User reviews

A long-running web-series, "Marble Hornets" is something of an odd beast. On one hand, it's concept is great, and it's generally a well-executed example of the "found footage" sub-genre of horror.

On the other hand, I do find there to be many problems with the execution, holding it back from reaching the perfection it is capable of reaching.

But still, for fans of horror, this is definitely a must-see.

The series seems to predominately follow Jay, as he tries to solve the mystery of what happened to his friend Alex that caused him to seemingly lose his mind and withdraw from society. Told from a "found footage" perspective, the early episodes alternate between footage shot by Alex some time earlier that Jay is reviewing (during production of a student-film he was working on) and newer footage shot by Jay as he investigates the matter. Little does Jay know that the mystery of what happened may be linked to a twisted, possibly-supernatural figure known as "The Operator." (Based heavily on the "Slender Man" mythos from the internet.)

I'm quite torn by what to give the series for a score. As I said above, it's a series of strengths and weaknesses. And I fear that my decided on score of 7 may be misleadingly low, despite being a decent score. Because I do genuinely love the series. (Well, at least what I've seen so far.) And in terms of entertainment value, it's great for a free series.

I think the biggest strength of the series is atmosphere, and wonderful use of the "found footage" style. If you're in the correct mindset, this series will definitely creep you to the bone. While the quality might not be great, it comes across as generally "true to life", and there's a wonderful sense of pacing, build-up and payoff as the episodes continue. Technical aspects like composition are also well-handled. And I find the storyline incredibly intriguing, and definitely one that makes me want to continue watching.

That being said, I have some big issues. First, (and I hate to say this), the acting can be pretty bad at times. At least early on. It does rob some of the suspension-of-disbelief that is required for a "found footage" series. I also find the episodes to meander a bit too much. I feel like there is a lot of room and time that could be condensed and make for a more compelling experience. It can almost get boring here and there. Which makes it harder to want to sit through the episodes.

Thankfully, despite those weaknesses, I feel that the strengths make the series one that fans of horror (and especially "Slender Man" fans) certainly must at least try out. I think it's great fun. It has a good story. And it has some absolutely, positively spine-tingling scares.

I give it a pretty-good 7 out of 10. Frightening and fun, but not without its flaws.

Marble Hornets is an online found footage series spanning two YouTube Channels and a Twitter Account as it follows Jay, piecing together the raw footage of his friend Alex's cancelled film, Marble Hornets, in order to find his missing friends...

The less you know about the series when going in, the more scary and exciting it is. I am writing this while it has just started its 3rd and final season. So far, it is very intriguing, atmospheric and terrifying and for any fan of horror or found footage. The threat introduced in the very beginning of the series is not only visually scary but its vibes are found everywhere in the series. If there is anything worth watching online, this is it.

Marble Hornets Season 1 and 2 is available on DVD!

A YouTube serial (with "Entries" serving as one episode), based on the urban legend from SomethingAwful forums, Slender Man. This is another type of movie/series like the Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield... but this title is much more superior than those mentioned as the atmosphere is much more different... and arguably much better.

First, close to the experience to playing Slender: The Eight Pages, the cast and crew create an atmosphere of fear in quite a lot of entries. Also, they don't overdo the fear in every entry, as they have a created a perfect balance in intensity in the series. The shaky camera adds to the fear and anxiousness as the viewer watches every entry. Some may see this as a negative, but I believe the same effect would not work if it was filmed with professional shots, so it actually works well. The acting has also found a great balance of naturalistic acting with believable characters and good portrayal. The portrayal of Slender Man is also excellent and how he appears unknowingly in a lot of entries make this series really worth watching.

The only downside to the series is that there is quite a long waiting time before another entry is posted. Which again is also a good thing, it's so good you want some more. It definitely keeps you hooked.

Also, this another series where I have not felt tired of any episode or actually have favourites.

