Hell House LLC (2015)


It seems a simple horror concept: a haunted house event held in a real haunted house.  It is almost as if it writes itself.  I wouldn't be surprised if the concept had not been visited before Hell House LLC, but it was a concept that worked well for found footage horror.  Not something like The Blair Witch Project, but more the fake documentary that was released at the time to promote it.  16 years into found footage and many filmmakers had discovered this was the way to go rather than just have a bunch of people wander around the woods and yell at each other.

Alex (Danny Bellini) is the owner of Hell House, a haunted house attraction that opens in a different location every year.  His crew consists of his girlfriend Sarah (Ryan Jennifer Jones), cameraman Paul (Gore Abrams), electrician Tony (Jared Hacker) and co-director Andrew "Mac" McNamera (Adam Schneider).  In 2009 they rent the abandoned Hotel Abaddon in the small town of Abaddon, New York to do their show.  

Alex and the rest of the crew are unaware of the history of the hotel, a small amount of which they are made aware by a local actor they hire named Melissa (Lauren A. Kennedy).  Soon after the crew, who are staying in the hotel, start to experience a number of strange happenings.  Despite this, Alex pushes ahead, and it looks like opening night is going to be successful.  However, something goes wrong, and a number of "guests" and crew go missing or are found dead.  Sarah is the only survivor and she is in possession of footage that was kept from the police.  We see this as part of a documentary put together by Diane Graves (Alice Bahlke), who decides to go check out the scene herself.

A couple versions of this exist.  Director and writer Stephen Cognetti had the usual limited budget to make a found footage horror film and envisioned this as the beginning of a trilogy if everything went well.  It did and, in 2020, he added in additional footage that had been removed as well as a few scenes he wanted to do but didn't have the budget for.  It adds almost 10 minutes to the movie, explains a few things, makes what happens on the night clearer, but doesn't alter the story.  I checked out the additional scenes on YouTube after watching the movie in its original form. 

I would say I prefer the original version because, although the director's cut clears some things up, by the time it came out there were already two sequels which I'm sure did much of the same.  I like the idea that, other than throwing around some rumors, much of what is going on is not spoon fed to the audience.  Unlike most found footage horror it pretty much hits the mark, at least when it comes to the events in 2009.  I do think the contemporary events at the end is not necessary as it could have just left some events a mystery as well.

Hell House LLC does have some of the usual problems with this type of horror, such as one of the characters having to stretch a reason for having a camera all the time.  The more effective parts are the ones supposedly captured by participants or uploaded to YouTube rather than what was filmed by the crew.  They are the usual unlikeable bunch, especially Paul, and too many of them look alike.  I think that is why Sarah ended up being the survivor as, being the only woman in the group, she stands out.  The actors aren't bad, but I wish one of these movies wouldn't have characters that one hopes dies from the beginning. 

Hell House LLC (2015)
Time: 93 minutes
Starring: Gore Abrams, Ryan Jennifer Jones, Danny Bellini, Jared Hacker, Adam Schneider, Alice Bahlke
Director: Stephen Cognetti



 

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