtube slider has fifteen seconds to go and three . . . two . . . one . . . yep, there’s Max Headroom standing outside the window there.