If you have some time, definitely check out the series and make sure he's not watching ;)

Everyone who knows The Blair Witch Project knows the incredible impact it has had on pop culture and the surrounding area it took place in, having the ability to bring a rich history into existence despite having been not known before the film. Marble Hornets attempts to do this with an established internet bogeyman (the Slenderman) and brings it to a level most would not have expected.

Marble Hornets, a youtube series about an abandoned student film with many hidden secrets to share before bringing in the narrator, Jay's own experiences into the story, shows an amazing aptitude into psychological horror. By showing very little of the mysterious tall, well-dressed being, and giving visual and auditory clues of his influence instead, the creators are able to add a perfect amount of tension, keeping viewers on the edge of their seat throughout the duration of each entry into the series. Viewers' minds will be reeling with questions as they watch, trying to uncover the mystery of the events shown.

Highly recommended for fans of horror and mystery, especially Lovecraft fans

Only yesterday did I find the you-tube show "Marble Hornets". It was recommended to me by a friend because I love psychological horror and mystery. These two words perfectly describe this show.

The show follows Jay, a young man who's best friend encountered a tall, blank faced creature in a business suit by the name of the Operator (or Slender Man) while filming his student film "Marble Hornets". Jay goes through the tapes in an attempt to figure out more about the creature, and is eventually forced to run from the seemingly unstoppable force as he begins to unravel the mystery.

Continuity is highly important and very well done in this series. Tiny things in the first few episodes come into play in later episodes. If you are like me and LOVE connecting the dots and consuming every detail, this show rewards your hard work.

The acting is a little spotty in season one (Entries 1-26), but does not detract from the story or experience. As season two hits the midpoint, the acting improves, and the story begins to unfold.

The shaky hand-held camera quality is really effective in adding to the disturbing atmosphere. The creators do an incredible job of building tension and giving you a sense of dread. I found myself searching every pixel on the screen for a glimpse of Slender Man.

One more small thing that I appreciated was the fact that there was close to no profanity, no sexual content, and very little actual gore. By throwing those factors out, the creators took on the challenge of making their series strong with good writing and editing, which really pays off.

Overall, this show scared me more than any modern day horror film has, and is highly reminiscent of Christopher Nolan's "Memento". If you want to be scared out of your wits, enjoy playing Sherlock Holmes and solving mysteries, or both, this is a must watch.

9/10

I am a big fan of all things horror. Ever since I was a small child I've been watching, reading, and even creating horror. I've been so de-sensitized to it that absolutely NOTHING scares me anymore...except this film. Marble Hornets has got to be one of the scariest movies of all time. It is a low budget film, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth seeing. It definitely does it's job. The acting may not be "professional" and the camera isn't always focusing on the action, but that's, interestingly enough, a good thing for this film. I would recommend this film to any horror buff- maybe not people who are easily frightened, and DEFINITELY not small children (only for the reason that it would probably require therapy for them to get over their fear). I enjoyed (rather nervously) every minute of it. The best thing about it is that it isn't one of those "jump out and get you" types. Your fear stems from the paranoia you will most definitely feel throughout the entire film. You'll find yourself looking over your own shoulder countless times. A Definite MUST SEE!

A great, suspenseful series that best represents the "Slenderman phenomenon." From a technical standpoint, this series succeeds without flaw with good special effects that are used appropriately, believable characters, and a gripping storyline. Although presented as a found-footage style film, I believe that it is one of the best examples of an otherwise cash-in genre in horror. While most Slenderman films are dismiss-able, this series creates a well balanced feel of supernatural and reality. I would highly recommend this to anyone with enough time to go through the episodes. It is a very unnerving series and this is coming who has watched hard-core horror movies since he was a child. Overall, I would give it a 10/10 for having done all the things it set out to do perfectly even if it has spawned a following of people making cheap rip offs.

What Marble Hornets is: A series about college kids who get caught up into some really, really weird stuff. Its slow, its confusing, but not just to us, to the characters to. We see what they see. We only know what they know. Thats /the point/.

