Movie Info
Movie Name: Hell House LLC
Studio: Cognetti Films
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): October 16, 2015 (Telluride Horror Show)/November 1, 2016 (US)
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Welcome to Hell…House
An abandoned hotel in Abaddon, New York turned into a haunt house attraction…and a place of death. With a number of attendees dead and most of the staff, the police provided a description of an accident occurring at the hotel but little else. Now a documentary crew is out to find the answers to what happened at the hotel and how the deaths occurred. Diane Graves (Alice Bahlke) finds herself questioning a survivor named Sara Havel (Ryan Jennifer) and learns of the events that led up to the night…but Sara’s story might not be all that occurred in the house of horrors.
Written and directed by Stephen Cognetti, Hell House LLC is a found-footage horror movie. The film premiered at the Telluride Horror Show and was released the next year on the internet.
Found footage can be really bad, but it can sometimes work…it all depends on the story. Hell House LLC does assemble the right story for a found footage film, but it feels like Cognetti could have gotten even more out of the script (especially how the story is set up). Due to aspects of the story, a ******spoiler alert****** exists for the rest of the review.
We’re killer clowns…from Earth
The story is told in flashback (as most found footage is) with a present day aspect of reporters trying to piece together events. They get the scoop with the return of Sara Havel who says she has exclusive footage that even the police haven’t seen. By the end of the film, it is revealed that Sara isn’t “real” and is a manifestation of the hotel of some sort. With this, everything Sara shows technically could be manipulated by her and the filmmaker could have had more fun with this idea. Sara is permitting Diane and the filmmakers to see what happened leading up to the death…but it is all a fake. While it is done well, there is room for exploration simply due to storytelling structure that could have made it better.
Movies like this generally are based around casts that are unknown. This can sometimes be a boon, but it can also be a barrier since they are untested. Hell House LLC has a little of both. The documentary format allows for more rigid performances, but some of the “frat bros” that are planning and running the haunted house aren’t as good as the terror begins to increase.
Full Hell House experience included with admission
The movie has good atmosphere. The rundown hotel is a creepy one and the use of the clowns is also good. The clowns could have been even better (once again, Sara-the spirits are sculpting the story and could have done anything with the clowns for showing the journalists), and the movie does suffer from classic “found footage” syndrome with shake cameras and being unable to see some of the things the characters are talking about.
Hell House LLC is a decent ghost story. It isn’t a great ghost story, and like a lot of similar films, the filmmakers have a concept without being able to fill out the rest of the story. Still, the movie is worth a watch if you are a fan of horror or a fan of the found footage genre in particular. The movie was followed by a Shudder exclusive Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel in 2018 which explores more of the origin of the hotel.
