Hell House, LLC (2015)

Directed by Stephen Cognetti

Viewed on Shudder

 

Summary: A group of haunted house builders decide to make their newest exhibition at an old abandoned hotel. This haunted house is very scary, but not for the reasons they planned.

 

Oh found footage movies, I just can’t quit you. And since it has been nearly two whole weeks since my last review of a found footage movie we are overdue for a discussion of another one! This film has a slightly better pedigree, what with it being featured and promoted on Shudder, with a recently released sequel that I may have to watch soon as well, so hopes are a bit higher that this movie will provide a quality found footage experience.

The setup for Hell House, LLC is that the actual movie is presented as a documentary being made ABOUT this event using footage shot by the people involved and featuring several experts being interviewed about the event. This documentarian style works exceedingly well to establish early on the mood that they’re going for, which is one that I am a huge fan of, the ‘mystery horror’. You are told, ‘something bad happened here’ but it isn’t immediately clear what exactly happened and that is the point. The filmmakers trying to piece together what happened from eyewitness accounts and expert testimony about the history of the hotel drives the narrative and provides a sensible framing device for everything you are shown.

 

This event in question that the movie centers around is an incident that occurred at Hell House, a “haunted house” attraction set up in the small town of Abaddon, NY, on its opening night. There was some kind of event that resulted in the deaths of numerous people, patrons and staff, and the local authorities have been very close lipped about all aspects of the investigation into this incident, letting few details be publicly available. This is where this movie starts, with the documentary crew trying to figure out what happened by interviewing journalists and experts on the area, particularly ones with knowledge of the history of the abandoned hotel that Hell House, LLC, the business running the haunted house, set up shop in. Information is given out appropriately piecemeal, with large swathes of the film being footage given to the documentary crew by one of the Hell House, LLC staff members who sought out the documentary team.

 

Viewing these bits of footage taken by the Hell House staff, the documentary crew explores the events leading up to the opening night disaster, paying special attention to the footage shot by Paul, an employee with Hell House, LLC who is often at odds with the other employees due to his childish behavior and less than splendid work ethic. It is this footage that provides the bulk of the movie and is what solidifies Hell House, LLC as a prime example of the found footage genre. As everyone is getting the hotel ready for the Hell House exhibition strange things begin to happen. At first it is just normal things that could be wrong with an abandoned building, unusable electrical systems and a general creepy vibe, but when they explore further they notice things that make the group question the history of the building. As the head of the group, Alex, tries to keep everything moving while deflecting the group’s concerns stranger and stranger things begin happening, putting even more pressure on an already edgy group.

 

Alex denies all supernatural spookiness happening at this location which sets up the conflict of this part of the movie, that being the classic issue of one, or more, parties seeing or experiencing something unusual and unexplainable and trying to bring that to the attention of others but not being believed. The context of it being Paul as the person to bring this up to Alex is a rather clever setup. Paul is already kind of the black sheep of this group, he was one of the few people involved to be just an employee and not be otherwise friends with everyone, and he already has a negative reputation, which is admittedly earned through his crude behavior, so whenever he tries to bring these things up he is routinely shut down and/or accused of trying to get out of work or just mess with people.

 

Seeing the toll that this takes on Paul and the rest of the group, especially as more and more of them start becoming aware that things aren’t quite right around the old hotel, creates this wonderful tension that highlights everything that works about found footage movies. Paul being just a guy holding a camera seeing scary things but not wanting to leave because this is his job does bring the scares to a more personal level. Oh and the jump scares are absolutely terrifying. They aren’t jump scares in the traditional sense, nothing ever flies at the screen and you never see a CGI ghost with a distending mouth like you see in every other found footage horror movie, they’re much more context driven, less about what is happening and more about WHY it is happening and what that means for the people seeing them.

 

The documentary pieces are woven into the narrative of the group setting up Hell House and that keeps the pace nice and brisk while also giving exposition about certain events without having someone in the main group stop the movie to explain it. It’s a pretty smart way to give information to the audience without interrupting the flow of what was happening, because I was curious about all the things that these people were getting interviewed about but it would have been difficult to bring it up organically in the dialogue without those scenes feeling hokey. Sensibly, these scenes with the interviewees get more and more scarce as the movie goes along, letting the rising tension continue on without interruption.

 

Though I enjoyed the movie overall there were a few issues to be found. The ending doesn’t make much sense in context and is a bit of a letdown from all the great tension building that happened previously. Also I would have liked if the documentary crew, who we see a few times, had a bit more characterization. We can infer a lot about them from their brief scenes but it would have been great to know a bit more about everyone involved. Other than that though I really enjoyed Hell House, LLC.

 

Storywise nothing here is exactly groundbreaking but it is all presented beautifully, which is even more surprising as this is the writer/director’s first feature length film. I was shocked when I learned that, and that makes me even more interested in the recently released sequel. To have such a strong movie as your feature film debut is quite impressive, as is the clear understanding of what makes these kinds of movies work. Hell House, LLC is a great find, especially if you’re looking for something to watch around Halloween. Unique presentation and solid scares make this a great addition to the found footage canon. I would definitely recommend this film!