Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire

The first movie had so much dread and genuine creepiness to it. It's a shame that couldn't be carried throughout the series. Even the second one, the story was somewhat lacking but still there were moments of dread in it. This third installment just doesn't have that. I give it 6 stars because it kept me interested enough to watch to the end and it was by no means a boring movie. It simply had a lot to live up to...and the first movie in this series will always outshine the two that followed.

I really liked the first one. The second one was not as good as the first, but I didn't think it was terrible. The third one, I mean, it is part 3, how much truly new ground could they cover? A bad horror sequel is Blair Witch 2, and this film is certainly better then that one. I think people get a tad judgmental, and troll just to troll. This film, imo, is a decent conclusion. It was a fun, jump scare flick that is a decent way to spend about 90 minutes. Shudder is a cool channel that gives fans of horror, thriller, and suspense a place to go and find a bit of popcorn fun.

If you dig the genre, like honestly, dig the genre, there are films that are far worse. Let the trilogy tell its story and move on. This is not life changing material, but who said it was supposed to be?

Loved the first Hell House (7/10) and the 2nd was serviceable (5/10). I was expecting more from this one. The story was convoluted and the writing was weak. You've got a location where dozens of people have died or gone missing and everybody just flocks back likes its no big deal, even when similar unexplained things begin to happen again. Sure. Sad way to end the story.

A summation of my reviews for the first two entries in the 'Hell House LLC' trilogy would be that writer/director Stephen Cognetti wasn't getting the regular scenes in his movie right, but that his horror scenes were world class. Interestingly 'Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire' serves to prove that the opposite of that is a much worse thing. This film has far better acting than the first two and also the dialogue is much better written, and yet it is the weakest of all three by a significant margin. Why? Because he forgot about the horror this time around.

The film has a tremendous amount of over-lapping shots from the first two films, mostly to show what happened in a certain part of the hotel/house or who a certain character was. At first this is helpful, but then it happens far too often from there on out and becomes very annoying and distracting. I think you just have to have faith that the audience has seen the first two films, and if they haven't then the information they are missing out on isn't hugely critical to the enjoyment of this one.

I think Cognetti was so intent on wrapping everything up into a nice little bundle storywise that he forgot what made the first two films so good, which was the epic horror sequences they featured. This one has little moments here and there, but there is never that big payoff that the first two films achieved. 'Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire' was a little bit of a disappointing way to end an otherwise very good horror trilogy. It's not unwatchable, but it is a big step in the wrong direction.

Bad writing and the story loses focus very quickly. If that was not bad enough, it's also very boring.