[MATPAT]
You're trapped in a house. Alone. The doors won't open. The windows won't break. During the day nothing much happens. But at night.... Well, let's just say you're not alone anymore... (static) (distorted) ♫ Film Theorist intro ♫ Hello, Internet! Welcome to Film Theory! Bringing the spooky to you way before Halloween comes around. Still didn't beat the retailers though. I mean there are jack-o'-lanterns and scarecrows on display at my local grocery store right now! Come on people! Let summer have it's time! Today though, in that spirit of horror we're covering what I consider to be a modern era Blair Witch Project. A homegrown YouTube horror story that's put me more on edge than anything I've seen in theaters for the past few years. There's a certain comfort you have in structures, you know? If a movie is rated PG-13 or R you know the level of scare that they're gonna be able to reach within that movie, and there's a level of comfort there. You know something has to be commercially marketable to make it into a theater, and, whether you realize it or not, that gives you a certain level of safety. Stories and movies have three acts after all, and whether the resolution of that movie is good or bad, it's still a movie. It's still going to have to resolve. Horror stories that exist online though... don't work that way. It's the sort of horror that you can't find anywhere else. It's raw. It's unpolished. It's unpredictable. It rips away all of those safety nets that we hold dear, and as a result, it's able to deliver experiences that truly chill you to the core. Which is why today, we're talking about HiImMaryMary. A channel I've had my eye on for a while, and one that, after I covered local 58, a lot of you requested me talk about. Fair warning, this is not one to watch a night. Or in headphones, honestly, because the sound design is literally the most unsettling part of it. Partly because of the creep factor, but mostly because audio normalization is ~not~ a tool in Mary's toolset. Now, for the majority of you who've never heard of this channel, let me give you a little bit of background. HiImMaryMary was created in 2016 with a video simply titled "Hello," where we're introduced to Mary: a girl who awakens in a house with no memory of how she got there. What she can tell us is that she's in what she thinks is her parents' house, or at least a copy of it, and she's unable to leave. The doors are locked. The windows won't break. She has a camera and access to the Internet, but otherwise, she's completely alone. Even on the Internet, even when she has access to Twitter, which, let's be honest, I know this is supposed to be a horror series and all, but Twitter without people screaming at you doesn't sound like a nightmare sounds more like a dream come true. During the day nothing much happens, but at night... well... Maybe Mary isn't as alone as she thinks she is.... The first video ends abruptly as we catch a glimpse of a shadowy woman wearing a black veil. Over the next few uploads we're introduced to the scariest four housemates you could ever want. Four distinct entities each acting in their own unique way. Each stalking and attacking her as she tries to survive inside the house. For the majority of the series she spends her time in that home learning the rules of this new reality that she suddenly found herself in. Eventually, however, she stumbles into a new location. Somewhere outside. A place she calls "The Garden." A place where she's finally able to catch a break from all the monsters that exist inside her house. A place where she's joined by a version of herself dressed all in white. But even that soon reveals itself to be a trap. As she frequents the garden to escape from her home more and more, even The Garden begins to change into something much more sinister. And that's not all. MaryMary is a story that spills out of its videos and over into her blog and Twitter account, with each outlet providing different pieces to the puzzle of what's really going on in Mary Mary's world; vague additional details from the tweets, unreleased thoughts and images in her blog, secret messages hidden in that web site's source code. IN the source code, people! MaryMary isn't just a horror story about one young woman's torture, my friends. It is a complete A.R.G experience just waiting for us to decipher. So what's the theory today? Oh, we're just trying to figure out what's really going on. If the premise didn't already tip you off that there might be something deeper at play here, the sudden appearance of a mirror version of yourself in a Garden of Eden while you're fighting literal demons back in your horror house seems like this story might be pretty darn symbolic. So, that, my friends, is our goal today. Expose the evils haunting MaryMary, and in the process, answer the cries for help she's been leaving across her blog and Twitter. And, before we begin, I know I already made a warning earlier about the series, but it does bear one final warning here as we get started. This series is *really dark.* It gets intense. It deals with some very real, very heavy subjects, and it does so in a way that feels very personal. So, what I would say is watch it for the entertainment. Watch it for the scares. Take it in small doses. But if *any* of the imagery or topics that it addresses starts to affect you in *any* way, we've included phone lines from around the world who are there and available for calls and help down in the description below. Again, the fact that I'm saying that sort of disclaimer on a series that was created by a young woman here on YouTube and not any of the other wacky stuff that we've ever covered on this channel should really tell you a lot about how effective HiImMaryMary (PLEASE take care of yourselves my peeps) really is at delivering a hard-hitting narrative. So, with those disclaimers out of the way, let's begin. The easiest place to start our analysis, and the thing that starts toppling some of the other dominoes in this puzzle, is with the character Beauty, one of the monsters that stalks Mary around the house. Appearing only when Mary looks