Directed by – Stephen Cognetti
Produced by – Joe Bandelli, Craig Cognetti, David Cognetti, Joseph Cognetti, Kevin Cognetti, Mark Cognetti, Matt DePaola
Written by – Stephen Cognetti
Starring – Ryan Jennifer, Danny Bellini, Gore Abrams, Jared Hacker, Adam Schneider, Alice Bahlke
Cinematography – Brian C. Harnick
Release date – October 16, 2015 (Telluride Horror Show), November 1, 2016
Running time – 83 minutes
Country – United States
Language – English
In 2011, the film’s executive producers asked for a script revolving around a haunted attraction gone wrong. After many rewrites, the script was locked by late 2013. Casting took place in New York City in February 2014, and production took place shortly after, in May. Initially, the filmmakers were in search of an abandoned house to shoot the film in, as the original script had the events taking place in a house. As early as 2012, the director had been visiting many abandoned buildings and homes, including two in the New York county where the story takes place, Rockland County. After not finding anything suitable, they instead began searching for real haunted house attractions to shoot in. They found the haunted attraction called the Haunting at the Waldorf Hotel in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, run by Angie Moyer, who served as the film’s set designer. The script had to be changed in a few areas to reflect the change in setting.
After filming wrapped in Lehighton in May, the production then moved to New York City, where most of the interviews were filmed. In mid-June, filming was complete, and the movie went to post-production, where it would be edited for the next five months, before the first private screening of a rough cut would be seen in the Rose Studio at Lincoln Center.
After a few more rounds of re-cuts, the film was locked just before its first public screening at the Telluride Horror Show in October 2015. The film would also screen at Fear Fete Film Festival the same week, where it won the best paranormal film award. The worldwide distribution rights for Hell House LLC were acquired by Terror Films, with a North American VOD release date of November 1, 2016.
If you don’t like spoilers scroll to my thoughts at the end 😆
Plot…..
On October 8, 2009, Hell House LLC opened its doors to the public for their annual Halloween haunted tour, taking place outside of New York City for the first time in the small town of Abaddon in Rockland County, New York, just outside the city. The Hell House crew had picked the abandoned Abaddon Hotel for their haunt. By the following morning, fifteen tour-goers and staff were confirmed dead at the Hell House attraction. What happened during the opening night was unclear, and authorities only said an “unknown malfunction” occurred that night. It was produced as a “true story”, but not all facts could be proven. The only proof of what happened inside the Hell House is a YouTube video shot by one of the visitors to the attraction. The video was removed from YouTube after the police collected all copies of any video evidence from that night.
Five years later, a documentary crew led by producer Diane Graves decides to investigate the tragedy further. They interview people familiar with the case, including a journalist who had broken into the closed-off abandoned hotel a few years after the incident and snapped controversial photos that led people to believe something more mysterious happened that night than what had been made public. The documentary team lands a break when the only surviving member of the Hell House staff, Sara Havel, agrees to be interviewed and provides them with never-before-seen footage shot by the members of Hell House themselves leading up to the night of the tragedy.
The Hell House tapes start from there. They document the full Hell House crew (Alex, Sara, Mac, Tony, and Paul) and their arrival at the abandoned Abaddon Hotel, where they go to work on setting it up for their haunted attraction. As the days go on, unexplainable events begin to happen to the Hell House Crew. In a building escalation of paranormal events, Alex, the CEO of the company, is determined to press on and not allow his crew to be scared out of the hotel. Despite bitter disagreements between other members of Hell House, Alex convinces the group to stay and opening night goes on as planned. The footage reveals in eerie detail exactly how the tragedy took place and the paranormal forces behind the deaths of all fifteen tour-goers and staff.
The following is what was found on the tapes and the events that followed.
August 23rd, 2009 – 46 Days Until Opening Night – Hell House’s Sara Havel, Paul O’Keefe, Andrew McNamara, Alex Taylor, and Tony Prescott arrive at the abandoned Abaddon Hotel in New York to begin setting up their haunted house attraction for Halloween.
September 8th – 30 Days Until Opening Night – The crew moves into the location full time as setup continues. Local scare actors Joey Sheffler and Melissa are hired for a scene where a demented clown torments a woman in chains.
September 18th – 19 Days Until Opening Night – Melissa mentions that former hotel owner Andrew Tully hanged himself in the dining room in 1989. Tully supposedly built the hotel because the town of Abaddon was named after a demon that guarded the gateway to Hell. Rumored to be a cult leader, Tully was driven to suicide after suspicion grew over guests who disappeared.