What Marble Hornets is to people with no patience or understanding: Slow, boring, uninteresting, unfun.

Marble Hornets lost a bit of magic when it ended because - now for new viewers, you didn't get to see it progress. A lot of this series to me was waiting and watching for updates, eager to see what was next. At the height of this, I would say in 2012, it really was a community series. I remember staying up all night with friends, talking about theories, discussing new tweets and watching the entries together. Now you really can't do that, and its not the fault of THAC that it just lost that bit of magic.

But I digress. This series is slow at the beginning, weird at the middle, and absolutely insane at the end. I would absolutely recommend this series to anyone with a patience and maybe, you know, a love for seeing how the slenderverse started. Because this series freakin' pioneered it, lads.

Firstly I was largely unaware of the Slenderman mythos before starting this series but this did not effect my enjoyment at all.

Marble Hornets is a well made web series that does a great job of slowly ratcheting up the mystery as the series progresses. I think that series really starts off strong, with short but interesting entries and the perfect use of real life locations.

Unfortunately it does lose it's way a little as the series progresses due to the entries becoming unnecessarily long with large sections of characters walking around buildings/fields with nothing happening. These entries could have been edited down significantly and it would have given the series better pacing. The one caveat to this is that I started watching after the series had ended so I did not have to wait in-between entries for the next one to be released.

The ending is well done which actually came as a nice surprise and it wrapped everything up well.

Marble Hornets is well worth your time but just be prepared to slog through some of the longer entries.

Imagine elementary school children playing with action figures. They have no story. Minute by minute, they make it up as they go along, and their minute-by-minute story is uninteresting, uninspired, and uninformed by life experiences or research.

That's "Marble Hornets", only along with the interminable, nonsensical, video-recorded live-action childish roleplaying, we get a bunch of incredibly stupid people praising them, cheering them on, and pretending to want their contributions to a feature film. I could forgive them for making horrible videos if 1) they weren't receiving and capitalizing on undeserved praise while 2) hijacking someone else's fictional character.

I would love to see a comparison between whatever these guys propose as contributions to the screenplay and what ultimately gets made. In the end, I suspect their only realized contributions will be the title and the setting, to relate the film to the "internet phenomenon".

The show is so memorable and creepy to me is because it doesn't rely on gore and cheap jumbscares to make you feel scare, instead it's rely on a sense of inescapabilty, because no matter what the character try to do, their fate are the same. The creator successfully created a show with no season is too bad or too good for the rest. In terms of narrative, it's so amazing to see a found footage web series can offers you great storytelling and incredible character development. The appearance of the main villain is so little but that's make every time he appears scary because it remind you how terrifying the monster truly is. The ending is haunting af.

Found footage horror in my opinion is atleast a 100 times more creepier and terrifying than normal horror films. In normal ones, you know you are in a fictional world with actors beginning to perform on the directors's call of "ACTION!". However, Found Footage horror is the genre where the cameraman is the actor himself. In fact, FF horror tends to try bringing in realism in the imaginary world of horror by smartly using tape recordings from a person to showcase the events. The rawness in the footages with natural BG sounds + the shaky camera work + the distorting of the video when something creepy is about to happen makes FF horror one of its own kind.

MARBLE HORNETS is the epitome of FF horrors. It consists of 87 highly disturbing/creepy/terrifying footages from tapes used to showcase us a story where a crew gets sucked in by the curse of Slender Man only to make them forget what was happening which makes Jay and Tim watch early footages to recall what exactly had happened and in the process how things get worser and worser as we reach the climax.

The series moves at a slow pace but if you are a fan of such footage horror, you will be drawn in to watch the rest. It is compiled in a non linear fashion so it will definitely leave you confused often as to which timeline you are in but do not worry, answers lay ahead so be patient.

Many of the tapes are so disturbing/terrifying that you wont get a sleep at night. The climax is absolutely insane watch out for that. Would recommend you to watch this series in one particular setup - 1. Late night time 2. Silent environment 3. Lights turned off. Thank me later.

