Parallels to other works of horror

So I watched Donnie Darko a few nights ago, and I couldn't help but see a few similarities with Marble Hornets.

Anyone else seen the movie? It's a 90's film. Indie. You might like it.

I won't say more about these parallels to avoid talking to myself, in case no one else has heard of it.

Aside from memory loss I see absolutely no parallels... although I haven't seen it for quite a while.

I had an entire list going up in my brain as I was watching... but I can't seem to remember much now... O_o

I haven't seen it in ages either (although I'm familiar with and quite enjoyed it), so I cant think of any off the top of my head. please continue, Detective.

You know what is a lot more parallel to Marble Hornets?

SILENT HILL.

Beginning the derailment of this thread in 3...2...1...

Satyrcynic wrote:

You know what is a lot more parallel to Marble Hornets?

SILENT HILL.

Beginning the derailment of this thread in 3...2...1...

I... have never played it, so I wouldn't know. Can I still join Rakenclaw?

Satyrcynic wrote:

You know what is a lot more parallel to Marble Hornets?

SILENT HILL.

Beginning the derailment of this thread in 3...2...1...

*sighs and accepts fate*

*changes the title of the thread to "Parallels to other works of horror"*

>Implying Donnie Darko was truly horror

>implying one can define what horror truly is

>implying one can truly define anything

>implying this is now an implying thread

>implying it wasn't already
>implying this is the second derailment of this thread

>implying that somebody should probably talk about the subject at hand
>implying that this person is not me

>implying someone wants to talk about this

Nah, kidding. Uhhh... let's see, parallels...

Memory loss, as stated. Possible time traveling? Humanoids in masks. Foreboding atmosphere without relying on jump scares. Sleepwalking.

Anything else I missed?

I also have not watched Donnie darko but I will draw up a slender man silent hill side by side if anyone cares.

I care. Such a thing might encourage me to actually go and familiarize myself with the franchise instead of hearing tidbits on forums.

*ahem* okay then! Check this out.

Silent Hill always begins in everyday reality.
Slender Man stories typically do as well.

Silent Hill stories proceed to invade the protagonists reality with elements of some alternate horrific reality. These are always portents of things to come.
In Slender Man stories, everyday reality is invaded by the Slender Man. Before shit ever gets certifiably weird, he is just seen briefly, making everyday reality less comfortable.

After a period of this, the Silent Hill protagonist is then delivered into an alternate reality where their greatest fears and the demons of their own psyche are brought to life.
Although Slender Man stories differ from this somewhat, there is always a similar point at which the horror aspects overwhelm the everyday reality and the protagonist seems to be lost to the world.

Both prominently feature video and audio distortion, as well as certain frequencies of resonance in sound to induce fear. More interestingly, in Silent Hill, the presence of static and distortion indicates the proximity of the monsters, while in the typical Slender Man mythos, the same effects indicate the proximity of Slender Man.

Both utilize locations with a burned, hellish appearance. In Silent Hill, this is the frequently occurring Otherworld, where the monsters appear the most. In the Slender Man mythos, this is an equally mysterious location people seem to warp to when Slender Man has them under his control. Both of these locations have almost identical appearances, being pitch black, filled with rust and blood like colors, having a broken up, distorted, burned and heavily industrial aesthetic.

This is what I have off the top of my head. There's likely more.

Satyrcynic wrote:

*ahem* okay then! Check this out.

Silent Hill always begins in everyday reality.
Slender Man stories typically do as well.

True, most of the time. Silent Hill Shattered Memories is the exception.

Satyrcynic wrote:

Silent Hill stories proceed to invade the protagonists reality with elements of some alternate horrific reality. These are always portents of things to come.
In Slender Man stories, everyday reality is invaded by the Slender Man. Before shit ever gets certifiably weird, he is just seen briefly, making everyday reality less comfortable.

Agreed.

Satyrcynic wrote:

After a period of this, the Silent Hill protagonist is then delivered into an alternate reality where their greatest fears and the demons of their own psyche are brought to life.
Although Slender Man stories differ from this somewhat, there is always a similar point at which the horror aspects overwhelm the everyday reality and the protagonist seems to be lost to the world.

