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We recently watching Stephen Cognetti’s ‘Hell House LLC‘ series while recovering from COVID. We first thought it was about a haunted house filled with body modifications, but we soon discovered that it had much more to offer. The film portrays the mystery surrounding the deaths and disappearance of the public near the Abaddon hotel. The film was captivating and embedded in occultism which prompted us to binge watch the other three films.
At first, we do not understand how it came about, or if something truly supernatural is at work. A group of creatives under the banner ‘Hell House’ have relocated their business to the aforementioned Abaddon Hotel. With the company having internal economic problems, there is immense pressure to make sure everything runs smoothly. We quickly learn that something terrible went wrong on opening night resulting in a number of deaths, with only bits of client capturing the mayhem unfold in the basement. To gain deeper understanding, this found footage documentary blends all the footage they can access, as well as the misplaced ‘Hell House’ company tapes, and uncovers a series of peculiar events leading up to the destruction of the set and the bloodbath that occured that night.
We receive a background on the hotel, which includes the missing people as well as a suicidal Satanist, the weird sounds and movements inside the hotel, mannequins dressed like clowns that move around to jump scare and other nonsense. The shocking part comes when we learn that the last living member of Hell House, who gave the footage, is dead, and this spirit or demon is tempting documentary makers to capture more victims for the hotel.
In the sequel, Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel, is bookended by a morning mystery TV show with no explanation that features a psychic and a fed up city official who is tired of all the people poking about the hotel massacre, as well as the lone survivor of the documentary crew who is looking for his peers that were last seen headed to the hotel. We get some more details on the behavior of the hotel, especially on the issue of missing or dead people manifesting in our world and dragging others to their doom. Eventually, a group of our new characters head into the hotel and the now old spins of clowns that move, spooky people standing behind people, geography changing, and more.
Next up, we have Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire. Remember that tech warrior from before? Russell Wynn plans to use the Abaddon Hotel to expand on his interactive theatre production revolving around Faust. This premise is quite a stretch indeed. Bear in mind, it is common knowledge that absolute morons try to pull multi-media stunts at this location which always ends with them as corpses. With as many individuals willing to participate, it seems we are beating our heads against a wall, but due to the nature of the series, more and more people are appearing equally terrified, which makes it all the more compelling. Next there’s a portal to hell, and the place bursts into flames.
At long last, we made it to the most recent entry made in 2023, Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor. From the title, we thought that ‘origins’ would allude to some sort of prequel that explains the occultists that left behind the supernatural remnants in the hotel. To our surprise, it is set after the burning of the hotel and shifts to a different house that is somewhat related to the hotel Disneyland. For some reason, this house seems to feature the same basic spooks as the original premise of the story, complete with clown mannequins lurking around corners. This is so particular you start to wonder why so many people owned these, but they have to needlessly point out why there are creepy clowns in the first place. It isn’t just because the crew for Hell House shoved them there as part of their scare house. There has to be a pointless point.
Hell House LLC, in its original form, gives the audience as much fun as it can manage to do, but for an adventure of this scale, it does leave a lot for the viewer to answer and unravel. It’s a blend of typical mockumentaries and modern horror fads like Halloween Haunts. The acting is not very convincing for what is framed as reality, but neither will we blame the movie in this case because that is a lot to ask from a novice film troupe it’s a tough sell. It is unfortunate that the series loses its scare factor, as you are forced to ‘explain’ everything. It does become less terrifying and the ‘jumps’ do not advance in any way. It’s one of the most monotonous themes we’ve heard from a horror franchise.
The story has annoyingly stereotypical characters like a creep who will stalk constantly as all of the following try to bring up an absurd premise to why they are all spending their time in this clearly haunted place. Upon witnessing something odd, they just stand or sit down in the room and have a meeting and decide to just keep moving forward. The longer we watch, the less believable the acting is and the thinner the story becomes. To make things worse, the characters are absolute caricatures of real people. My personal favorite has to be the gay character from the second movie who has one line of backstory when they say, “Oh my god! Did you see the fashion show we just came from?!”
With their repeated traps, existing gore, and unpolished story, all they make up with is bringing in variation on the scare. With hell house, LLC, The Saw franchise has their usual problem of trying to blend adventure with horror. Cognetti’s tendency to water down each scare makes everything feel worse than it already is, and Oh the hell house, LLC only has a few other the same Tec, and just repeatedly does the same thing for every scary moment.
So, both Mike Flanagan and Ari Aster have a habit of using a specific trick where they set something in the background that goes unnoticed but moves. Cognetti seems to get the first part down but is overly anxious you might not have noticed so now we have a shadowy figure that is lurking behind our selfie-taking camera operator. You might have caught it but if you didn’t – don’t worry. The footage will play again in slow motion with a zoom in on the shadowy figure.
At this point, the footage will freeze and you will get a look at it. Maybe it’s a ghost of a missing person so now we have a freeze frame of the shadowy figure in a split screen with the missing person. As a viewer, the process always tends to be a ‘oh, what was that?!’ followed by a ‘oh, ok, I got it…right, that’s very clear’. The best part of this is that you don’t have to do this every, single time. Any suspense and mystery are diffused immediately.
Both seeing the smiles and sounds of laughter is not only distrurbing, but elicits memories friends and family tried to cover. I believe the editing choice goes back to Cloverfield when the character’s video glitches and transitions from the present moment to one where they seem to be happy, right before they die makes it feel tragic. The Hell House LLC films circumvent this feeling by showing every character that dies being cut to a moment in the beginning where they smile before death. This leaves the viewer feeling in disbelief, of how ridiculous it is.
It’s a little sad too, sometimes it makes me die a little inside. If these films continue being made, expect a movie entirely composed of unused footage. I am admittedly a sucker for these kinds of movies, so putting some additional props and missing footage or characters into the mix should suffice. Doing this makes it feel as if the stories in parts btained are pieced together with loose stitches. The director has been successful so far. As I see it, he makes me, and other viewers feel as if the lore is simply built on top of layers.
Initially, Hell House LLC embodies fun elements with visual horror that feels enticing (now THAT’S a spooky clown!). However, I feel like it is attempting suicide repeatedly. Adding more explanations or context seems to dilute its horror factor, the scares lessen and lessen the more “scary moments” you try to showcase. Instead of going back to the same well, Cognetti should have experimented more with the concept. There is no progression in the series, all that keeps happening is the same thing.
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