Not a Visual Medium

To understand my feelings on Hell House LLC, you could take a quick trip down recent memory lane and read my review of The Houses October Built. Though the newer film focuses on the people that make haunts and THOB follows its fans, they both kind of hate their audience, or just feel as if we're unworthy of actually seeing anything.

Shaky cam is entirely understandable in found footage as a storytelling device, but when you have actual human beings who are going to WATCH (or try to) your movie, maybe find another way to express chaos and fear. Likewise, while it's entirely believable that a group of twentysomething friends might all be white, it's also entirely uninteresting when every single member of the cast--and this includes supporting characters and extras--is white, don't you, as a filmmaker, at SOME point look back and notice that?

Also, like 90% of found footage or slashers focusing on young-ish characters, everyone is awful and the world is no worse for their deaths.

Guys, I might be a little grumpy.

Quick Plot: One year ago, a mysterious massacre occurred at an upstate New York Halloween haunt. Some leaked youtube videos and camera footage have left clues as to what went down, but it remains a closed case until a documentary film crew decides to investigate.

Heading to the site of the slaughter, the crew interviews local historians to piece together the events leading up to the tragedy. It seems the hotel was showing signs of being haunted all through the setup, but the team's leader was too brazen to quit. The sole survivor of the original haunt's staff drops off one last round of footage, but naturally, by the time the filmmakers get through it, it's once again too late.

Written and directed by Stephen Cognetti, Hell House LLC sits right in the middle of the found footage pile of recent horror films. It has a decent setup and smartly leans into the simple truth that clown mannequins are creepy to lend some atmosphere, but its insistence on being, I guess, truthful to the experience of a scared victim wielding a camera in times of trouble is simply annoying. I'm not one to experience motion sickness while watching a movie, but I found myself deliberately looking away from the screen on more than one occasion because the shakiness was genuinely unpleasant to watch.

Worse, Hell House LLC doesn't redeem itself with anyone worth rooting for. Like virtually every other found footage horror movie made in the last ten years, all of our leads are bland white twentysomethings (I'm fairly certain the only people of color in the whole film are clowns) who behave like an unholy combination of frat boys and hipsters. I couldn't tell anyone apart, and hence felt absolutely nothing when anyone went missing. How could I even know who was who? 

I'd heard good things about Hell House LLC, and I suppose found footage diehards will find what they're looking for. If, of course, they can actually see anything...

High Points

While it would have been nicer to actually SEE them, I will say that Cognetti has some good instincts when it comes to staging scares...

Low Points

You know, if only we could SEE them

Lessons Learned

Never remain friends with a group of young white people who decide to film themselves, not because you'll almost inevitably die in a blur, your last words being, "What the f*ck," but more because if two decades of found footage horror has taught me anything, it's that young white people who enjoy filming themselves are almost certainly an awful combination of bland and rude

Rent/Bury/Buy

I pretty much hated the experience of watching Hell House LLC, but I recognize that it's a decent entry into the low standards set by found footage. It has some good setup and a few nice jump scares, and it seems as though many in the horror community have embraced it. Both this film and its sequel are streaming on Shudder.

The Cinematic Black Holes Found Footage Built

Inevitably spoken dialogue in every found footage horror movie ever made:
"I can't see shit!"

Inevitably felt emotion by the audience of every found footage horror movie ever made:
"How do you think we feel?"

Quick Plot: A white guy with a beard, a white woman named Brandy, and two or three additional non-distinguishable white men decide to drive their RV across the country to document their search for the ultimate Halloween haunt.

Naturally, their camera-happy ways irk some ringmasters who proceed to follow the group on their journey, playfully leaving what could be interpreted as either death threats or invitations to the best haunted house you can imagine.

Since this is a horror movie, it's easy enough for the audience to guess which. Our characters, however, are still motivated to find the perfect Halloween experience, leading them into some bad(ly lit) times.

The Houses That October Built starts with an absolutely terrific premise. Halloween haunts get bigger every year, and the idea of using real-life ones across the country makes perfect sense for your average target audience, particularly when you're working on a limited budget. I would have loved to see that film.

But you know, I didn't actually see anything.

Like many a low budget found footage genre flick, The Houses October Built isn't particularly gifted at lighting. Night vision is fine, but when that method produces the clearest shots in your movie, there's something of a problem.

I could forgive some technical glitches if the content made up for it, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that I caught absolutely nothing about this story or characters. The actors are natural to the camera, but that doesn't make them interesting onscreen. One guy had a beard. One guy was a woman. I assume another was her boyfriend. I think there was one more. Or maybe two. Or maybe the guy with the beard shaved halfway through production.

My point is, I just didn't care. There was nothing charming or unique about these characters to ever make me invested in their fate. (On the positive side, there was nothing Crowsnest awful about them to have me actively root for their downfalls.) They drink beer. They eat pot cookies. They talk with food in their mouths.

So maybe they KIND OF had it coming.

High Points
Not surprisingly, the film has plenty of fun making use of the creative design involved in these kinds of haunts, from the creepy doll masks and evil clowns to the joy of zombie paintball (an idea I KNEW I should have patented back in 2000)

Low PointsCan't. See. A. Thing.

Lessons LearnedBourbon Street may be more tolerable on Halloween, when the vomit of frat boys can be confined to masks and not on every corner of the sidewalk

Dive bars are way more fun when filled with zombie prom dancers

When you meet a group of self-aware white twentysomethings, always assume they're filming you. Trust me: they are

Rent/Bury/BuyThe Houses October Built is far from the worst way to spend 90 minutes via Netflix Instant Watch. In the realm of found footage horror, it ranks somewhere right in the middle, mostly because the concept is just so interesting in itself. The rest of it, well, what you can SEE of it has its moments, but this isn't a diamond in the rough.