September 21st – 16 Days Until Opening Night – Strange noises and mannequins seemingly moving on their own continue to regularly frighten the group.
September 26th – 11 Days Until Opening Night – Paranormal activity continues. Sara is found talking to a wall while sleepwalking in a trance.
3 Days Until Opening Night – A possessed woman appears in Paul’s bedroom. Paul subsequently disappears. Strange activity continues throughout the house, culminating with Paul reappearing in the basement in a catatonic state.
Tony insists on leaving the project. Andrew confesses something off the record that convinces Tony everyone needs to stay.
October 8th, 2009 – Opening Night – After guests enter the attraction, demonic cultists appear throughout the house, inciting mass panic. Joey flees in terror, and would go on to hang himself nine days later. A skull-faced cultist in a robe cuts off Melissa’s flesh while patrons look on in horror. Many of the guests are able to escape outside.
Looking for another way out of the hotel, Andrew and Sara go up to the attic and find Alex hanging from a noose. Cultists attack Andrew as the camera falls. Sara tells Diana that authorities supposedly made it into the house by this point and escorted her safely outside.
At Sara’s insistence, Diana goes with cameraman Jonathan Miller to see the hotel for herself. Sara then mysteriously vanishes.
Mitchell Cavanaugh stays behind to catalogue the rest of the recordings. Mitchell finds footage in which Paul, acting possessed, kills Sara with the camera. Someone out of frame drags Sara’s body away. Paul cuts his own throat with glass.
Diana and Jonathan explore the hotel and find Sara sitting in one of the rooms. The door suddenly locks Diana and Jonathan inside with her. Sara attacks.
My thoughts:
It was a complete accident finding this film, i had never heard of it before but stumbled upon it on Prime video. (Best of all it’s free for prime members.)
The idea of the film is a nice twist on paranormal found footage films, instead of the typical haunting of a home and the home security cameras capturing all the odd goings on, we have a group of people who are used to going into creepy buildings and setting up scare events. The cinematography is a mix of hand held cameras, CCTV footage, phone cameras and gopros. Surprisingly the mix of cameras works to the film’s advantage, the ‘documentary’ scenes look exactly like a typical documentary and the ‘found footage’ is very clear and clearly shot on high quality cameras. You never miss a thing which I love!
The acting in this film is brilliant. Every single moment feels natural and believable. Thanks to their performance we actually get a few jump scares and give the audience the anxiety we all hope to get from a horror without being too scared to watch it.
It’s obvious the film had a good makeup team, the effects are very realistic and really added to the vibe of the film. The props used in the film are also very convincing. The props for the scare event are pretty much what you would expect but the rest of the props are also placed perfectly to add an extra touch to the film.
One thing I do really like about this film is that we never clearly see the entities that are tormenting these thrill seekers. We get a few distorted shots of the faces of these beings but other than that we only get to see dark robes. This was a very clever choice by the filmmakers, instead of repeatedly showing us the antagonists we are left with knowing nothing about what haunts this abandoned hotel. All we know is that whatever they are, they are enough to scare the characters to the point that some who survived the night ended up commiting suicide. It’s a really smart touch to leave the audience to let their mind run riot.
There are a lot of things I could talk about for this film just simply because there are so many little details that I can pick up on to have a full discussion about.
Overall I really enjoyed this film, which I’m actually really surprised about as I’ve found ‘found footage’ films have become repetitive but Hell House LLC really is an exception and stands apart from other found footage films.
Rating time:
This was probably one of the easiest films for me to rate, there was not one floor I could find in this film. It has a solid plot, a solid cast, solid crew and it has everything I want in a paranormal found footage film. It has just the right amount of jump scares in the right place, there is the perfect mix and use of different camera types. The editing is flawless, I just can’t find anything bad about this film. It’s rare that I enjoy a film like Hell House LLC this much. I’ve now watch it 3 times in the last 2 weeks, seriously it’s thay
I am giving a solid rating of 9/10. This film is a must watch. As I mentioned before it is on Prime Video (Amazon) and is free for prime customers. I know there are 2 sequels to this film but am yet to find them. I’m interested to see what they have done with them.
To leave your comments about my review or to request a film you want me to review, you can contact me on instagram, Facebook and Twitter at @nikkitomb
Nikki's Horror Review 