Marble Hornets
Marble Hornets (abbreviated MH) is an alternate reality game YouTube web series inspired by the Slender Man online mythos. The first video was posted on YouTube on June 20, 2009, following a post that its creator, Troy Wagner, created on the Something Awful forum the previous day. It was one of the first webseries to be created around the character, with the first episode premiering exactly 10 days since the appearance of the original images of Slender Man on the Something Awful forums. To date, there are 92 videos on the main channel (87 entries). The series also  has 38 accompanying videos from a side-channel, "Totheark". These videos, as well as the eponymous "Totheark", have been featured multiple times throughout the story. As of June 16, 2019, the principal channel has over 100 million views. On August 3, 2015, a follow-up series titled Clear Lakes 44 was uploaded onto the "Marble Hornets" channel. In April 2016, "Clear Lakes 44" was cancelled after the members of the creative team went their separate ways, as confirmed by Wagner. On October 16, 2016, a successor to "Clear Lakes 44", titled ECKVA, was launched. On December 27, 2017, Wagner posted  a new photo to his Twitter page, teasing a comic related to "Marble Hornets" slated for a 2018 release. The first issue released on February 26, 2019, with a total of five being slated for the series. In 2015, a film spinoff "" was released. Critical reception was overwhelmingly negative. Plot. Season 1. The series follows Jay Merrick (Troy Wagner), a young man who attempts to find out what happened during the filming of "Marble Hornets", an unfinished student film project helmed by his friend, Alex Kralie (Joseph DeLage). Alex had abruptly ended the project after only three months of production , whereafter he left the tapes of raw footage with Jay, cut contact with him, and transferred schools. Three years later, Jay decides to watch the tapes. Through the footage, he discovers that the filming of "Marble Hornets" seemed to be hampered by the menacing presence of a humanoid figure known as "The Operator". The Operator appears to have constantly stalked Alex, including while he was on set with his actors, walking his dog to the park, and at his own home. Alex's physical and mental state became severely affected by The Operator’s presence, causing him to develop coughing  fits and severe paranoia. As a result of the paranoia, Alex became more stressed, irritable, and aggressive towards cast members Tim Wright (Tim Sutton), Sarah (Mary Kathleen Bishop) and camera operator Seth (Seth Wilson). Jay discovers that Alex resorted to using cameras and large amounts of video tapes to set up constant video surveillance on himself with the hopes of catching footage of The Operator on camera. Jay also finds that Alex’s tapes have severe periodic audio and visual problems such as static, distortion, missing footage, and occasionally missing or inaudible audio. Jay speculates that Alex may be responsible  for some of these problems. Soon after Jay becomes more involved with the case, The Operator begins invading Jay’s personal life. In response, Jay also sets up constant video surveillance in his home and begins posting the recordings to YouTube as "Entries”, which often net cryptic and threatening responses from a user known as "Totheark". Jay's investigation drives him to meet with Tim to seek answers about Alex’s disappearance, then to visit the abandoned house of another cast member, Brian Thomas (Brian Haight). Jay finds Brian’s home vacant, in severe disrepair, and without functioning lighting. Upon  further investigation, Jay finds an empty closet with a blanket and water bottle on the floor, as well as a trail of blood upstairs. The blood trail leads Jay to the bathroom, where he finds the sink full of dried blood. Throughout his exploration of the house, Jay repeatedly hears unexplainable noises and briefly has a severe coughing fit. He finds several items of interest including a bullet casing, pill bottle, and several of Alex's cryptic drawings. Jay decides to take these items when he leaves the house. Jay posts an entry about his visit to Brian’s house , leading Totheark to post a video response. In the response video, Totheark reveals that they were responsible for the noises Jay heard while investigating Brian’s house and that they were watching Jay the whole time. Jay then uploads footage of himself, Alex, and Tim during the filming of a scene from "Marble Hornets", where The Operator is seen watching the men through a window. Jay then notes that he finds the events of the footage disturbing as he has no memory of them ever happening. Jay decides to go back to Brian's house to do more investigation in  case he missed something important during his first visit. At the house, he has his first encounter with a masked figure, who tackles Jay to the ground. After the attack, the masked figure has a seizure. Jay then remarks that upon waking up