Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story (2015)

A small town news team discovers a box of video tapes where a faceless figure dressed in a dark suit, haunts and torments a family... slowly driving them insane. Soon after, they realize that the "Operator" has begun to stalk them as well.

Director:

James Moran

Writers:

Ian Shorr (screenplay), Joseph DeLage (web series "Marble Hornets")

Stars:

Alexandra Breckenridge, Chris Marquette, Jake McDorman

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alexandra Breckenridge	...	Sara
Chris Marquette	...	Milo Burns
Jake McDorman	...	Charlie MacNeel
Doug Jones	...	The Operator
Michael Bunin	...	Dan Wittlocke
Alexandra Holden	...	Rose Wittlocke
Morgan Bastin	...	Tara Wittlocke (as Morgan E. Bastin)
Elizabeth Payne	...	Barbara Sellers
Damon Gupton	...	Leonard Herring
Tim Seitter	...	Dean
Mark Christopher Lawrence	...	Gary Rockwell
Rick Otto	...	Sheriff Lee Dylan
David Pevsner	...	Kyle
Kathryn Gordon	...	Makaela
Cynthia Murell	...	Mary - Dancing Girl

Storyline

On the hunt for an intriguing news story, a small-town news team follows a crew inspecting repossessed houses. Inside a particularly strange house, the news team discovers a box of video tapes inside a locked closet. Sensing a story, they decide to take them back to their studio. From the tapes, they learn that the family who had lived in the house was not pushed out by the banks, but fled the house in fear for their lives. Trying to decode the story, the crew keeps seeing a faceless figure dressed in a dark suit appear in the footage that causes the videotape to scramble. Their fear mounts when this figure, The Operator as he is deemed, starts to appear in their real lives, standing quietly and always watching them. Tortured and terrorized, the three crew members must track down the mystery of The Operator before it's too late.

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Plot Keywords:

slenderman | slender man | hallucination | news team | supernatural creature | 

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Taglines:

You shouldn't have looked.

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Genres:

Horror

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some violence.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 April 2015 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Operator

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bellevue Productions, Mosaic

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1 / (high definition)

Did You Know?

Trivia

Production for the film was brought to a halt after two instances of youth violence relating to the "slender man" myth appeared in headlines.

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Connections

Spun-off from Marble Hornets (2009)

User Reviews

Nothing New, But Not Terrible

Always Watching is another addition to the preponderance of found footage movies within the horror genre. I was getting tired of this gimmick a good number of years ago, but it obviously isn't going anywhere...and when it works it actually does end up leading to some worthwhile movies. This one is a bit of a loose take on the internet-created Slenderman trope, arguably the first entirely crowd sourced urban legend. The antagonist is referred to as The Operator rather than Slenderman, though the parallels are transparent. In this movie the antagonist only shows up on camera and a news crew working on a story about a family that disappeared happens across home videos that they are scouring for any information regarding the disappearance. The cameraman begins experiencing some encounters that have him (and his coworkers) questioning his sanity and he begins taking his video camera with him everywhere he goes. Though the human naked eye doesn't seem to he capable of seeing The Operator, the camera man's dog seems to see it just fine. I won't bother with drawing any correlations between this movie and the Marble Hornets' short films, because there isn't really a whole hell of a lot that actually connects them beyond the use of the name The Operator in place of Slenderman. There isn't anything new or really inspired in this movie to set it apart from other found footage titles, though it does have some good tense moments and a few decent jump scares. If you're looking for a creepier, more unnerving Slenderman experience, I would recommend playing the video game Slender: The Arrival, which has both a better atmosphere and more effective jump scares (in addition to being interactive, which is quite a bit more immersive). The movie isn't horrible, and the acting is pretty good for the sort of low budget found footage movie it is...so it isn't a waste of time to watch. But if you are looking for something that might be actually scary or really interesting I would recommend waiting for the upcoming CreepyPasta movie directed by Clive Barker. I suspect that his treatment of the Slenderman story will be be far superior.