at a mirror, wearing a tight black or purple dress, and sporting a flawless mask, it's not too hard to identify Beauty as the embodiment of Mary's physical insecurities. Beauty constantly mocks Mary and laughs at her imperfections. This character represents Mary being haunted by the fears that she has over her own self-image. The fact that she won't be able to live up to the societal pressures of what she should look and behave like. Pressures from social media, mainstream media, even her peers. According to the Millennial cohort study - a study that looks into financial well-being, parenting, education, and heath and children almost 40% of girls who spend more than five hours a day on social media shows signs of depression. And of those with depression they're two-and-a-half times more likely than boys to be dissatisfied with their appearance. *That* is the essence of beauty. So if one of the monsters that are haunting Mary is an expression of her own personal fears and insecurities, in this case her self-loathing, it stands to reason that the others must be as well, right? Well, it's a theory that certainly seems to hold true for our second monster: The Veiled Lady. The first one that we're introduced to during those final moments in Episode 1. Found in the videos hello, worse, Discovery, DO NOT TOUCH, hide and seek, check in, rain, gone, and last 8 months, when we first meet The Veiled Lady she's just a creepy thing that we see at the end of a video. However, as this series continues on and as more and more of the monsters show up in her house the more aggressive The Veiled Lady becomes. Not only does she appear more frequently than all the other entities and appear to be a ringleader of sorts, she's also the only one who's able to directly speak with Mary. In the video titled "hide and seek" we get an interesting interaction where The Veiled Lady asks Mary to participate in the game of questions and answers. When Mary asks The Veiled Lady what she wants we get ourselves a pretty straightforward answer. That answer fairly well spells it out. The Veiled Lady is symbolic of depression and it's *that* depression that's acting as the root cause of everything else that's happening inside the house. The reason The Veiled Lady appears the most frequently of all the monsters, the reason she gets stronger as more of those monsters appear, is because they all feed into her. They all feed into depression. Take Beauty for instance, those insecurities of not being good enough, of not meeting society's pressures for physical appearance, those all feed back into the depression that Mary is feeling, making it grow deeper. Making it grow stronger. The same will hold true of all the other monsters that we're about to discuss. Later in the game of questions and answers Mary asks a different question: Who are you? And The Veiled Lady responds This is quite a literal answer. Mary does indeed know the names of all the issues that she's dealing with. Things like depression, self-doubt, anxiety, self-loathing. And if that doesn't drive our theory home when Mary asks yet another question "I-I don't understand what does this all mean? I-I just don't get it" The Veiled Lady responds with Giving us pretty solid evidence that these monsters are indeed all products that exist inside Mary's own mind. So that's two of the four monsters in the house, and quite honestly they're the two most obvious. The others are a bit more speculative, but I think I've got a good handle on 'em. We'll call the third one "The Shadow" because it's a human silhouette found in the episodes goodnight, sleepwalker, and rain. The Shadow is most notably seen approaching Mary in situations where she feels safe. We see it looming over her while she's on the Internet. We see it crawling over the foot of the bed as she's sleeping. Other than that, it doesn't really do all that much outside of being creepy. There is however another notable trait that it seems to carry with it. Whatever it's around, we tend to see phrases flash on-screen. "I feel nothing" is one of the most obvious. We can find this statement along with other related sentiments on Mary's Twitter. Saying things like, "I hate looking at it, what does it even do? It just follows me around and when I look at it, I feel all terrible." In fact, that theme of looking at The Shadow and feeling bad seems to be the primary things that she's trying to communicate to us about this entity. In another tweet about The Shadow (quote) I don't like looking at it - staring directly makes me feel bad. (end quote) This in my mind seems to point to the shadow being representative of Regret. Regret is one of those things that lingers, that follows you around and that you can largely ignore. But once you start thinking about it, once you start looking at it, you start to feel really bad about yourself and the decisions that you've made in the past. It makes you feel like a terrible person. It's slow. It's creeping. And regret never truly goes away. Exactly the things that Mary says about The Shadow on twitter (quote) It's watching me. Why doesn't it move quickly? It's like it wants me to feel like this. It's looking at me right now. At least I think it is. I'm gonna go into another room and close the door. It will probably open it. (end quote) Regret looms over you. It follows behind you. It's like a shadow. In "sleepwalker" we see the phrase, "I messed up" over and over and over and over again on the wall as it creeps up behind her. And not seconds later it's on the couch. Uncomfortably close. The messed up tells us exactly what we need to know here. Mary made a bad decision and The Shadow is the entity that reminds her of that. Which is why the next phrase that we see in the briefest of flashes is "i get what i deserve." She made a mistake and now she feels like The Shadow is her punishment. The thing that she rightfully earned because of that mistake. Based on the intimacy of The Shadow, the fact that it's able to get so close to her, the fact that it's largely associated with the bed and sleeping, I'd say this is a series of regrets born out of getting intimate too early in a relationship. Or getting pressured to do things that she wasn't quite ready for. Which would not only prompt the regret that she's experiencing but also that empty nothingness that she feels whenever she's reminded of that moment by The Shadow. What should have felt special is now cold, hollow, empty she feels nothing Which leaves us with one final entity in the house. The Darkness. Found in the episodes darkness moves, do not touch, and the last 8 months. The Darkness isn't so much a humanoid figure like the others, but rather a spidery essence that branches and creeps around. On Mary's Twitter she plays a game with her future self called "guess which entity based on the ways to deal with it." And while she has a solid solution for three of those entities, The Darkness is the one that confuses her the most. Let's look at those tweets and play along shall we? "Don't hang out near mirrors"