the next day, the knife he brought to the house is now missing. Jay then uploads another entry where he states that like Alex, he had been constantly filming himself and recording the footage to a hard drive but had largely found nothing of importance. He notes that he did find brief footage of the masked figure  from Brian’s house, who watching him sleeping for a time before Jay disappeared from view on the cameras for two hours. After Jay shares this entry, Totheark posts a response video wherein he shows where Jay was during those missing hours. Jay then uploads the next entry, where he analyzes the items he found during his first visit at Brian's house. He finds that the pill bottle he had taken is now empty and its label is removed, though it was full and labeled when he discovered it at Brian’s house. He also finds that bullet casing  he had taken is missing. Jay suspects that the masked figure is behind this. Jay then reviews Alex's drawings and finds a message that mentions a tower written on the back of one page. Jay decides to visit the park where some filming from "Marble Hornets" took place and enters a red tower there, where he finds a hidden tape. Footage on the tape shows Alex leaving Seth in an abandoned building after being confronted by The Operator. Alex later states on the tape that all of the cast and crew of "Marble Hornets" are "gone". At this point , Jay begins to experience increasing threats and stalking by Totheark. This causes Jay to flee his apartment, which subsequently burns down. Jay receives a tape in the mail that contains footage of Alex and his girlfriend, Amy Walters (Bethann Williams), at Amy’s home. In the video, The Operator appears, leading Alex to urge Amy to run before the tape ends. As a result of these new findings, Jay sets out to find Alex. Season 2. Seven months later, an amnesiac Jay wakes up in a hotel room in an unknown location. He learns that he was initially only booked  for one night in the hotel, but decides to stay longer to get his bearings and gain information about the hotel and its surrounding area. At the hotel, Jay encounters a young woman, Jessica Locke (Jessica May), who is initially very curious and inquisitive about him. Jay realizes that Jessica is the only other guest he has seen at the hotel and becomes suspicious of her after hearing strange noises coming from her room. In a later conversation with Jessica, Jay is caught in a lie about why he is staying at the hotel. Jessica seems to grow suspicious of  Jay in response. In another conversation with Jessica, she asks Jay if he is feeling alright and experiencing any memory loss. When Jay lies and denies any strange experiences, Jessica reveals to Jay that she also woke up in the hotel with missing memories. Jay realizes that he and Jessica are having similar experiences and encourages her to gather her belongings so that they can leave the hotel together. Jay enters Jessica’s room while he thinks she is preparing to leave, only to find the room empty. He discovers a slip of paper with a combination on it. Jay  uses the combination to unlock the safe in his hotel room, in which he finds a large amount of video tapes and a hard drive. Upon opening the safe, the masked figure reappears and attempts to attack Jay. Jay escapes the hotel with the tapes, leaving Jessica behind. The tapes and hard drive in the safe are revealed to contain footage that details the events of the previous seven months. During that time, Jay had a run-in with Alex, which led to them forming an alliance to find the missing Amy. Jay’s deep suspicion of Alex’s behavior  lead to him beginning to follow Alex, breaking into his house and car to look for and steal video tapes. Jay reviews these tapes and gradually learns more about the depths of Alex’s paranoia and the presence of The Operator in Alex’s life. Footage shows Alex’s increasingly severe paranoia and suspicion of Jay coming to a head when he bludgeons a stranger to death after mistaking them for a stalker. After Alex kills the man, The Operator appears and seems to remove the body from the premises. The tapes also reveal that a hooded figure has started  following Jay and that Amy was Jessica’s friend and roommate. Jay learns that Jessica was unintentionally dragged into the situation when he contacted her as part of his investigation into Alex. He also learns that Tim is the masked man’s true identity. Alex lures Jay and Jessica into the woods at the park under the guise of having something to show them. After leading them onto an upper floor of an abandoned structure, Alex holds Jay and Jessica at gunpoint. He reveals that he is aware of Jay’s stalking and is preparing to shoot them when he  is attacked and subdued by Tim. Jay and Jessica escape and book rooms at the aforementioned hotel, where they suffer an attack by The Operator and sustain memory loss as a result. Season 3. With no leads in finding either Alex or Jessica, Jay enlists Tim under the pretense