Marble Hornets: A Mystery

So I'm cheating a little bit today. In Lieu of a film (I'll make it up to you guys I promise), I'm going to give a little push to this Internet oddity.

Obstensibly an ARG (Or is it?), Marble Hornets to give it a name, is a series of short videos that detail an amateur film maker who's being stalked (though he sometimes doesn't realise it) by a long slender man in a black suit. It's also remarkably effective, and something that could only really take place on the Internet.

The story, such as it is to date, goes as follows...

A Youtube channel is started in which the creator (Let's call him MH) details how his friend 'Alex' was shooting a student film called Marble Hornets for his film class. During filming Alex's behavior gets increasingly erratic, until he ceases filming. MH eventually convinces Alex to hand him over the tapes, with the idea to continue the film. Shortly after Alex vanishes and the tapes are not really thought about again.

Fast forward to 2009 and we finally get a look at the tapes. In it we find just what got Alex so rattled...A gent who's been nicknamed 'The Slender Man'.

You can find the first video here. The rest of the videos, titled Entry #1, 2, 3 etc can be found at the same page.

What's most effective about the videos is that though they're only 2 minutes or shorter, they're really quite effective at what they set out to do. If any has seen the film Signs, you'll know that the most memorable scene is the one where we see the video from a children's birthday party. Now imagine 14 videos of the same thing, that's what we're dealing with


There's also a palpable sense of mystery about the whole thing. MH set up a twitter feed and things are starting to go askew there as well. Interestingly another youtube user named totheark has started creating video responses to the original videos, and curiously of all, shows events from one of the original videos from a different perspective.

I've detailed my love of mystery before, and this is no exception. I'm already awaiting the next incarnation of 'The Slender Man'. And I'll be sure to check outside my windows tonight...