Happy Holidays and Happy End of 2019! If you’ve been reading Everything But Bone for a while, you know I am a sucker for found footage films (FFF). And this time we are going to talk about one of the best modern FFF series, Stephen Cognetti’s Hell House LLC (2015-2019). There are currently three films in the series, with the suggestion of possible spinoffs to come. They are also are a rarity in the horror genre in that the level of quality, while it does dip slightly in the second and third, continues to be high in all the films. But above all, Hell House LLC is one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen.
The first film, released in 2015, feels like a true crime documentary before it veers into found footage horror. We have talking head experts, police footage, and new reports. A filmmaker named Diane Graves (Alice Bahlke) attempts to learn what really happened in the Hell House tragedy, an incident where numerous staff and guests were killed by an unknown cause in a haunted house set up in an old hotel. Only sparse information was released to the public, including a cell phone video that is disturbingly evocative of the real world Station Night Club fire.
Diane and her cameraman are granted an interview with the sole survivor of the Hell House crew, Sarah Havel. Sarah, having hidden herself away after the disaster, gives Diana tapes of what was going on behind the scenes at Hell House. Luckily for the audience, the footage is a creepy AF look at why you don’t create a haunted house in a demonic hotel.
Why are the films so scary, and why do they work so well as a series? It comes down to an oft ignored element of storytelling, the use of continuity. You can watch one after the other (which I have done) and notice that the set and props of the Abaddon Hotel remain the same. Yes, there are changes as the building falls into further disrepair and in the third film the hotel is turned into an interactive theatre experience. But the changes feel natural, and not because of production design mistakes. Watching the second and third movies, I got excited when I noticed things from the first appearing again. This adds tension, as the audience is already primed to know that something is wrong.
The series also has one of my personal favorite horror monsters, the clown. The clown is a simple yet terrifying masterpiece that combines our fear of mannequins, statues moving on their own and, of course, clowns. The clown is on par with Doctor Who’s infamous Weeping Angels and, in the first film, one of our first signs of something going wrong.
In one of the more memorable sequences from the first film, the crew realizes that the clown keeps moving locations on its own. The audience does not see the clown move with a lifelike quality until later but it is a good example of how minimal practical effects can be one of the strongest elements of cinematic horror. In the second film, the journalists are blocked from escaping the hotel by the clown. They think they can walk past him… until he turns his head.
As a part of continuity, the series does deepen the cultural impact of the in-universe Hell House tragedy as the years pass on. The police have shut down and taped off the Abaddon Hotel, they even have patrols to make sure people don’t go inside. This does not stop the hotel from developing into an urbex icon. Thrill seeking teens break in and unintentionally stream snuff films of themselves to Facebook. A second team of journalists try to find out what happened to
the first team… to their peril. A narcissistic ghost hunter doesn’t take the danger seriously as he films his show inside and suffers the consequences. All of these would be actual responses to a real life disaster of this sort, as seen from how people continue to visit Pripyat or Six Flags New Orleans. The fact that Cognetti took the time to develop the world helps the audience forget that they are (only) watching a movie.
The third film Hell House LLC: The Lake of Fire (2019) does offer a conclusion to the story of Hell House and the history of the Abaddon hotel. I will be keeping an eye out for a spin off. Hell House LLC should become a Halloween marathon staple in the years to come. They are atmospheric, and one of the most creative found footage films in a long time.
I, like many of the characters, are trapped forever inside.
