Hell House LLC (2015) Review

    I’ve always disliked the found footage film, unless you count ‘Cannibal Holocaust’. They say it’s supposed to be more immersive. Not to me though. The character of the cameraman is never seen and does idiotic stuff such as watching and filming their friend’s deaths like a sociopath. They’re almost always boring and always include petty arguments that add nothing to the “story”. All the characters are badly written and seem shallower than those couples seen in Hallmark Christmas specials. There’s no music to add to the mood. I’ve always found these type of films to be unprofessional. There’s no time or thought into getting the shots right. All you need is to shake your film violently and there it is. It’s basically a way to make one’s shit film look “artistic”. So when people kept telling me to go watch ‘Hell House LLC’ I rolled my eyes, but nonetheless I watched it.

    ‘Hell House LLC’ is about a group of jerks, who call themselves friends, that go around different areas to make haunted house attractions for Halloween. This time they decided to go with an abandoned hotel in a small town in NY. It looks like everything is going their way, but as it gets closer to opening night weird stuff begins to happen.  

   I’ll start with the things I liked about the film. The main thing being the sets. You get this creepy feeling from the building before anyone ever sets a foot inside it. Satanic paintings on the walls with old bibles scattered across the floor. Then there’s the disturbing clown mannequins that start moving on their own. Why when the characters see the clowns move that they say “we gotta keep going opening night is almost here” is beyond me. I’d be in another country the next day. It sort of felt like the film ‘The Houses October Built’. Lastly, I like the fact that the Hell House LLC is actually two found footage films in one.

   Now, onto what I disliked about the film. As I stated earlier with the found fottage genre I find the characters annoying as hell. Almost every character involved in the preparation of opening the haunted house annoyed me. Throughout the entirety of the film I wanted someone (whether it be ghosts, satanic cult killers, or clown mannequins) to kill off Paul and Danny. Why is everything filmed in the dark? They have lights. Turn them all. Then of course there’s the typical found footage problem. The shaky cam, cutting the camera away just when it gets good, and of course the lack of scares.

   Hell House LLC is a mixed bag. There’s no plot and you just want the majority of the characters to get killed off. Hell House LLC is creepy enough, but the characters just hurt me from actually enjoying the film.

1 out of 5