Hell House

To quickly summarize what I believe is the 'message' one may get from viewing this film: All you need to do is change the geographical location and name of the 'God' and you've got a typical fundamentalist Madras school in the Middle East. What's on display here is a sad and horrific waste of young human minds.

To witness, in some awe, where impressionable minds can be lead by twisted religious quacks makes this film most definitely worth seeing -- and can admirably serve as a 'wake up call' for modern civilization; do you know where your children are? Be afraid.

H.U.

I'm sure Hell House was intended by the deeply religious people who appear in it as a means of saving "the lost". Instead, what it becomes is a shocking and horrifying look at religious extremism (yes, Islam is not the only religion burdened by extremists).

The one image that kept flashing through my head was of the low-budget cult classic "Faces of Death", in which a phony "Doctor of Death" presents a series of scenes (some authentic, some obviously fake)depicting various ways living things can die, including animal attacks, footage of autopsies, etc. Hell House has the exact same low-budget, creepy feel that Faces of Death had for me.

The most frightening thing is that the participants in the actual Hell House are convinced that they are saving young people by showing them their own extreme Judeo-Christian version of reality: girls who undergo abortions will go to hell, etc. What they are really doing is unnecessarily exposing young people to horrible graphic violence.

The way the people speak to each other is disturbing as well: everything is about "The Church"... the whole thing reeks of brainwashing. The discussions going on during the brainstorming session about what to do in the Hell House this year, as well as those going on during the casting reminded me of the films Bin Laden and his toadies send in to Al Jazeera TV talking about killing the infidels. The message is a little different, but the behavior and absolute mindless devotion to the "cause" is absolutely the same.

But the most horrifying and disgusting part for me was the footage from the "Christian school", where the teacher was talking about how they teach everything from the "Christian viewpoint", while the camera panned over a pile of textbooks with titles like "Spanish for Christian schools" and such. Reality and fact know no religion.

I see little difference between Muslim extremism and Christian extremism, with the exception that Muslim extremists engage in suicide missions. In both cases, the message is "Our way is the only way and if you don't follow it, you are doomed".

Jesus taught acceptance and love for fellow creatures. However, the people who participated in Hell House missed the point and are examples of the extreme right of Christianity, just as Bin Laden and the Taliban are representative of the extreme right of Islam. Unfortunately, too many people lacking direction in their life choose these paths that inevitably lead to their complete brainwashing and, effectively, losing sight of the real and usually very helpful teachings of their prophets and/or messiahs.

I thoroughly enjoyed this documentory. Although the principal characters had all the best intentions, they lacked any inteligence, thus, producing one of the funniest "fly on the wall" sagas I have seen. A teenage girl, programmed by her local church, sounds off about lesbians coming into the store, or diner where she works. The poor girl is reminiscent of a stepford daughter. How can she possibly make such an invalid, hateful remark when this child probably has never left her fold or been further than the church gates?. GROW UP!! Open your eyes. I chose to look upon the church folk with humour. Indeed, they strongly believe in their cause, but COME ON!!!! Youve got to be kidding. The zeal in which the kids, and the sweaty creepy father compete for places in the "horror" show, is in fact a Horror show in itself. I wonder if trying to conjure up so much hatred and fear is , or was Christs intention. I bet if he watched this movie He would indeed want to come and fetch his brides, (with a gun to His head perhaps). People prove to be scarey, and sweet ignorance takes hold of this grotesque flock. Laughable? yes, but then the reality that these people can manifest fear and loathing into a new batch of kids is HORRIFIC. Heavens forbid a gay child being raised in that community....... It may make you fat and sweaty, and wear skin hugging black lycra T shirts......YIKES!

I first came across "Hell House" about a year ago on Sundance Channel's "Doc Day," and having always been interested in films involving Christianity ("Saved!" and "Dogma" are my two favorites) I decided to sit down and maybe have a laugh or two at the down-south fundamentalism. What I saw wasn't much of a laugh: "Hell House" depicts young Christians in what has been called an "evangelical haunted house," in which they portray various scenes of people committing "sins," then being dragged off to hell by a demon in a cheap Halloween mask. In short, it's not a nice film for your Sunday afternoon.

Director George Ratliff first heard about this particular hell house when it attracted media attention for doing a school shooting scene just a few months after the Columbine shootings (though the house had been doing this particular scene for quite some time, it raised controversy in 1999 for being so soon after the Columbine massacre). He was allowed into the tight church community to make his 1999 documentary short "The Devil Made Me Do It," and went back a few years after to make this, the feature length-version, "Hell House." On the DVD features, Ratliff explains that the only way he would be allowed into the community to shoot the film was if he promised to portray things exactly how they are, and not put his own spin on them or try to counter the message of the church.

This is where the film sometimes gets criticism, as we are seeing some very offensive behavior from those putting on Hell House, and the only people there to dispute them are a bunch of drunken teenage Slipknot fans. To me, though, it shows how well the church has paralyzed the community with fear, as everyone goes along with this perverse project with smiles and clapping hands.

And yes, the Hell House itself is pretty disturbing- depicting scenes of botched abortions, a gay man dying of AIDS then renouncing God and being dragged off to hell, a girl killing herself after being raped at a club (then once again, being dragged off to hell), even a man burning for all of eternity because his uncle molested him as a child. To sum up, these people are "crazy" with three K's.

People seem to forget, however, that the film was not made by these religious fanatics themselves, but by an outsider. Most of the negative reviews for this are slamming the subject matter alone and the hideous people contained inside, which I think isn't fair. Yes, it's difficult to not be disturbed by "Hell House," (if I had seen this when I was younger, I would be convinced that I was going to hell) but you need to get past that and look at how Ratliff gets inside these people. I think I walked away from this movie feeling much more informed on the horrors of deep-south Christianity. Rather than having a vague idea from various stand-up comedians, this movie really gets to the nitty gritty of it all, which makes "Hell House" my all-time favorite documentary.

So if you want to be scared this Halloween, forget "Friday the 13th" or "The Exorcist" hunt down a copy of "Hell House" and prepare to be terrified.

Wow! Last night on the Sundance Channel, I had the opportunity to watch a truly frightening film "Hell House"- a documentary, mind you. The reason why I think this film is certainly scarier than the run of the mill Halloween/Fri. the 13th sequel is that it reflects a honest depiction of just how whacko some Christian fundamentalist groups are in this country. You will often see segments on CNN on Wahabi schools for Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, but you won't often see them go into this dark corner of our country. I was struck, and this was perhaps not intentional, how commercialism is wide spread throughout the film. I thought a simple moment where a kid asks his father for 50 cents which he doesn't have on him to get a Coke from the machine is telling of how we are paralyzed by rampant commercialism and technology. As someone whose grandfather grew up in a Central Turkish village, I have to wonder if these aspects of our world have driven us all mad to the point where we look to some kind of "SuperJesus" out of a DC Comic book to come down and save us from all the sins of the world. I was also struck by how a youn girl jumps up and down when she gets to play 'the abortion girl.' It's as if she is so trapped by her fundamentalist upbringing that she actually looks forward to playing a troubled young girl getting an abortion perhaps so she can pretend to be bad and find some sort of temporary emotional release. Ultimately, the way church uses fear to promote its' message is what is most disturbing of all. You see fear shown through all dimensions of the church, including a segment where a Hispanic teacher, who provides the voice of Satan on stage, tells his class that there are such things as stupid questions and one should not waste time trying to ask them. Clearly if we all do what we are told, as this church wants us too, then one has to ask what is this difference between living in the film's setting, outside Dallas, and living in Baghdad?