Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Spook Out! Day 9 ~ Hell House LLC (2015)

Shudder Says...
"In this found-footage gem, a documentary crew visit the site of a haunted house attraction whose opening night ended with 15 unexplained deaths."

I Say...
Documentary crews may wish to consider filming safer spaces. Say, Chernobyl or Death Valley.

Horror Type...
Supernatural, Thriller

Main Players...
Ryan Jennifer as Sara Havel (Token Girlfriend)
Danny Bellini as Alex Taylor (Driven CEO of Titular LLC)
Gore Abrams as Paul O'Keefe (Sweet Sleeper)

I liked...
  • the mood, which was palpable and consistently creepy throughout
  • that good use was made of lighting to produce feelings of dread
  • that some of the most effective scares were the simplest ones
  • the last 10-ish minutes of the movie, which were intense...

The Meh...
...but I can't say that they make Hell House LLC worth the watch. Look, I get that found-footage horror is choppy, and often what's most frightening is what you can't see as a result. But I call BS on that being used for long stretches, as happens here--on the ill-fated opening night, bits of tour-goers' recordings are pieced together to show how it all went sour, only they seemed to record mainly the ensuing chaos of freaked out people racing for exits. I watched this only hours ago and I can't say I have any idea what happened. Full disclosure: I have to admit to getting massively bored around the 50 minute mark and reaching for my phone. There are probably chunks of the film I didn't really pay attention to bc all the (long) non-horror bits were filmed with painstaking clarity and I just found large swathes of it tedious. Also, the four dudes of the LLC were heckin' bro-y and if I'd wanted that, I'd have watched Ghost Adventures.

Would I recommend it...?
Only to folks who really dig found-footage horror. Otherwise, pass.

Miscellany...
In the story, Hell House's opening night was October 8, 2009. If I'd watched this yesterday it would've been on the 10th anniversary of the events it depicts! 😨

Ratings...
My Grade: C-
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: Tomatometer=89%, Audience Score=71%

Details, Schmeetails...
I Watched Hell House LLC on Shudder (the Rotten Tomatoes page linked above provides links to other host sites)
Hell House LLC's Wikipedia Page (Contains Spoilers)


This concludes Day 9 of

2 comments:

C'mon, post a comment. All the cool kids do.