Slender Man is the horror figure who finally came to popularity with this series . Just his presence and the footage glitching out in his presence makes the experience super terrifying.

Negatives - gets a bit too redundant towards the end. To the point that it may not creep you anymore.

Still, i would say MARBLE HORNETS is one of the best take on FF horror. It is a treat for horror lovers and an absolute memorable ride for FF horror lovers.

Marble Hornets is a youtube "series" that ran for four years, from the 20th of June 2009 to the 20th of June of 2014.

It follows the story of Jay, who starts to notice weird things appearing in his friend's Alex unfinished movie - "Marble Hornets". As time goes on, the creature who made its presence known in the tapes, the Operator (or the Slenderman), starts to affect Jay's life.

The acting is in my opinion really great, especially in Season 2 and 3. The characters are extremely well written, which is something you wouldn't expect from a movie made by a group of early adults in the first 2000s. Speaking of it generally, this series is divided in "entries", 87 of them. The run time of these 80+ episodes together is circa nine hours, which means you, unfortunately, can't binge watch it in that one night in which you're looking for something interesting to watch.

As others have said, it's very much of a psychological horror, and jumpscares are few and rare - it works very well for this reason too: it doesn't try to make you uncomfortable or have you jump out of your seat as Slenderman gets a bit too close to the camera, but it tries to settle a deep sense of anxiety and dread into you, and they manage to actually do that amazingly. Although this ended seven years ago and it started in 2006, it aged pretty well.

It is a bit of an ARG, and it even comes with a second channel "totheark" - you're going to have to check its videos while watching the main channel if you want the whole story and every point of view. It also pushes you to think about everything you've seen, finding details, piercing things together to uncover people's identities, motives and such.

Overall, it's interesting, well-written, particular yet enjoyable by all audiences.

It's worth watching, especially if you have an interest in ARGs, psychological horror, creepypastas and such - and, if you're just looking for a good scary movie, you're going to find yourself pleasantly surprised with what Marble Hornets has to offer.

Starts out mysterious and compelling, and improves with every season, making for a great and haunting finale. Iconic series, and inspiring for low budget filmmakers.

So I was a big fan of Slender The Eight Pages. When I was at camp, they always wanted me telling them stories around the fire. So, I made up my own Slenderman legend. After my story was done, my camp counselor, Lee, asked if I had ever watched Marble Hornets. I asked him what it was because I was unfamiliar with it... He told me, If your interested in Slenderman and or creepy pasta, I'd love Marble Hornets. So the remainder of the time at camp I couldn't help but wonder, What is Marble Hornets? Well... I clicked on a random entry, I think it was Entry 72 or something, it was the one where Jay and Tim we're searching Alex's old house. Anyways that got me hooked, so I watched from the beginning to the end. That was 6 years ago. To this day, I still love Marble Hornets. It's portrayed as real and they do a damn good job at making it feel real. Theirs lots of jump scares, a fantastic story and amazing characters. I'd recommend this series to anyone that loves creepy pasta, Slenderman and even to horror fans! If you want the best experience watching the series, buy the 3 seasons on grampco, season 1 and 2 is remastered to 1080p for a better experience! Again, loved the story!

Oh my lord. Where to start with this one! I am a big fan of found footage, and this had been on my radar for ages, but somehow just never got round to, as a large chunk of time is needed to complete it. And I had really, really high hopes. The horror/ supernatural content is minimal. Running though woods, or walking through a derelict building with a body cam is not supernatural, and probably 70% of this is taken up by the aforementioned. Clearly influenced by The Blair Witch movie. I started off being intrigued, but by the end parts started annoying me. There is an enormous amount of time where nothing really happens, and most of the characters are not relatable/obnoxious.

Basic story, there is a normal student film being made called Marble Hornets. It all goes south, but one of the guys involved gets all the (or most) of the tapes from the guy producing and starts going through them. He finds more than he bargained for.

