Tonight's Horror Movie: Hell House, LLC (2015)

In the interest of full disclosure, I will start this review with the admission that I generally do not like found-footage horror movies. This is not universal, of course. There are many in this genre that I have found to be terrifying and/or fascinating. Off the top of my head, I think people sometimes forget how genuinely scary the first Paranormal Activity movie was. If you have forgotten (or got turned off because most of the sequels sucked), you should go back and watch it again — and also go online and read some of the alternate endings that were planned or shot for that movie. I wish we could see them. But even as is, it is scary AF.

Others I have enjoyed include Creep, Rec, The Taking of Deborah Logan, The Atticus Institute (which I think was unfairly panned), and, believe it or not, Unfriended, which I thought was a refreshing take on the genre for the Internet age. And, yes, I very much enjoyed the movie that largely spawned this genre, The Blair Witch Project. (While not technically a horror movie, I thought Chronicle was also quite good. And then Dane DeHaan forgot how to act or something and proceeded to star in horrible movie after horrible movie.)

I won’t get into all of the reasons I enjoyed each of these because I don’t want to be up all night, but they were all successful in one aspect for me: they made me forget the style of the film and get wrapped up in the story and, just as importantly, the frights.

I get why it is a popular genre. First of all, it is inexpensive. Independent filmmakers without huge budgets can pull off a found-footage movie at a much lower cost. Secondly, it lends itself very well to the jump scare. When you have one person’s perspective on the filming, he or she can only look in one direction. So, when they turn their head and, accordingly, the camera…well, BOO! There you have it. Finally, when the footage inevitably breaks up at a really scary moment, you can leave many things up to the viewers’ imaginations. This can be effective, as in Blair Witch, but it can also be disappointing if it is not executed well.

But a big problem with too many found footage horror movies is that you never forget the genre. You can’t really suspend your disbelief and lose yourself in the movie. Part of the reason why is that you can’t stop shouting, “Just put the f*cking camera down and run the hell away.” This is why Paranormal Activity was so scary. Much of it was footage from the home security system. And it also explained very effectively why Katie and Micah couldn’t just leave the house.

Unfortunately, Hell House, LLC suffers badly from both problems. I originally had no plans to watch this, but it came pretty highly recommended by more than one person, so I decided to give it a shot, even though it is nine years old already. (Trust me, I won’t make the same mistake with any of the three sequels.) And when I started the movie, I was encouraged because it starts out as a documentary. But it soon abandons that format mostly to look at tapes that were recovered from the scene of the crime, so to speak. So, immediately at that point, I said to myself, “Here we go again.”

I will return to the tapes again a little later, but for now, let’s dive in. Hell House, LLC is the story of a violent incident that occurred in 2009 in Abbadon, New York at the Abbadon Hotel (no, neither the hotel nor the town are real places). There, a Halloween company set up a haunted house tour at the hotel and called it Hell House. On opening night, however, chaos unfolded and all of the proprietors of the business were killed along with several visitors. All that we have of what happened is a single YouTube video showing people frantically trying to escape the house, but no clue as to how the murders happened inside.

The authorities covered everything up (because of course, they did) so documentarian Diane Graves (Alice Bahlke) sets out to find out what really happened. This is how the movie starts very strongly as Graves interviews many people who have heard rumors about the hotel, know something of its nefarious history, and start to put a narrative together. But then Graves discovers a lone survivor, Sara Havel (Ryan Jennifer Jones). As Graves is interviewing her, Sara brings out a bag of videotapes, claiming that the Hell House team filmed everything from arriving at the hotel in August up to the bloody opening night.

So, as George Michael (the sports guy, not the singer) used to say, “Let’s go to the videotape!”

As one of Graves’ assistants starts combing through the footage, we meet the whole Hell House crew. Alex (Danny Bellini), Sara’s boyfriend and owner of the spooky entertainment company; Andrew “Mac” McNamara (Adam Schneider), Alex’s best friend who has been with him since the beginning; and Tony Prescott (Jared Hacker) and Paul O’Keefe (Gore Abrams), who have also been with Alex a long time. Paul does most of the documenting (and it seems he’s trying to pull off a less-talented version of J.T. Miller’s Hud from Cloverfield).

We start out traveling with them to upstate Abbadon, leaving New York City where they traditionally put on these Halloween haunted house productions. When they arrive at the hotel, they find it in a condemned state. There is already some infighting going on among the crew, but Alex is determined to make it work.

It turns out that the crew is experienced and quite good at this sort of reclamation project (as you would expect them to be) and they soon have the hotel turned around into shape with the — authentically creepy — decorations for Hell House begin to fall into place. I don’t often call out the crew of a movie (I should, I know), but Scott Mobley who was the production designer, Angela Moyer, who did the set decoration, and Lexan Rosser who was the makeup coordinator all deserve huge credit here. While all of the scary mannequins placed in the house are noticeably fake (and the Hell House crew are upset they couldn’t spend more money on them to make them more lifelike), they are pretty effective. I think even Tom Savini would be suitably impressed.