I agree somewhat. In Silent Hill, it is built usually built upon guilt. Slender Man runs of fear and paranoia, guilt is totally and wholly removed from the Slender Man mythos. SH2, 0rigins, Homecoming, Orphan, Orphan 2 and Shattered Memories are built upon guilt. SH1, 3, 4, and parts of 0rigins and Homecoming are built upon The Cult and their power. Cult references/practices are not apparent in the Slender Man mythos. As it is, there seems to be very little overlay at all between Slender Man and faith, which I find completely fascinating.

Satyrcynic wrote:

Both prominently feature video and audio distortion, as well as certain frequencies of resonance in sound to induce fear. More interestingly, in Silent Hill, the presence of static and distortion indicates the proximity of the monsters, while in the typical Slender Man mythos, the same effects indicate the proximity of Slender Man.

Interesting. I never placed that correlation, somehow. Even Shattered Memories works in this formate because, while there is no radio in the game, the whole game acts the way an old VHS tape would always, with visual and audio distortion twisting the screen whenever the Raw Shocks are moving closer toward the player... though, it also begins to distort while moving in closer to key items that the player needs to heed attention to. I seem to recall in one of the Marble Hornets, J swings the camera in for a C.U. on a whole in the ground and static seems to blare to live just by the hole.

Satyrcynic wrote:

Both utilize locations with a burned, hellish appearance. In Silent Hill, this is the frequently occurring Otherworld, where the monsters appear the most. In the Slender Man mythos, this is an equally mysterious location people seem to warp to when Slender Man has them under his control. Both of these locations have almost identical appearances, being pitch black, filled with rust and blood like colors, having a broken up, distorted, burned and heavily industrial aesthetic.

The reasoning behind it is different though. In Silent Hill it is Alessa's, then later Heather's memory of accidentally being burned during the Cult's ritual. So far, there is no real reason behind Slender Man's affinity toward fire and rust. The fact that Alex was in a rusted Otherworld was pointless. And for James, his Otherworld changed upon locations. At Brookhaven, it wasn't burned but simply degrading as he had witnessed Mary's health go downhill. In The Lakeview Hotel, it was the past as he'd dreamed up. The fire that he had thought up to create the illusion of a great amount of time passing. As he moves closer to his destination, the walls go soggy, molding and covered in mildew as the fog and lake air are slowly reclaiming it, degrading it as his sanity degrades.



As for the likeness of anything Slender Man based to Donnie Darko, I really can't say I see anything. I've watched Donnie Darko several times and there is nothing aside from the Time Travel that would link it together. Donnie travels back in time to save himself once, then realizes that he was meant to die, so he travels back again and doesn't save himself, though he doesn't save himself as himself, rather the boy in the rabbit costume (which, ironically, many people liken to Robbie the Rabbit of Silent Hill 3) that he only meets once.

Lisa, I would kill for responses of this quality on a regular basis. By way of re-responding;

Regarding the static/distortion, this is the biggest similarity I noticed between the two and the one that fascinates me the most. It definitely is a sort of horror radar for Silent Hill monsters in every game and for Slender Man in almost every series. Static and distortion mean creepy shit is near, regardless of which universe we are in apparently.

Regarding the similarity of certain Slender Man sets to the Otherworld, I agree reservedly with your points. I would argue that there is a reason for these settings appearing in the Slender Man mythos, the biggest and least controversial of these being the Tall One's connection to school fires from way early on in the mythos. And yes, of course Silent Hill has several different styles of Otherworld, but the most archetypical one, appearing in every single game arguably excluding Shattered Memories, is the Hellish Otherworld, as I described it. Each character makes their own in-between layers out of their own psyche, but due to the lingering memory of Alessa, the cult and the God (I subscribe to the innate regional power enhanced by tragedy line of theories) the environment I described is generally shown as the most underlying level of the Otherworld, the one that forges all of the others. Hence, we have Heather stumbling into the full form of this realm to confront the God, James facing the worst of his memories and guilt within this environment, etc. There are other expressions of the Otherworld, but that is the consistent one, likely because it is the one created by Alessas wishes and/or the God, depending on your theoretical perspective on all that.

Pardon the giant rant. tl;dr = There is a reason Alex (and Noah) find burned Otherworlds, and that style of Otherworld is the most deeply permeated in the Silent Hill mythos.

