Shudder Saturday: Hell House LLC: Lineage (2025)

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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Shudder Saturday: Hell House LLC III: Lake Of Fire (2019)

The third film in what is, to me, one of the best set of found footage movies around, Hell House LLC III: Lake Of Fire may also prove to be the best point at which to end the series (although I am sure that others think that should have happened after the first film).

Once again written and directed by Stephen Cognetti, the Abaddon Hotel is open for business yet again, this time due to be the setting of a theatrical riff on Faust, put on by the rich and successful Russell Wynn (Gabriel Chytry). The preparation for the experience, which will take audiences on a journey through the hotel, is recorded by a local reporter, Vanessa Shepherd (Elizabeth Vermilyea) and her small team. And it's not long until strange things begin happening.

Not quite as good as the second film, but still a step ahead of the first, "Lake Of Fire" works best when it's being nothing more than a series of brilliant, and creepy, scare moments. I can absolutely understand why people may prefer the slightly more subtle approach of the first film, but things have improved for me ever since that first story was out of the way, allowing Cognetti to push onwards and upwards with tales of the hotel and recurring nightmare imagery.

Okay, this is not going to win any awards for the writing or the acting, or anything else really. I didn't really enjoy the performance from Chytry, who doesn't bring enough to the role to make up for the fact that the script gives him almost no depth at all, but Vermilyea at least did better, and was someone worth rooting for. The only other person to mention is Sam Kazzi, as a producer trying to hide away the worst things that happen on the way to opening night. Kazzi does alright, and is at least more memorable than some of the others onscreen. This is a film that adds more characters to the main storyline without giving them anything to do beyond being targeted in main scare scenes.

Here's the thing though, I am not too bothered by that. When the scares are as well done as they are here (e.g. an initial chilling encounter with some clown figures that provided plenty of chills in the last two movies) then it helps to forgive all manner of failings.

Cognetti definitely tries, but he can't do enough to flesh out the cast while setting up all of the plot points that he wants in place by the grand finale, all in between the spine-chilling set-pieces. Ideally, a slightly longer runtime could have been used effectively to spend more time with different characters, although he's also constrained by the "found footage" format. His biggest mis-step comes towards the end of the whole thing, where he decides to make a few decisions that a) feel out of character for this series, and b) feel far too contrived as he attempts to tie everything up in a way that connects all three movies and provides an all-too-neat ending to the whole tale.

Ending aside, which is still good enough, if not what I personally wanted, this is an excellent little horror movie, and I hope they leave the Hell House movies alone now that we have a damn fine trilogy. I'll definitely be keen to see what Cognetti gets up to next.

7/10

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