Day 25 Hell House LLC and Hell House LLC 2

Likely to be the only found footage film I add to this list, which truly deserves its place here.

I am not really a big fan of the genre because a lot of it uses the same gimmicks. Granted When something like The Last Broadcast comes out, and The Blair Witch steals its thunder. I mean it was a good idea and fun first time watch. But the films don’t really hold up to multiple viewings. Most don’t at least. Unless they’re clever.

Something like Paranormal Activities I can’t support. Those films, I won’t in any way apologize for when I say, are 2 hours of your life you won’t get back and you only get 1 good scare out of, and the rest is nothing spectacular. I can also say, that if they had left Paranormal Activity with its original ending, and never made it into a franchise. It would’ve been a bit creepier, and less a chore to get through without losing interest.

This film doesn’t reinvent the genre it’s a part of. But it does keep your attention, and it is a fresh take. It doesn’t need to explain who why people are holding cameras during oh shit moments anyone else would abandon doing so for. The scares are well earned, and Enough happens beginning to end that you feel your time was well invested.

This is actually part of a trilogy. Which I can even say the third film was a good closure to the series. It could’ve gone super ridiculous like say Paranormal Activities did, or even Blair Witch with its sequel and official followup remake..thing.

I strongly urge you to watch these films wherever you can. They’re currently free on Shudder and there are TONS of free month long codes for Shudder. So I highly recommend you do so.

Hell House LLC

The film follows the interview being done with a survivor of a Haunted House opening gone wrong. The movie sets up for you the events that lead to this interview being done. Youtube videos people uplodaded, random phone video and news stories about the haunted house dubbed Hell House.

A group back in 2009, decided to work together on creating an ultimate scary house attraction, within a haunted house, the long abandoned Abaddon Hotel, just outside of New York City.  The night the attraction opened it was reported 15 people included staff were confirmed dead.

25 years later a documentary crew is doing an interview with the only known survivor willing to talk to them from that night.

What follows is footage from the cameras the survivor kept herself before the police could confiscate them as evidence.

We’re treated to the usual fair of the group showing us who is and isn’t friendly, who know each other and who is there for the money. Once the group reach their destination, things immediately begin happening. Shadow figures appear in corners of rooms and hallways. Distorted voices on walkie-talkies. Cameras glitching out while recording. It’s one of those you have to pay attention to as you watch, or you’ll miss some spookiness.

There’s some pretty fun setups that the group ignored, just not in a fully comical manner. Like them exploring a basement with stone walls, scorch marks. Several bibles covered in dirt and what looks to have been some kind of ritual.

The group ignores this as their mission is not to be spooked, but to spook others! So they ignore the unsettling discoveries. Even ignoring one of the better earlier scares involving clown suits that should be empty but, aren’t.

I’m going to exercise restraint here and not spoil the movies for you. I will just give bits and pieces in the hopes these films will get seen.

As I said, the spooky moments start happening the moment they enter the hotel and, sadpy for them. The group is told to sleep there. They uprooted themselves from Queens to do a haunted house attraction in the town, so with no place to stay. They have little choice.

Which is a great thing for us because the moments are pretty damn creepy and fun. It also sets up some good scenes to come later.

The film interjects scenes of police interviews to keep with the documentary style. Not entirely spoiling things to come, but warning you what to look for. Like a man discussing how a police officer told him. Like the first victim they found being one of the staff members, their throat cut, it was ruled the person slit their own throat. Another person who survived swore not to talk to anyone and a few days later, that person hung themselves.

One of the actors they hired was a local, who hints at having heard stories about what happened there and why the place closed. Which helps establishes very soon, that the group knew nothing about the hotel. Just that it was haunted. While the people in the documentary, and the local actress share stories about missing people, people killed. The hotel itself being named after a demon in the bible.

LOTS of red flags ignored.

Including the owner having been found hung in the dining room. Because why let those things stop you.

It wouldn’t stop Zak Baggins!!

The only thing that stops him is when the check doesn’t clear.

But I digress. One of the funner scenes as the movie goes on, and still somehow manages to be a setup for things to come, even as creepy as it is. Is the camera man going around documenting the house during its work in progress stage. We see a good collection of dolls setup and posed in multiple rooms. Including one creepy ass clown. Staring down a stairway spooking the camera man. When he turns away to look down the stairs then back at the clown. The head is turned looking back at the camera man. It scares him pretty good and he takes off to one of his friends to compliment them on the scare. Only to discover the person he thought was in the suit and scared him. Is there talking with his friend. There was no one in the suit.

If it helps, that’s the least of the spoopy stuff to come.

Another fun setup is testing their strobelight effect in a hallway with 3 dummies setup peering out from the hallway. Only when they watch the playback they find the figures had moved, and several more had joined in. Replacing the ones setup.

Not spoiling, its seriously fun to watch and everything that follows.

The group begins to feel the tension between all of them. Between not being able to sleep because of hearing voices, screaming, knocking noises. The scares getting to real for them. All of it adds up and they begin fighting with one another.