Satyrcynic wrote:

Lisa, I would kill for responses of this quality on a regular basis.

Always a pleasure for me. I find it rare though and am tickled that someone else would respond positively instead of growing upset or taking every little detail personally.

And to be honest, I haven't played Homecoming. Unfortunately, I have to base it off the information provided in TRSHE (that is The Real Silent Hill Experience) put out by Twin Perfects, watch here: http://twin-perfect.com/blog/index.php/trshe/ Not everyone, myself included, agrees with everything they present but it is entertaining and thought provoking in some places.

Anyway, from the information about Homecoming that I learned from TRSHE, I have yet to see a reason why Alex was ever introduced to the burned version of the Otherworld, especially since he is not linked to Alessa at all.

I personally, believe Silent Hill was a Mirror Town, that is the town reflects the viewer, the Otherworld being the reflection of the person's mind, through the fractured glass.

Slender Man and his own sort of Otherworld I suppose, seems to be generic. Everyone experienced the same thing. Slendy's Otherworld doesn't seem to reflect on each person individually. We see small aspects of personalized horror, such as Matt in Just Another Fool. Logan acts as the conduit between Joshua and Matt. He was a soldier thus he has his own Slendy Otherworld of being in the desert and eventually, Joshua is pulled in. Not unlike Harry Mason of SH1. He personally has no reason to see the Otherworld burnt and bleeding because he was never the victim of a painful fire, he is just haplessly pulled in by Cheryl. He is a guest in Cheryl and more correctly, Alessa's nightmare. Joshua is pulled into Logan's and more correctly Matt's nightmare.

In that view, I suppose they are very similar, but only in that instance.

In MH, J is pulled into the factory (?) that Alex was seen at with Seth(?) in one of his videos. But we are never given a reason for Alex to be there or why J would be pulled there either. On the larger scale, the fact that J alone has changed his base habits to mimic Alex's habits in the films. I suppose that could be seen as J being subconsciously pulled into Alex's nightmare, at first through the tapes, then by Totheark's video responses and finally by physically being pulled to Slender Man. But that has seemingly ended. Other then just the 2 videos (The House to the factory and the video in which he apparently opens his bedroom door into another dimension) there is fewer instances of J ever physically being pulled into another world or dimension. More often then not, Slender Man comes to the people he wants. He doesn't seem very patient.

By way of a very minimalist answer to all of those excellent questions, I think that the Otherworld in Marble Hornets represents nothing more than the realm of the Operator, his home so to speak. That's a bit shallow, but it explains everything.

Silent Hill to me is a funhouse mirror with drawings on it, to adapt your metaphor. While it does in fact reflect those who look into it (in a distorted way), it also contains preexisting elements that appear regardless of who the viewer is. Those elements were drawn by the events of Alessa and the cult imprinting their memories upon the town, and have been seen by every Silent Hill protagonist except arguably James.

I think the lack of personalisation in distorted realities in the Slenderman mythos is rather chilling. Does SH2 scare the crap out of me? Hell yes, but I haven't murdered my wife so once I turn my PC off most of the fear is gone too. On the other hand, Slenderman seems to walk into your life for no reason other than that he wants to make you miserable and do an unknowable, indescribable something to you. "Oh, you've run into Slenderman. Tough luck, mate, he'll probably eat your soul or something any day now."

Satyrcynic, LisaEvermore - I could trundle through quality posts like these for hours. I have absolutely nothing to add save for: wow. Great read.

I can see the parallels now! I've never played Silent Hill (except for a game on one of my old phones that I never got very far in) and those explanations were cool. I can see Donnie Darko a bit, too, although like some others it's been a while since I saw that movie. No one's touched on House of Leaves(right? Or did I miss that?), and I don't exactly know what to point out with that since I never finished the book. I mean, there's obviously a parallel with places that shouldn't be where they are.

House of Leave parallels in a short, spoiler-free format:

Teleporting.
Changing locations and unreliable doors.
Unreliable narrators.
Seemingly alternate dimensions.
Being watched.

I'm not a House of Leaves expert however.
By the way, the Silent Hill phone games suck. Do yourself a tremendous favor and play any of the first 3 games.