of finishing "Marble Hornets". While Tim is initially furious upon learning about Jay's true motives, he decides to continue assisting him after the hooded figure steals his medication from his home, causing him to have a psychological breakdown. It is revealed that Tim does not remember anything he has done  while in his "masked" state, that he was formerly committed to a mental hospital due to hallucinations that he fears were caused by The Operator, and that his new medication is able to block him from switching to his "masked" state. Tim and Jay's investigation leads them to repeatedly encounter The Operator, who subjects them both to physical and psychological torment. Jay begins to experience hallucinations as a result of this frequent exposure. Tim is revealed to have hidden a video showing that he (in his masked state) and the hooded figure are the ones responsible for Jessica's  disappearance and subsequent encounter with Alex and The Operator, with this revelation causing a breakdown in Jay and Tim's working relationship. Jay shows up at Tim's house with a knife and zip-ties, but he is overpowered and tied up by Tim, before later being freed by the hooded figure. Tim and Jay set off to find Alex separately. Jay is later shot and killed by Alex, leading Tim to take over the "Marble Hornets" channel. A confrontation between Tim and the hooded figure leads to the hooded figure falling to his death, after which Tim discovers that  the hooded figure was Brian. Tim, realizing that Alex intends to kill him, attempts to lure Alex to his home, with the consequence of the house being burned to the ground by Alex. During Tim's final confrontation with Alex, Alex reveals that he wants to kill anyone who has encountered The Operator, as he believes this will prevent the spread of The Operator's influence, and that he has already killed Amy, Sarah, and Seth in addition to Jay, knows that Brian is dead, and believes that Jessica is also dead. This means that Alex and Tim are the  only remaining survivors of the recording of "Marble Hornets", and that Tim is therefore Alex's last remaining target, after which he intends to kill himself. In the ensuing struggle, Tim finally manages to kill Alex by stabbing him multiple times in the throat. Alex's final words to Tim are that if he knows of any others who have come into contact with the Operator, then he should kill them and then kill himself as Alex had intended to do. Four days later, Tim disposes of his mask and reunites with Jessica, who had survived the events of the  hotel, despite Alex having thought otherwise. Tim had kept hidden before this point in order to protect her from any further danger. Tim's final encounter with Jessica ends ambiguously; Tim lapses into a coughing fit as the camera distorts and then cuts to black. When the footage resumes, Tim is alone, driving away and stopping at an intersection while sirens can be heard in the distance. With no indication whether or not Tim had acted on Alex's final words following the affect of The Operator and killed Jessica while planning his own suicide, or if the medication taken  by both Tim and now Jessica had allowed them to overcome The Operator and survive, the final image of the series is a text card that simply states: "Everything is fine". 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. The initial budget for the series was about $500, which the two used to create the first 26 episodes. 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. The entire series is edited with the software Sony Vegas Pro and Adobe Premiere. After its release the series' popularity grew, drawing comparisons to "Lonelygirl15" and "iChannel". 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." Early during  the airing of season 1, the series received praise from Roger Ebert. In May 2014, the developers launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the DVD release of the third season. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with the original goal of $8000 in donations being exceeded by $76,271. These funds went towards further projects, including a box set and new supplementary material in the form of scenes from Alex Kralie's "Marble Hornets". Film adaptation. In February 2013, "Variety" announced that plans were underway to produce a film adaptation of "Marble Hornets". They also announced that the  script would be written by Ian Shorr, that James Moran would direct, and that Doug Jones would be portraying the Operator in the film. In October of the same year, Wagner announced on his blog that the movie had finished filming and it would not be a continuation of the YouTube series but would be set within the same universe. The film, titled "", was released on video on demand on April 7, 2015, starring Doug Jones, Alexandra Breckenridge, and Alexandra Holden. The film opened in select theaters on May 15, 2015. Critical reception for "Always Watching" was predominantly negative. Marble