I admit that I maybe didn't come into this with the best attitude. I was pretty annoyed when I heard that this film was even going to be made, considering I had spent a good bit of money on a lovely boxset that contained all of the four previous movies. Things had ended on a high with the previous movie, but now it was up to writer/director Stephen Cognetti to "land the plane" once again. Not only did he fail to land the plane, he barely managed to get it up in the air in the first place.
I truly don't want to even give a plot summary of this mess. Let's just say that Vanessa Shepherd (Elizabeth Vermilyea) is struggling to live a normal life after her near-death experience at the Abaddon Hotel. You might remember what she went through in the third movie in this series. Or, if you're a normal person with a normal schedule that doesn't allow you time for a full rewatch of every previous instalment, you might eventually connect the dots as the film begrudgingly drip-feeds you the information required to get the most out of the film. Other characters from the series appear here and there, but it's up to you to consider the context of their scenes, and what their presence may signify.
I wouldn't have minded Cognetti moving from the "found footage" style of the previous instalments to a more standard movie presentation if he had enough talented people around him to make it all work, but he doesn't. Particularly when it comes to the cast. With no major offence intended, a number of the main performers here are clearly more comfortable with the style of the earlier movies than they are with something a bit more structured and rigid. Not that the cast really matter though, and I wonder if they were directed with care or viewed as an inconvenience while Cognetti tried to layer every scene with unnecessary lore and connections that make the whole thing feel like a convoluted slog. I never thought I would be watching one of these movies with the need to use a pin board and multiple threads a la that image of Charlie Day working through his "Pepe Silvia" conspiracy theory in It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.
I don't have much more to say about this. Vermilyea is the focus of many scenes, and she struggles with a script that is frequently ridiculous in all the wrong ways, yet is played completely straight. The only other person who stands out is Mike Sutton, playing Father David, but I have yet to decide whether he does well with what he's given or not. Either way, it's clear that the cast are hung out to dry by Cognetti.
I'm very sad that this is SO bad, in a way, because I was happy to view the series as one of the most pleasingly consistent modern horror franchises of the past decade. That's no longer the case. On the plus side, however, I am no longer worried about having a boxset that will be missing the final chapter in the Hell House LLC story. Not only is this bad, it feels so unnecessary and insubstantial that, completist that I am, I can happily continue to view the series as a quality quartet.
3/10
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