I'll start with the, sort of, positives. It is hard to tell if this was an enormous undertaking, with an ending mapped out right from the off, or just made up as they went along. My guess is that the truth lies somewhere between the two.

In total, including the 'totheark' interludes, there are 130 entries in the series, ranging from less than a minute to over 15 minutes in length, around 10 hours in total. So you have to admire the commitment of the film makers if nothing else. The acting is okay to pretty good, I've seen a lot worse in bigger budget movies. The filming is pretty cool, giving an amateurish feeling, while still maintaining good shots and lighting. The story does keep you guessing, and hanging out for the next instalment, and being a fan of all things Slenderman related, pushed this up a star rating for me.

Okay, negatives, and unfortunately, there are a few. The two biggies, at least from my perspective, are as follows.

Someone who has video footage of another person killing/causing grievous harm to another person, but doesn't go to the police? WTF?

The whole timeline is spread out over months, in fact well over a year, if not years, but many of the characters spend their lives living in hotels. They don't appear to work, so how the heck can they afford it? Talking of timelines... particularly during the first half of the run, the timeline is all over the place, and very, very confusing. Multiple times, there are scenes which you later find out are old tapes being reviewed, and predate the existing storyline. And to add to the confusion, a lot of the "recovered tapes" are unlabelled, so played out of order.

In one of the entries, an actor in the Marble Hornets movie comments, and I am paraphrasing here, "It felt like any other artsy student movie. And not a very good one." Hmmm.

Sometimes the "shaky running through the woods" footage gets a bit much, but overall the balance is okay. This is not a series for lovers of constant excitement and action. In the first half there is very little dialogue, and a lot of on screen dialogue to read. However, it does maintain a feeling of suspense. Several thing do not make sense, and there is the usual "Why would they do that?" type moments you get in a lot of horror movies.

There is also a fair amount of repetition, scenes from different characters perspective, and again, sometimes shown in retrospect to add to the confusion. I have to confess, towards the end I got distracted, the horror/ supernatural content is minimal and the storyline deteriorates into a mish mash of fill ins. I do applaud the work put in, but if they had focused more on the supernatural elements, and less on the student angst, it could have been great. But still an extraordinary commitment to a project which ended up taking on a life of its own.

The form of this show give me so much fun it's kind of watching somebody playing a horror computer game or something. You'll get all confused and wonder what's gonna be in the next tape. It's not a big-budget Production and has some errors here and there but they doesn't make it less fun to watch and somehow make this more authentic.

The Internet is a weird place. One moment it's making you laugh at Russian men with brilliantine hair and amazing eyebrows sing lyric- less songs from the 1970s, and the next it's making you scream at a tall albino in a nice suit who resides in a forest. The latter is of course the infamous Slenderman; a tall, vaguely Lovecraftian creature that feasts on your fears and is always, always watching you (despite not having a face). Though Slenderman originated on the forums of Something Awful, it was the ARG web series Marble Hornets that truly put the character on the map.

The premise of the series is relatively simple; a guy named Jay stumbles upon some tapes of an old friend's unfinished college movie that contain images of a creepy tall man stalking the production crew. From there, Jay gets embroiled in a Blair Witch-style scare fest where he desperately searches for answers.

Having finally concluded last year - adding up to a total of three seasons - Marble Hornets did tend to try its luck a bit when it came to concealing information from the audience. And much like other supernaturally-orientated mystery shows, it concluded with about as much resolution as a report commissioned by a bureaucratic committee. It also had a habit of being repetitive, with one episode out of every five using the 'wondering-aimlessly-through-the-forest- while-supernatural-freak-trolls-you' format. Yet what it lacked in originality it more than made recompense with good writing and a meticulously-conceived atmosphere of foreboding.

And if none of that sells it for you, just imagine the game Slender as a web series. That should do the trick. Best avoid though if you're the sort who masturbates to the thought of Damon Lindelof and his ilk being strangled by the threads of his own tangled 'plotting'.