THE STORY – Haunted by visions and recurring nightmares years after a near-death experience, Vanessa Shepherd finds herself living in the town of Abaddon, unable to break free from its unexplainable hold on her. When people around her suddenly and inexplicably begin to die, she soon uncovers her terrifying connection to the Abaddon Hotel, the Carmichael Manor, and the mysterious murders that have been occurring for decades.
THE CAST – Elizabeth Vermilyea, Searra Sawka, Mike Sutton & Joe Bandelli
THE TEAM – Stephen Cognetti (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 108 Minutes
The “Hell House LLC” franchise has been a go-to answer for scary movie fans when asked about underrated modern horror films. The first entry in the series is particularly fun, well-shot, and extremely scary, proving to be one of the better found footage horror films of recent years. The series has always relied on well-constructed set pieces that build dread and employ clever concepts for maximum scares. This is almost entirely a credit to Stephen Cognetti, the horror auteur who’s served as both writer and director for every film in the series. With his latest, “Hell House LLC: Lineage,” Cognetti ties a bow on his trademark series with its fifth, and allegedly final, installment. After “Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor,” the most recent entry, proved to be a welcome (and very scary) return to form after the slight dips that were the second (“Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel”) and third (“Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire”) films, expectations are high for “Lineage” to end things with a bang. Unfortunately, Cognetti’s latest film is undoubtedly the weakest in the franchise, packed with so much complicated lore and dense plotting that it completely forgets to scare the audience.
The first film in the series follows a simple story that lends itself well to its found footage concept. It’s presented as a documentary investigating a tragedy that occurred at a walk-through haunted attraction, where 15 people – including all but one member of the staff – died under mysterious circumstances. The film goes on to show behind-the-scenes videos shot by the haunted house’s creative team as they prepare the abandoned hotel for paying guests looking to be scared. It’s clear from this footage that something malevolent and otherworldly begins to terrorize them, which leads to the seemingly inevitable deadly catastrophe. The following two films dig further into the backstory of the hotel, while telling parallel stories of other groups of people attempting to conquer the hotel after the events of the first movie. And the verbosely-titled “Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor” moves away from the Abaddon Hotel to explore the family of the cult leader who was the root cause of the Abaddon’s supernatural curse.
“Lineage” doubles down on this lore, and in doing so, ignores what made the series so beloved by horror freaks in the first place. Mystifyingly, it abandons the found footage concept that every other film in the series has used, very likely because it would be difficult to explain why the figures in this film (especially the main character, investigative journalist Vanessa Shepherd, played by Elizabeth Vermilyea, whose life has taken a nosedive after her traumatic experiences in previous installments) would be filming the occurrences. When found footage horror franchises move away from their core filmmaking rules, it almost always spells disaster. Just look at “Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension,” which does away with the tension wrought from the previous films by actually showing the supernatural entities, or “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.” Found footage horror works exceptionally well (when it does work) for a reason: it’s visceral and startling, putting audiences directly into the heads of its characters and eliminating the illusion of safety found in standard horror films. In switching to standard, fictional filmmaking techniques, Cognetti has seemingly lost sight of the very purpose, intention, and vision of his series.
The original “Hell House LLC” tells a simple story: cocky young adults (the ideal fodder for horror movies) attempt to construct a haunted house and are in turn confronted by very real haunts. It’s a great set-up for a horror movie – uncomplicated and classic. “Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor” gets dangerously close to becoming too plot-heavy, but it balances its knotty screenplay with fantastic scares. Rather than following this structure, “Lineage” is instead the most plot-heavy and scare-light film in the entire franchise. Why Cognetti would choose to have the supposedly final film in his franchise be the one that dredges up the most exposition, backstory, and lore is truly perplexing. The finale of a film series should be a culmination of what came before it and a celebration of what has made the series so popular with its fans. Instead, “Lineage” spends its time tying up unnecessary story beats and inconsequential loose ends – while also inventing knots to untie – and completely abandons the idea of scaring its audience. It’s the kind of film that requires a second screen with Wikipedia open to comprehend fully.
Admittedly, one section of the film is scary, in which two characters venture into the Carmichael Manor. Here, Cognetti leans into the most frightening ideas of the previous film, revisiting scares in a welcome return-to-form for a filmmaker who knows how to put together a good fright. The sound, blocking, and camerawork all work together here for maximum terror. But it’s a brief part of the film, and the way that Cognetti intercuts it with a much less exciting scene involving Vanessa undercuts the tension.
“Hell House LLC: Lineage” joins the pantheon of horror films that serve as disappointing “final” entries, like “Saw 3D” and “Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.” Much like those films, “Lineage” loses sight of what made the series a hit in the first place. The convoluted plotting leads to disappointments of all kinds; we even see the closest thing the series gets to a central villain – the demonic clown – physically move, which feels like a total betrayal of the franchise’s original intentions. Ideally, the “Hell House LLC” series will be resurrected with a better entry in the future because if not, it will forever be known as yet another horror series that couldn’t stick the landing.
