Hylo

I'd rather not post reviews that are mostly negative but this situation is an exception. This is a Slenderman film, it's advertised as a slenderman film and slenderman (referred to as "the suited man") is an direct force within the movie. That's fine, but there's something that sets this movie apart from every other fan made slender video that I've seen: it costs money. Technically that is also fine, but do you know that feeling when you first start watching slenderman videos on YouTube and you're worried about wasting your time because the quality looks terrible, the acting is bad, and there's just so many ways things can go wrong? Hylo is the first slenderman movie I've seen to actually realize all those fears and it charges you cash to suffer through it! If there were other reviews about Hylo actually warning people about it's mediocrity, I wouldn't bother with this review, but so far I have only seen positive feedback. I must balance this movie universe with a dose of honesty; Hylo is mostly terrible.

Hylo is definitely one of the most professional looking slenderman movies, but that's its only saving grace. Personally I don't want to spend money on movies simply because they were shot with a decent camera with clean audio. I want a good story, something interesting, and with atmosphere. Hylo butchers both of these.

The acting is quite terrible, but honestly that's not a huge concern of mine because this is slenderman here. The free stuff feels better, but that's because they're mostly shot like live footage, so the acting doesn't have to be that great. However, in a professional looking film like Hylo, all the unnatural dialogue and uncertain body language by confused actors is very distracting.

Distractions are the biggest flaws of this movie. The biggest probably being the soundtrack. It's a tuning violin and piano track that loops throughout the whole movie while changing volume with the tension of the scenes. This soundtrack adds nothing to atmosphere and is extremely distracting when the violin starts shrieking loudly during a scene that is supposedly suspenseful. Another annoyance is the fact that the camera is often slightly out of focus or shaking. I can imagine that maybe an unstable camera could add tension but usually the characters are just talking at a flat angle and the camera will often switch to another angle which is stable. Why is it shaking? No one is moving! As for being out of focus, some shots start off in focus then become unfocused when something moves. Does the cameraman not know how to manually focus?

All these distractions would be overlookable (as they do exist in most slender series) if the story was decent, but it isn't. It's all stuff that you've seen before and the plot is entirely driven by the desire to show it to you again. There are no insights into slenderman and what he is or why he does things; He's just slenderman... like on the internet, you know? They blatantly use "the operator" symbol, I can't tell if it's a tribute... it just feels random. Slenderman has tentacles, but no one acknowledges them and they don't do anything. To be fair this is the same in most videos but they usually add to his supernatural presence. Hylo slenderman is portrayed very human and if it wasn't for having previous knowledge that slendy should have tentacles, their presence would be very confusing. My biggest gripe with "the suited man" is the fact that he leaves footprints behind... shoeprints to be exact. This makes slenderman very tangible and even material. Why is he so humanly tangible yet he still acts like a ghost and has tentacles? It's not mysterious, it's conflicting logic that should be explained. Hylo contributes nothing to the slenderverse, it just randomly regurgitates and cashes in on the iconography.

As for the actual story with the psychologist and what not, I don't know. It's just stuff that doesn't carry a lot of weight. For instance take the main concept of the movie: the phobia of forests. That's a cool concept and has a lot of potential for a slender story, but here it doesn't really have much to do with anything. The character with the least screen time is apparently scared of a forest, but it's well established that it's because of a "suited man". No one is scared of any forest. Right from the beginning of the movie, they go visit the forest, and no one is scared of it, they're scared of the supposed "suited man". For some reason it's crazy to think that a man with a suit is in the forest? Hylo would be so much more interesting if it was actually about people with hylophobia and ended up giving a subtle nod to slenderman, the supernatural being of the forest. However hylophobia doesn't have anything to do with anything, it's just slenderman, like you could have watched for free anywhere else on the internet...

This is a very ranty review, but with all the quality slenderman media that is out there, something needs to be said about this deceptive piece. There are guidelines for submissions of material to the slenderverse and Hylo doesn't seem to take note of any of them. It's just uses the slenderman images to attract fans without putting proper effort into atmosphere or story styling. That's cool if you want to check this movie out and give it money. Indie filmmakers do deserve to get paid. However, if you're just getting started in the slenderverse and you think this movie looks promising, please watch the grimier and infinitely more entertaining youtube series, that are available for free, first. The direction and quality of Hylo is very different from most of the slenderverse and fans need to be aware of what to expect, especially if this is the only film using slenderman as advertisement then asking for money.