00:00For those of you that aren't into your horror movie series, a new Hell House LLC film came out recently
00:05on Shudder.
00:05For those of you not in the Null, the Hell House movies are a series of found footage movies directed
00:10by Stephen Cognetti,
00:11detailing the haunted goings-on of the Abaddon Hotel.
00:14Throughout the first three films, a history of the hotel was revealed, showing its ties to a satanic cult led
00:19by a man named Andrew Tully.
00:20The series was thought to have seemingly ended with its third film, Lake of Fire, as the Abaddon Hotel was
00:25destroyed in that film.
00:27But in 2023, Cognetti made a pre-sequel film, Hell House LLC Origins, the Carmichael Manor.
00:33Carmichael Manor detailed a different film crew investigating a different haunted house, whose owners were members of Tully's cult.
00:39I binged a film series last year for Hooptober, and I liked them all, especially Carmichael Manor.
00:43I liked how Cognetti users found footage to tell his stories, and how he can make some truly scarce moments
00:47with the bare minimum.
00:48This latest entry, and last for Cognetti behind the camera, Hell House LLC Lineage,
00:53pulls on not just the events of Carmichael Manor, but the previous trilogy as well,
00:57as the film focuses on Elizabeth Vermilion's Vanessa Shepard, a character from the third entry, Lake of Fire,
01:03who is still dealing with surviving the events of that film.
01:05She gets pulled back into the fray when several people end up mysteriously dying,
01:09who in some way are involved with Carmichael Manor, and how she is connected to that.
01:13The big thing for this latest entry is that it breaks away from its found footage style,
01:16and goes through a conventional style of filmmaking.
01:18It's a big risk. Found footage was an essential part of the series,
01:22and transitioning to a different style could end up being a detriment,
01:25but Cognetti manages to stick the land in.
01:27Retaining the series' creepy and tense horror, but also telling a more detailed and involved story
01:32than a found footage film would allow.
01:33Which brings me to my main, but minor, point of contention with the film.
01:37The film is Cognetti's last film as director, and it feels like he's dumping a lot of lore for the
01:41overall series on the way out,
01:42which isn't bad. In fact, the film finds a good balance between backstory and horror,
01:46but if you aren't as caught up with the series, you're going to be lost,
01:49especially the ending and what it reveals about certain characters left me a little bit confused.
01:53But on the other hand, as mentioned before, Cognetti still makes this film scary by doing not a lot.
01:58Some of its most frightening and effective scares come from whenever the clown mannequins,
02:02the series' mascots, are deployed.
02:03Cognetti manages to mind some great scary moments with them,
02:06aided by this film becoming a regular footage movie,
02:08giving a different type of present than what they had in previous films.
02:11In previous films, they were scary because you couldn't always keep track of them,
02:14due to the found footage genre's more intimate and personal style.
02:17In this, we see what they are doing most of the time in this film,
02:20which makes it just as scary.
02:22Cognetti's use of minimalism in this film also helps the film's non-clown frights as well.
02:26While there are some flashy, and good, moments,
02:29its best scares are usually the more simpler ones,
02:31which give a sense of tension to the proceedings.
02:33It's something carried over from the found footage films
02:35that managed to survive the move, and is used to good effect here.
02:38On the track of filming, I like how Cognetti uses flashbacks,
02:41and how he restages certain scenes from the previous film in a conventional way.
02:45It's a small thing, but I like how he does it.
02:46Another aspect I liked was Elizabeth Vermilia's performance in this film.
02:49Her character isn't too dissimilar from other horror protagonists
02:52who survived the last film and now have trauma that you've seen before,
02:55but Vermilia sells it rather well here.
02:57She gets to do a lot of heavy lifting in this film,
02:59and it's a highlight for me to see her do it.
03:00I hope to see her in more stuff down the line.
03:02I found Hell House LLC lineage a good entry that does something different
03:06from the previous films, even if it is tangled in some backstory business.
03:09It manages to be just as scary as the previous entries.
03:12The film is currently available on Shudder at the time of this recording.
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