"Marble Hornets" Review (Cut Segment)

This is the more detailed season breakdown noted in my review for <i>Marble Hornets</i>.
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Season One is easily the best of the series for me. A lot of things worked here, most notably The Operator (Slender Man) himself. He was set up fairly early, and often, you could barely see him, or he was hidden really well. This leads the viewer to constantly think that he could be in nearly any frame in any episode. Immediately tension fires up because of that, and then "Masky" as well to a certain degree.

Another thing that really worked for me in the season was Jay's mental deterioration. It wasn't completely in your face, but it wasn't subtle. Troy's acting isn't amazing. However, I'd argue it's at least relatively believable, and his descent to paranoia and sickness mirrored that of Alex's very well. Honestly, I was extremely impressed with that gradual detail and how the theme weaves throughout the next two seasons with him and Tim.

I think my only real problems with the season are the episodes that feel like filler and the fact that it's obvious they only planned one season. That really hurts the following season more than this one as many plot threads were dropped.

Season Two opens pretty strong despite it not being originally planned, but it fizzles out fairly quickly as it progresses. Let's start out with the positives. For one thing, the choice to push the memory loss theme was a great idea. It helps explain the gap between seasons and gives them the chance for lots of content. The payoff at the end of both seasons two and three is a tiny bit anti-climactic, but conceptually, the setup is still great.

Also, the change of location with a focus on a hotel was fabulous and eerie (although, admittedly, this could just be because, for most of this season, I was watching at night... in a hotel similar to the one in the show). The location of the tunnel was iconic too. It's no wonder they chose to have it in tons of marketing material and decided to feature it prominently throughout the remainder of the show.

Lastly, I think the addition of Jessica was great (her voice kinda reminded me of Zamra Dollskin from the final "Witchcraft" trilogy). It was a shame that she went missing because that's when the show went downhill for me. There were all these cool setups like how they were the only ones in the hotel, their adjoining rooms, etc., and it all led up to a moment of tension, and then... she's gone. And we just drift until the finale, where we find out how they got there, and that's cool and all, but where is the Jay and Jessica team-up that was seemingly promised? Same goes with the character "Skully" as Jay and the initial video with Alex and Amy encountering The Operator. Sure, they do some stuff with it and offer explanations by the end of the series, but it just doesn't live up to its potential.

One of the main problems at play here is the interaction. See, I'm watching this one after another. What's missing is upload context and Tweets (and perhaps YouTube descriptions if you're watching the full cut or in a playlist). All of which enhance the experience, like the first season, but here going forward, it's extremely important. YouTuber Night Mind does a few "Explained" videos on this and it helps explain the context. Unfortunately now that the series has finished, his videos are now almost required viewing to fill in those gaps— which really does hurt the show while binging.

But... even with that context it doesn't really make up for the direction the show leans to. Now that Masky has been revealed as Tim, they needed another mystery and have us trying to figure out who Hoodie is. The problem? I couldn't care less. I'm in it for The Operator. Give me more of that. Connect it more and have more scenes than him trying to T-pose. Anything!

Season Three is decent enough, but after the last season plateaued, it just never really recovered for me. Largely, this is from the mystery of who Hoody is, Tim's lying, watching random (and canonically old) tapes with barely even a tease, going to the same random locations over and over again... pretty much anything that has nothing to do with The Operator. The scenes that do are often pretty great, such as the underground tunnel with the pipes or both entries that show the events by the big tunnel when Tim seems to have been taken by The Operator but appears in his car when Jay gets back to it. I guess the only problem with The Operator is by the third season he doesn't seem as scary as he was in the first season because he primarily just stands still and transports people through time and space.

I will say, however, I did enjoy the whole mental health twist with Tim. It really rounded the story out, and in my head, I got the impression that his schizophrenic/multiple personality disorder created The Operator and anyone he comes in contact with through camera lenses could become infected in a similar way, such as Alex, Jay, and Brian (with coughing being a signal). Additionally, there's a line towards the end of the season where we get a "flashback" tape of Alex telling a sideburn-less Tim telling him what his character would be in the Marble Hornets film, which includes facial hair and smoking a lot— things he continued to do after the filming of the production. I like to think of this as the beginning of Tim fashioning a new reality for himself.

I mean, it's cool, but they went way too big-brain with it. A lot of the third season became a bit too complicated for its own good. Especially the stuff with The Ark. If they just focused on it being like The Upside Down in "Stranger Things "it could have been really cool, but it became too cryptic. It's obvious that the creators loved David Lynch, and honestly, I think that held them back.

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