Obviously referring to beauty. "Move around every once in a while, don't settle in one place and especially don't fall asleep." The reference to sleep here seems to indicate to us that this is The Shadow. "Run very very fast and also hide - but you can't hide for long because she's smart enough to find you. So you have to do it all night." Well since Mary specifically refers to this one as a she, (and) we have a very obvious connection to Beauty in the other tweet, this is definitely referring to The Veiled Lady. But then we get to Tweet #4 and we have ourselves one last remaining contestant in this little game show. The Darkness. "Still not sure about this one, try your best to ignore it and stay far away from it." In the video "DO NOT TOUCH" she actually catches the darkness. But instead of being in her palm when she turns her hand around, it's stuck *on* her palm with the words "i'm a monster" appearing on screen immediately after. At this point we suddenly enter a frantic montage of scenes where we're shown all the other entities in the house in rapid succession. Something of note here is that boundaries suddenly seem to be gone. Beauty is no longer trapped inside mirrors and is able to remove her mask revealing the ugliness underneath. The Shadow has suddenly grown taller. The Veiled Lady looks way more enraged and aggressive than normal. Since all of this craziness happens right after The Darkness absorbs itself into Mary, I'm inclined to think that this one represents Anxiety. In "DO NOT TOUCH" Mary chases after The Darkness. It's actually one of the few times in the entire series that she tries to face her demons head-on. But when she finally gets a handle on it, what does she get in return? Basically a panic attack. She's overwhelmed by all the entities attacking her all at once to a degree that the series has yet to see. And the behavior of anxiety matches the actions of The Darkness. Anxiety can creep and slowly devour you or it can just jump out and attack you all at once unprompted. It entangles you. It ensnares you. It amplifies all your existing problems to a new extreme. And anxiety has no face. It has no name or identity. Instead, it's the collection of all your other problems balled up and tangled into one. All of this matches how The Darkness behaves when it's onscreen in HiImMaryMary. When it absorbs itself into Mary suddenly all her existing problems get amplified and attack all at once. The Darkness may not seem like a lot but it's literally inescapable. Able to strike anywhere at any moment. So those are our four monsters. With the house Mary's trapped in representing her mind. A house that is plagued by demons of depression, anxiety, regret, and self-loathing. But our story isn't done. There's a fifth and final monster we've yet to cover. One that doesn't roam the house. One that lurks outside. One that may just be the most sinister and dangerous evil of them all. But more on that in an upcoming episode. If you guys really like this one maaaaybe I can squeeze it in for next week. Let me know down in the comments if you like this one and if you want me to continue analyzing the series. If you do make sure you hit the subscribe button you see on screen right now. But in the meantime while you wait for that video to get released check out the box to the left where I cover Local 58, an equally creepy scary story right here on YouTube. An undiscovered gem. Go and check that one out. Just make sure that you stay safe. Oh, yeah, and remember that it's all just a theory - A film theory. aaaaand - cut
I really liked this theory. It introduced me to probably one of the best YouTube scary series out there, which I loved. It portrays psychological illness in a very metaphorical manner that makes others understand the struggle.
My only observation would be that the shadow represents emptiness rather than regret. Perhaps one of the contributing factors is regret, but overall it comes when she is alone and, as Mat Pat mentioned, it’s always with her. It’s literally a shadow –an empty placeholder– so it’s more logical for it to represent her emptiness.
As for the next video, I’ll go ahead and say that “The Garden” is her form of escapism from her problems. It’s a fantasy that she enters when she is close to her issues–her drug, alcohol, or any other delusion–. In one of her videos she is close to committing suicide while running through a tunnel with a light at the other end that is really far away. It’s her form of escapism that soon becomes a problem itself.
I haven’t watched the entire series, but I’m exited for what’s to come.
I really enjoyed this vid. super creepy.
Don't ask who Mary is...
I really enjoyed this spooky video.
Hello matpat and your team love the video i have a question can you and your team do a video on CatGhost or at least watch it? (ps sorry in case i misspelled, i have dyslexia and i am from sweden)
If he did a theory on this imagine if he did a theory on alantutorial
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Maybe the shadow man doesn't represent guilt, as insecurity seems to fit better, as it fills the same requirements guilt does, only lines up a few things in her posts that didn't seem right when talking about him