Scary? I think not.: Marble Hornets

"When you see it..." Se what? Nobody unfamiliar with this series would find that image the slightest bit scary.

I took some much more frightening screencaps of the series, but I can't seem to hotlink to them. Any idea how to get that to work?

edited 27th Feb '11 6:28:01 PM by SNES

Is that a gorilla? I'm not buying it.

Fixed the link.

The image is arguably scary if you've watched the series, and does a good job of representing it. Series images, I think, don't have the same requirements as trope images.

edited 27th Feb '11 6:35:40 PM by INUH

It's not bad, but the first pic that came to mind is the one where the two guys are in the car, and at one point there's an empty stairwell in the background and then the Slender Man appears in it. If someone could get a shot of that scene, that would be great.

Even then, the Slender Man is still hard to notice to those that have never seen the series unless they're told to look. Pic◊

Pretty much, the caption has to point out that there's something wrong in the background or people won't think much of Slender Man.

Possibly the best thing to use would be to use Slender Man's symbol◊, as it's the closest thing to a logo that Marble Hornets has.

edited 2nd Mar '11 12:16:20 AM by ImmortalAlien

A page image for a scary work doesn't need to be scary itself. However, I do think that unless you're familiar with the work, the current one is not only making the caption do all the work, it's also overstating the scaryness.

I don't know, I don't really think the image is all that scary even if you've seen the series, Slendy's really hard to see there, even if you know where he is. I think some variation of the Operator symbol might be best. Or possibly just a picture where Slendy isn't as obscured, like the one from Entry 26 where he's in the hallway?

Okay so here are the images from the series that I think are a lot scarier than the one we are currently using. Thoughts?

First◊ Second◊ Third◊ Fourth◊ Fifth◊

^None of those looks scary at all out of context.

Some of them you wouldn't even be able to tell what you're supposed to be looking at without knowledge of the series.

Yeah, I'm not too sure about any of those either, maybe the third or fourth ones if were to use any of the five.

I actually like the first one; it looks like something from a Mind Screw.

Agreed. I like the first of that series of photos.

Yes, out of that batch, one is the best. (I say this as someone who only knows of the whole Slender Man thing because of the TV Tropes article(s) on it.)

Yeah, the first photo is the best. All in all, I think it's a better image than the current one.

I also support the first: the current picture is only scary until you see it, because it sort of looks like a monkey.

Sixthing(?) the first one. Part of the problem with trying to get a good picture for MH is that the whole thing is shot like, well, something that a panicky film student carrying around a digital camera would get. It doesn't help that our skinny friend tends to move around just outside of where you'd be able to see him clearly. Not arguing that they were terrifying in context, but with just still screenshots, the second is hard to see, the third is really blurry, the fourth is just confusing, and the fifth just looks like a guy in a dark room, since you can't see his (lack of) face. Only the first one really gets the Humanoid Abomination thing across real well; while he's far away and silhouetted, it's pretty clear that the proportions are really, really wrong. I'd crop it a bit, but otherwise much better than the current one.

I like the third of that series. You can make out that it's a vaguely-but-not-humanoid being of some sort but you can't see it SO clearly that it isn't creepy.

Put up the first of SNES' lineup on the page. Sorry if the cropping's bad, but I have an old computer to work with, and she is a finicky beast.

Not a huge fan of an image that's just the Operator right out there. I think one where he's in the background more exemplifies the series' "terrifying Where's Waldo" nature.

I could be wrong - looks like the general will is for the other picture.

Mind you, the problem with the 'stuff the background' pictures in that they tend to be either to subtle or not scary out of context.

edited 20th Mar '11 7:38:27 PM by Gilphon

Very little of this series works well as a "scary" image out of context of the story. If animations were permitted, it would work better but would be distracting from the trope itself (thus why we don't use them anymore). Sadly, most of the scary factor in this series doesn't work in stills.

How about Masky?

Out of context, he's creepy and enigmatic (i.e. much the same as the entire series) but for those familiar with the series, he's High Octane Nightmare Fuel!

There's a few good ones out there, but I think this◊ gets the mix quite well!

And not that I'm suggesting it as a page image, as it's not an official one, but this◊ is a really cool idea too.

That said, I think the current page image (the operator in the tunnel) is also a good pick, just slightly obscure in terms of being illustrative.

edited 29th Mar '11 3:33:17 AM by daveydaveson

Masky is a good choice as he has far better images than Slendy. That said, the series isn't about Masky, it's about Slendy. How appropriate is it to have The Dragon (that is, if Masky is even that) as the main image?

I'm happy with the tunnel image. It is cryptic and uncluttered. My only suggestion for that would be to crop some of the black bits on the edges.

Incidentally, if somebody decides the Tunnel!Slendy pic doesn't work, there's also this nifty poster that even got a plug from Troy on his blog.

That's pretty cool.