Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor

When an internet sleuth drags her girlfriend along to investigate the scene of a grisly massacre at a deserted mansion in the woods, they get more than they bargained for.

Over-produced found-footage that still manages to be effective. The ideal for this genre is to wind up the story like clockwork in the first ten minutes, then let it unwind through intelligent editing of the footage, allowing the audience to fill in the gaps. Instead this production gives us masses of exposition through the framing device of a mockumentary, with explanatory flashbacks, and inserts foreboding music where appropriate.

So the story has trouble standing on its own feet, with ho-hum plotting and characterisation, and in the end has to fall back into classic Blair Witch mode to reach its climax.

And despite the fussy direction, the in-scene motivations are poorly handled. You know you can run away, right, instead of shuffling? So that the audience might satisfy itself that every means of escape was tried, before this unstoppable evil had its way? Perhaps bolting and chaining the bedroom door might be in order - especially since the chain is hanging limp, in plain sight, in scene after scene? It won't do any good, but y'know ... And if a character is in terror of her life, the best thing to do is put the camera down while still trained on the action, so the audience doesn't have to wonder why she's still filming. If she needs the camera light to flee through the darkness, then that's OK. And of course: don't split up, and don't go toward the threat that just scared the bejebus out of you, etc. And it's not necessary to give a final homily on the nature of evil: we know what we just saw.

As for the figures of evil, I know many are creeped out just by the sight of clowns, but my first thought was, 'Oh, they hired some specialist mime artists for this bit - that's why they're so still. Do their noses get itchy?'

Yet the atmosphere is genuinely creepy, and I was mostly engaged throughout. Plus there is an original and excellent video conference weird-out at 45 mins that got my adrenaline buzzing. For that, and the mounting hysteria (a la BW, including a distant cry for help that sounds like the first victim) I rate it above average.

I'd put this and the first film in the same league, as in, they're both watchable for the crafting of scares in a minimal but impressive way. But the origin story and lore expansion did little for me, as I didn't think even the first film necessarily had a lot going for it. Also, I haven't watched parts two and three, so I'm unsure if I missed anything significant. Found footage can become extremely monotonous and repetitive, and here I could witness that in parts. The protagonists are still fairly uninteresting and lacking any real motives (other than the quest for fame and adventure), and they continue to make questionable decisions throughout.

Director Stephen Cognetti also fails to capitalize on the outdoors of the manor for more atmospheric fights. While this comes into the picture fairly into the final act, the underutilization of the magnificent outdoors (with all those incredible-looking trees) is evident. The indoor scares are reminiscent of the ones from the original film, and I could see them coming at those critical junctures. One particular scare, during a video call, was quite nicely executed. The clowns are less scary this time, and some of it has to be attributed to what we've already seen. I don't exactly know what to make of those long-running lore connections, but it sure didn't make the experience substantially more riveting.

The first hell house is enjoyable because it's kind of a hidden gem that's just recently gained more popularity. It had a lot of ambiguity in the story and left a pretty open ended story. The acting in part one is pretty good as well. Then we get to parts 2 and 3...

Those movies feel cheap. Much cheaper and just seemed to be feeding off the success of the first one. The acting is horrible in both, the news anchor is part 2 is laughably bad. Part 3 is more of the same. Neither one adds much to the story either.

This movie has much better acting and cinematography than the previous two. It feels like this one was made to actually further the story, not just as a cash grab. This movie does a much better going into the backstory than previous attempts. It's not perfect, but it does have some good scares and does a great job building tension. There are two seperate stories in this one and the way they connect works quite well. I'd recommend this for sure.

I was looking forward to this installment of the series but my God I couldn't even finish it since the actress who plays Margot is just horrendous: she's constantly screaming her dialogue; she has no chemistry with her costars (the girlfriend and the brother), who, in comparison, are actually pretty decent; she's not at all convincing in any of her interactions or actions. It feels like she's in a different movie or production altogether, like a bad high school play. There have been some bad performances in these movies but she definitely takes the cake as the worst. Wish they chose a different lead.

I loved the original Hell House: great scares, reasonable characters, great premise. The other sequels lacked all of that.

This one delivers on the great scares. Great tension, effective use of jumpscares. The premise and characters are okay here. Not great but not egregious. There's a couple eye-roll moments where they try too hard to tie it into the original (the music now has lyrics? What?).

It sounds like I'm really down on it when all I have good to say about it is the scares, but really, the directing is great at ratcheting up the tension and then hitting you with a solid moment of horror.

I'm knocking a half point off though for the very last scene before the credits, which felt like a weird retcon that didn't need to be in the movie at all.