Oh, and there are bloody clowns. Not in the British sense of the adjective, but genuinely scary blood-soaked clowns. I freaking hate clowns. A lot of people do. So, well done there.

But back to the story. Before long, of course, strange things begin to happen to all of the Hell House crew. They try to pass them off as pranks by one of their own, but the problem with that is that Paul is filming everything, so they can see pretty clearly in his footage that all is not kosher in the hotel.

These incidents become increasingly scary, with Paul and Sara seeming to be targeted the most. And yet, at Alex’s encouragement, they all press on. The final act of the movie shows the mistake they all made and reveals a pretty good secret about Sara that I won’t spoil here. Suffice it to say that no one ends up getting out of Hell House unscathed.

But here is where the found footage genre loses me. The incidents that take place a few days before the opening are genuine freakouts, again all captured on film. When something very terrifying happens to Paul, no one bothers to even look at his camera, even though they know he always has it on. And yet, still, no one leaves.

I should correct that. Tony does try to leave, but Mac tells him something that we conveniently don’t get to hear, and the next time we see Tony, he is saying that he can’t leave. OK, fair enough. So what’s the reason? Well, we don’t get to find that out. Too bad for us. Honestly, by the end of the movie, I could anticipate everything else that was going to happen, even with Sara, and that was the only reason I watched until the closing credits. But nope, no answers.

This was really frustrating for me so I looked into it online and discovered that writer/director Stephen Cagnetti addressed this after the movie came out. He said that they didn’t have the budget to include some more scenes about the backstory of the crew and they had to cut those out. That’s understandable. So, what reason did he give that Tony didn’t haul ass away from the hotel? He said that Alex’s Hell House company was going out of business and was in dire financial straits. That’s why they left the city and that’s why Mac told Tony that he can’t leave.

Umm, WHAT? Are you serious? The entire crew is clearly being haunted and menaced, they can all see it, but they won’t leave because that might mean bankruptcy? Really? It might make sense for Alex, but it makes NO sense for anyone else. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Not after what they had witnessed. (It makes me wonder if Cagnetti was just using his own excuse, as this movie was made with a budget of about $25,000, so maybe he didn’t have enough money to write or film a better rationalization.)

As let down as I was by Hell House, LLC’s formulaic found-footage format, this was even more disappointing. Disappointing to the point of pissing me off. I’m glad that didn’t make it into the movie and I am sorry I looked it up. Because as plot devices go, it’s one of the most pathetic I have ever heard.

It brings up another point. Why is all of the crew actually staying in the hotel as they are designing their haunted house? The explanation is that there is too much to do and nowhere else to stay. But we don’t see the crew working all night. They retire to their bedrooms, so why not a motel? If the same financial straits explanation is used, Alex couldn’t keep that from his crew. Also, they expect a huge crowd at the premiere of Hell House. So (implied insults to upstate New York aside), how could so many people attend, including from the city which is an hour away, if Abbadon was such a ghost town with no amenities like modern hotels or motels? The excuse to have them all stay in the house does not hold up to scrutiny and also pissed me off quite a bit.

OK, I took a break for a minute and have calmed down. Let me end with some good things about the movie (not the acting, which is why you’ve noticed I haven’t included any credits for any of the actors here). As I noted before, the set design and creature design of Hell House is top-notch. It is a viscerally disturbing experience to watch the characters continue to walk the halls of their ever-creepier and scarier haunted hotel. Even though I could see the ending coming, I will also give Hell House, LLC credit for some creativity there. Obvious or not, it’s a nice twist. The movie does deliver some quality jump scares, but they feel kind of cheap because of the found-footage genre. Aside from this though, there is not much I can find to recommend this film.

As for violence, again because of the low-budget, found-footage style of the movie, Hell House, LLC goes pretty light on the gore, even in the film’s conclusion. You’ll see blood spatters and blood trails, but not a lot of actual violent acts that make it to the screen (though they are implied). The scariest thing is the bloody mannequins…and those damned clowns (pun intended). Give it a Gore Score of 2/10. But a Clown Score of 10/10.

I had heard so many good things about this movie that I just never had time for on my list, so it was a big letdown to see it fail so much in execution. There’s simply nothing memorable about Hell House, LLC and a lot to disappoint serious horror fans. I would recommend avoiding it…and definitely not wasting time with any of the sequels. Even good horror movies tend to fail when they go into franchise mode (Halloween, Friday The 13th, etc.). This one doesn’t even have a good first installment.

In the end, maybe the real Hell House was the disappointment we viewers felt along the way.