First off, I have to say, I LOVED the first "Hell House LLC". I've watched it many, many times and still love it. The characters and character development was fantastic. There wasn't a member of the cast who let down the movie.
I was apprehensive about this one, though. And for good reason. This is the second Found Footage/Mockumentary style movie that from the off we were told it would be a trilogy (Creep 2015) being the other. The second "segment" as I'll put it, failed to live up to its predecessor and that has happened here as well. Don't get me wrong, this was good, but not great. And that is what the original is. Maybe because, without trying to be too harsh, it's a time filler that has to be good enough to keep you engrossed whilst keeping the (what you'd hope) best for last?
Anyway. Up until the first 20 minutes I honestly thought I was in for a dreadful sequel. The "Morning Mysteries" bit just didn't work. I get the payoff (which I won't give away) but it was far too cheesy and forced. The acting was unrealistic and the green-screen thing looked too bad to be true. I know the guys are on a tight budget, but they were on the first too but it wasn't noticeable. It flowed more and you got the feeling these guys were a team, each with their own quirks, but essentially good guys who you could imagine going for a pint with. There was nobody in this one. Not even Mitchell.
A HUGE problem in this one as well is there was no Paul. And I'm not meaning Gore Abrams himself as that's obviously not possible storyline wise, but nobody to take us through on cam who was fun. The girl who played Molly in this so overacted that I can't believe nobody pulled her up about it. She basically came across as fodder for The Abbadon and that was never the case with any characters in the first.
It did get considerably better once we were over the main "Morning Mysteries" segment, but it kept popping back to it now and again and it started to get annoying to be honest.
All in all, I promised myself I'd write a non biased review and here it is. I wasn't completely disappointed, but I just hope Stephen Cognetti has a good script for the 3rd and takes most of the criticism constructively.
It's not a bad effort, but the bar was set by the first and ultimately that can come back ironically and bite you in the ass.
The movie gets a 6 from me and I'll definitely be watching the concluding part.