Things get a little more on the worse side once the group get weirded out then scared to the level of crapping themselves by one of the actresses. Offering a pretty good set of scares from the camera man who does little video session recordings before bed, and anytime he ends up waking up from something he heard.

It’s been three days and the events on each day is enough to question why no one said screw this and left. But once some people do go missing. They can only assume the left and didn’t tell anyone.

If that, calling cellphones and hearing screams of the damned don’t prove enough of a good reason to leave? Well another night of intense sudden scares to piss themselves might. Included a musical number on a piano by someone there, but not…entirely.

The house very obviously has its problems. It also very likely has its own wild collection of ghost and demons. One more so than the other likely.

But the group is going to carry on. Because who listens to reason and why should you let dolls scare you to a point of wanting to embrace madness and scream your balls off. It becomes a blame game and a ‘let’s reason this out’ type scenario.

Until the group reason out and decide the best course of action is to call it off, count their losses and gtfo.

But alas their boss friend has decided that since these dolls, the locations. The setups are scaring his friends out of their minds. That means its obviously working so they should of COURSE keep things running and open the house!

BRILLIANT!!

So we finally arrive at opening night. Sarah the survivor tells us there was no problem with the equipment. Nothing to raise any alarms, No leaks or faulty wiring. Nothing.

But oh how gloriously things go to shit!

Luckily for them there is a crowd around the block to get in. Everyone is in position and setup. Including the most unlucky and super trusting of actresses left shackled in the basement with a torn shirt, panties and a bra. What ever could possibly go wrong with that setup, ghost and demon related or otherwise.

So the house officially opens. The crew are armed with helmet mounted cameras. The crowd with their cellphones ready to record the experience. The director working behind the scenes with his crew, activating sound effects, musical cues, fog machines and lighting.

For the most part everything is going well. People are getting spooked and laughing, enjoying themselves. Until they can’t tell the difference between what’s staged and what’s not.

Before long people begin running out of the basement. Loud growls, a few laughs. Then genuine terror, with no idea what’s happening as they can’t see what’s happening. Walkie-talkies stop working, camera feeds stop. Ghost manifest suddenly and no one is the wiser.

We finally see what’s happening in the basement, and.

It was well worth the wait. It doesn’t involve clowns, I can say that much. But a lot worse and joyfully fun.

For some of us. But not the poor actress in her bra and panties.

Not long after the entire house begins to fall apart. Literally and figuratively. Fans blowing smoke begin sounding like deadly lawn mowers. Doors open and close. Silencing screams and stopping any hope of escape. More spirits begin manifesting and in a good number of unexpected ways.

The film decides to be nice to us, it doesn’t end with a camera suddenly stopping and no explanation as to what was going on, what happened. We are shown very much, and very clearly what’s going on, and to whom it’s going on. And even when it does so and shows us.

It still carries on to give us one more bit of closure, and setup for the sequel.

Hell House LLC 2

The sequel takes place two years after the newly found footage from the end of the first film. Which if you saw, then you know what was shown there.

There is a new documentary being filmed now. This was about the continuing curse of Hell House. Revolving around people that reported on the story and ventured to the hotel, never to be seen or heard from again.

Mysterious text messages being sent from missing peoples phones.

Youtubers and High School kids trying to be brave and venture into the hotel to record their experience. Soon regretting having done so and ending up never seen again.

A lot of these offer some pretty creepy moments that weren’t expected that early on. But I guess if you’d seen the first one, they make a good deal of sense why you see them. The people telling their stories of loved ones now believed murdered are pretty well done.

Even more so the continued use of a haunted tune from the first film, now appearing to be a favorite of the demon ghost.

Thanks to a mock television show, we are given our setup of characters. The ‘real’ survivor from Hell house, a TV spiritual medium, and a man claiming the entire event was faked for the sake of making money. As well as the new documentary crew. Intent on entering the house but doing so as safely as they possible can. Hoping to hire the surviving member of Hell House to help them get in and out. The guy knows all the exits and paths within the house, so they feel is qualifies as their best chance for not vanishing.

Meanwhile the film gives us a good series of further spooks with more missing people footage, and a few shots from our new reporting crew. Known for never shutting off their camera. Recording through everything in the name of total transparency. Especially now with their surviving member in tow.

Who tries finding out more from them, mainly what they hope to get out of going into a haunted house where no one who enters finds their way out. They claim to already have fame, and just want to uncover the truth of the house, that several investigators and police officers can’t explain and refuse to set foot anywhere near the property.

Which itself alone you’d think was clue enough things are bad when even local authorities decide it’s not worth the risk, regardless of the number of deaths and disappearances.

So we arrive at the key moment. The crew and survivor are at the haunted Hell House. Which we’ve since learned was designed to be like a maze on purpose by the owner, who was accused of conducting satanic ceremonies and was responsible for the disappearances of multiple guest before his suicide.

