Good afternoon, House of Madness stalkers:
First off, welcome back! Normally we don't take time off at Christmas, but some good spirited people broke into the House of Madness while we were out getting evil supplies, and filled the place with joy and wellness. You know how long it takes to get that shit out!? I'll be pouring blood down the Air Vents of Madness until at least February, just to get the stench of happiness completely out of the air. Next year we're getting that dog 'Cujo' I saw for sale at the farm down the street, and the chance of Christmas making another appearance here will be impossible! I love dogs.
Did you know we landed on the moon? What about this new fad called the internet, ever heard of that? Don't even pretend you know about the contraption that turns your bedroom light on and off with the sound of a clap. This is pretty much how I felt when I stumbled across "Marble Hornets" just the other day. I consider myself a found footage fanatic, and I've seen more FF movies than Nicolas Cage's entire Hollywood resume to date. Millions, if not billions of films. I discovered "MH" by complete accident as I was scouring YouTube for cat videos......*ahem* EVIL cat videos, and I couldn't believe that something so wonderfully sinister could have evaded my eyeballs for so long. How the fuck had I never heard of this before? There had to be a big buzz surrounding it, as it has millions upon millions of views, shares, comments, and subscribers. I haven't felt this out of the loop since that time I picked up my son at school wearing my "Where's the Beef?" t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and my Adidas short shorts. Oh well, at least nobody saw me this time.
I don't think I'm the only one that was/is new to learn about "MH", so I'm not going to dive too deep into the story or the happenings. The basic premise is an amateur director named Alex (Joseph DeLage), a run-of-the-mill aspiring actor himself shooting a film called "Marble Hornets", and as he gathers more footage, he starts down a path of delusional insanity that affects everything and everyone it touches; from his friend Brian (Brian Haight) all the way down to new acquaintance and fellow actor Tim (Tim Sutton). After shooting "Marble Hornets" for a short period of time, Alex cancels the project and abandons any hope of its continuance without warning, explanation, or consideration. Alex goes as far as to say he is going to burn the tapes (of which there are many) and upon hearing this, his friend J (Troy Wagner) asks if he can have them rather than the tapes being destroyed forever. After some coercing, Alex agrees to hand over the tapes, and our real story begins.
The tapes aren't labeled, and don't seem to be in any particular order, so J tries his best to organize the footage and clean up the audio and video, after which he uploads the material to YouTube for all to see. Strange things are happening on the tapes, from Alex's behaviour to a mysterious and terrifying tall man known as 'The Operator', an impossible anomaly who seems to show up at will out of nowhere, and is determined to unhinge Alex in an effort of control by fear. The more tapes J watches, the deeper he's committed to finding out what's actually going on, and he'll stop at nothing to find the truth. As we're lead down a winding path into madness, the question becomes whether J is actually hunting the truth, or if the truth is hunting him.
"Marble Hornets" is divided into three seasons, each containing several 'entries' that range from less than a minute, right up to fifteen minutes in length. There are also short entries from someone known as 'totheark', which are replies to a number of J's uploads. When you combine the two, "MH" consists of 132 episodes totaling almost nine hours in length. I binged this in record time, as introducing a FF freak to nine hours of undiscovered footage is equivalent to handing a dehydrated desert wanderer a deluge of liquids, only my thirst can never be satisfied no matter how hard you try.
If this is new to you too, not only do you have almost nine hours of unexplored entertainment to tickle your tastebuds, but it's all absolutely FREE here on YouTube where it all began and ended in the first place. It's well worth the 3897 ads you'll have to endure along the way, as this tall tale is begging to be told......even if you're a couple of minutes (or eight years in my case) late to the party.
Madness Meter: 8.4/10
NB
