Hell House LLC

Found footageflicks can go two ways, or it works or it fails completely, teher's no in between. Luckily this one works and even as it doesn't have any effects or let's even say blood (okay at the end a bit) it is sometimes creepy and towards the end you want to know what is going on.

Of course the flick has to start with a lot of 'real' news facts and interviews with cops who were at the crime scene but once that's over the movie picks up speed. Don't watch it to closely, the footag eis edited a thing that in real life can't happen naturally but if you don't mind that, then it gives you entertainment.

The use of manne quinq and clows and stuff happenng in a basement, well, face it, it delivers. What is going on with the hotel, I can't tell, ypu will have some background but no explaination at all.

So, it's okay even without effects, just look at Blair Witch, no effects there, It isn't a Blair Witch but it's surely worth picking up.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 0/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

I have to say this was decently well done for what it was... an obviously low budget found footage indie horror that ended up being genuinely creepy.

The acting was better than I thought it was going to be and other than some stilted moments here and there, they were pretty convincing. While the semi-reliant and expected use of jump scares were certainly there, it was also solidly creepy in it's only right without that crutch.

Where I would say it was lacking the mostwould be the story. It was just barely developed enough as a vehicle to produce the movie that they wanted to... but it was nothing extensive, particularly interesting or intricate. Yet, there is also something to be said for a good old fashioned, what you see is what you get, simple horror. Also, we have a fun little twist at the end that wasn't particularly original but I still enjoyed it.

For me personally it lacked a bit of intrigue, but I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of successful aspects there actually were here. Although not my top sub- genre, a solid found footage. 6.5 rounding down to a 6, would recommend.

I approach all modern found footage movies with a sense of cynicism nowadays - mainly because they're usually atrocious - and going by the trailer, cover and even title of this film, it was no exception. But what a pleasant surprise! Great twists, a real and genuine sense of dread in the hotel and intense up until the end.

Location was perfect, fairly rural and run down but without giving in to the cliché, 'cabin in the woods' scenario. Great use of Halloween props for creating some ultra-spooky scenes and a decent enough original storyline to keep the viewer interested throughout.

Not perfect by any stretch, I'm still a bit muddled as to what actually happened in the house but otherwise highly recommended.

Found footage horror movie set in an abandoned hotel that some enterprising young people hope to turn into an elaborate Halloween haunted house. But on opening night, things go horribly wrong and 15 people end up dead. An investigative journalist sets out to uncover the truth of Hell House.

When Hell House LLC works, it's incredibly effective. There are parts of the film that really creeped me out. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's clowns. So, when dead-looking clown mannequins start moving mysteriously in the night, it's uber-creepy to me.. Throw in a basement with Satanic drawings on the wall and old bibles scattered on the floor and I'm ready to hide until it's all over. The backstory of the hotel and the hotel itself are also pluses for the film. You get a weird, spooky vibe from the building even before anyone sets foot inside it. Finally, I like the fact that Hell House LLC is really two found footage movies in one. I won't spoil anything, but the twist at the end worked on me.

But as my rating would indicate, all is not perfect with Hell House LLC. I have two chief complaints. First, almost every character involved in the haunted house preparation is as annoying as sin. The entire time I was watching, I just hoped Paul and Danny would be among the dead. Second, and more importantly, not a single character in the movie displayed an ounce of common sense. You hear strange things in the night - what do you do? Walk around with a camera and a weak flashlight? Well that's what these people do. Turn on the damn lights! The lights work - use them. And after you've seen strange things that shouldn't happen (like a dead-looking clown moving around), do you get out? Not if you're these lunkheads. The first time I saw some of the happenings they see, I'd be on the first bus out of town. But because the characters in this movie act without an iota of common sense, they're like lambs led to slaughter.

Overall, a real mixed bag. Hell House LLC is creepy enough, but the characters really hurt my enjoyment.

5/10

Hell House LLC has a lot of pretty decent scares, but the actual story of the movie doesn't hold up.

This is a found footage movie that tells the story of some down-on-their-luck New Yorkers scouting out a new location for their Halloween haunt business in the made-up town of Abbadon. There, they buy an abandoned hotel with a dark history. Even though something is clearly wrong with the location, the crew pushes on towards opening night, where a terrible event claims many lives.

If that sounds like a spoiler, it's not, really. The movie opens laying all of this out, and it's more about the steps that happen along the way.

The movie excels at spooky atmosphere. Rather than get in your face with ghouls or excessive amounts of CGI, Hell House plays things subtle. It might be as simple as a shadow in the hallway, or things changing places when you look away for just a second, but it succeeds in being very unsettling without going overboard.

That being said, some of the production is a little sloppy, particularly in the sound design department. Being found footage, a lot of the sound in this movie has a very distinct style to it -- built-in microphones on handheld cameras. It's a little bit tinny, there's room echo, and so on. Which makes it SUPER OBVIOUS when they dub in new sounds during post production, because the dubbed sounds are ten times clearer than the microphone's source audio and definitely weren't present during filming. Not a deal breaker, but a minor annoyance.

The real problem is when Hell House tries to tell its story. The actors do okay, but this movie is jam packed full of horror movie logic where everybody involved spontaneously forgets about common sense. Being found footage, the camera is always rolling, but the condemning evidence is always either handwaved away for convenient reasons, or outright ignored entirely. These are ignorant characters doing dumb things, because if they were too smart and recognized the danger then we wouldn't have a movie to watch.

There's also not a lot in the way of character development. Real documentaries spend time helping us get to know the people involved, but that's glossed over here. We get little snippets of things early on, like how some people are known for arguing, or how the group had a bad time at their last haunt location in Queens. It largely does not matter, and there's zero sense of who these people were before they arrived at Abbadon. I never even knew most of their names.

Without getting in to spoiler territory, I also found the ending to be sort of a letdown. The movie is great with subtle scares, but the ending ends up being more confusing and underwhelming than scary. It's this weird half-step of showing you what happened, but only the least important parts.

I guess I did not hate my time with Hell House. It's fine, and mainly exists as a vehicle to deliver spooky moments. Just don't think about it too much harder than that.