The survive shares with them his plan for survival. They’ll go in through the back entrance of the house. It’s the safest route. If there’s any kind of danger, drop the camera and run. Once inside do exactly as he says and don’t lose sight of one another. It’s a pretty good, and tense setup. As added backup. Just on the off chance they end up locked inside, one person will be outside with a radio. If they need help. They radio her, she contacts the police. If the door is no longer open once they enter, she can break the door and release them.

Unfortunately the group finds themselves not alone. They now have the TV medium with them, having caught word that they would be entering the house with the survivor. So he brings his own cameraman along to record his segment if trying to communicate with the house. Our groups enter at the same time and we’re finally ready to begin.

But not before getting a serious prescare warning of what may happen. Much like the first film where they showed police reporting about the deaths on opening night. The show moves from the cocky sure footed documentarian and the group. To a solo interview being done by the police. With a bleeding scared out of her mind documentarian. When asked why she was found at the side of the road, missing for 5 days. She begins gasping then crying out and screaming. Giving us a taste of what’s to come, as we return to the footage shot by both crews inside.

While our documentary crew and survivor make their way around the house, they find their intended goal. The basement of the house. Believing the original owner kept all of his important documents down there and hopefully the proof they need as to what was going on there with the rituals and ceremonies.

Which to their surprise. They find many boxes of what they might be looking for, and various menu’s, files, paperwork.

Meanwhile, one of the better scares is being setup elsewhere. The TV medium, in character finds his way to the dining room of the hotel. Still full with dummies from the opening night…possibly.

They begin to use a quiji board piece to talk to the spirit of the house. Which works out just about as well as it sounds like it would in that situation.

Down in the basement the other group is sorting through the paperwork hoping to find their rumored documents. After a while of digging, they end up scoring a large collection of recorded tapes. From the construction of the hotel, commercials for the hotel. Dozens of tapes. But before they can dig more into it. They get an alert on their radio. Their backup has left the safety of the field behind the house, to join the others. Telling them she was told by the crew to enter the house, telling her they could use the extra help.

Which she reacts rationally to when hearing that her partner had not done so.

The group soon realizes they are screwed so it’s time to pack up, say their goodbyes to the place and get out.

Which begins the train of scares.

Doors that won’t open, things appearing where they shouldn’t. Power being on when the house had it shut off years ago. These are just setups. The scares, again. Not gonna spoil that gold.

It builds a pretty tense good atmosphere and doesn’t let up. All this and the film is only at the halfway mark. There’s still a good deal of story left, believe that.

In fact, it takes a break from the scares to give us some backstory from part one. Setting up, and answering a few much needed question. Like how did they come to find and gain access to the hotel. Why despite the warnings and horrific events did their group leader insist repeatedly that they stay?

It’s building the story and getting us setup for a lot more yet to have happened, and what will continue through in the third final film.

The group finds themselves stuck in the hotel still, waiting for a solution, a way out where they don’t end up missing or worse.

Their journey, for better or worse lands them back in the safety and warmth of the basement. Which is to say they’re pulled into a room right next door to hell and they are not happy.

The group makes their final attempt to save each other and make their way out of the hotel. How it goes and what happens is. Well for you to discover. Again, sorry not sorry. The film during all this goes back and fourth between the recorded television show, setting up how the documentary group contacted the survivor and got his interest in returning to the hotel. While also setting up another twist in the story. Much as the first one did.

It’s a pretty decent amount of story fed to you in the last 15 or so minutes of the movie. Which may throw some people off, but it’s genuinely good stuff, and worth it.  Especially once the ending concludes, and sets up things for the third and final film.

Honestly it was a surprise find and one I do not regret one bit. It was a chance I took on a genre I usually write off because well. Let’s face it. Any of us who remembers the movie “The Devil Inside”? That film had a HELL of a lot of promise for a truly interesting and scary found footage film. It had some fine scares but the ending wasn’t just a let down. The ending was a cop out for a director and writer who couldn’t settle on an ending so simply made no ending. Just giving us a black screen with text telling us to visit the films website for more information. Which there was none. At all. Just a trailer for the film. It was a huge let down and no one forgave them for it, in fact it almost killed found footage films all together. Then little films like these slip through the cracks and find a creative way of breathing new life into it.

Beginning to end the entire trilogy is worth it. Even if the scares in part three aren’t as big as the first two. It’s more settled on the story, and closing the story at the end. Which it does, and in a fairly pleasing way.

The movies feel almost like Back to The Future in the way continuity is handled, returning characters and revisiting past scenes.

The sequel far surpassed the original in all the right areas. Story, spooks, and production value. It’s carried on the story and gave it some truly creepy moments, as well as a few genuine surprises. I’ve recommended these films to every horror fan I’ve come across and they’ve all enjoyed them immensely. Even if it wasn’t your typical horror fare in some respects and especially by the third. It stil pays off your patience for having stuck with it that far.

So I whole heartedly recommend giving it a watch and hope you enjoy it. I’m more than sure you will.