A Brief Look at Hell House LLC and Found Footage Horror

I recently rewatched Hell House LLC. I had originally seen it not long after it came out and was impressed. Found footage and supernatural tend to not be my favorite subgenres so I was iffy, but the movie really exceeded my expectations. However, it is not just about the movie itself but rather how it came together that really stuck with me. I had been pretty let down by the two follow ups and had written the franchise off as one good movie, but people convinced me to give the 4^th a chance so in anticipation of that I decided to give the movies a rewatch. I will say now not to expect my thoughts on 2 and 3, and case depending, even 4. I don’t have a lot to say about the two I have seen other than… they simply don’t live up to the first. I did want to talk about why the first managed to leave such an impression with me though.

If you have not seen the movie here is a brief overview so you understand the gist of what I am discussing.

Hell House LLC is a mockumentary movie that opens with discussion of something happening the opening night of a haunted house attraction. The audience is shown a few interviews and brief footage before diving into the full “documentary.” The movie follows the titular company which is a haunted house company. The group decided that they would set up their haunted house in an abandoned motel, reasoning that the reputation of the hotel (people disappeared, ties to satanism are suspected), as well as all the junk leftover in it will “do most of the work for them” in not only set up but getting visitors. The group lives in the hotel as they are setting it up and document the event for promotional purposes. The “found footage” element is both that footage, as well as the documentary unfolding and things the documentaries gathered.

As the group lives in the hotel they notice a lot of creepy things happening, to the point that one of the people becomes catatonic and another wants to quit. They end up going through with the opening however, and we are sent back to that opening night and get to see what happened more fully.

The movie itself is decent. The over arching plot is good, though some of the details used to fill it out are a bit eh. The scares are okay but fairly predictable, and the pacing of what’s happening to the group is not the best but decent. So then why was I so impressed? Because I think it is one of the best found footage/mockumentary horror movies specifically.

I said at the start that found footage is not my favorite subgenre, and without trashing too many of the movies in particular, it’s largely because very few I find actually justify using that format. The Visit is a movie that really stands out in this way. I like that movie, but I don’t think it made sense to be done that way nor did it really justify the choice.

While the excuse of “documenting setting up the haunted house” is a bit weak the rest of the movie does such an excellent job of being a solid mockumentary that I simply did not care. A decent amount of work is put into this movie actually feeling like a documentary. From the pacing, setting up the mystery, and giving the audience just a tease before pulling back to go into the nitty gritty, as we expect. There are fake interviews with experts and one person who was in the house and got out. The movie slowly teases information in a way you expect a documentary about this event to do. As more information is revealed we get flashbacks to earlier footage, but sometimes slightly distorted or with color changes. There is excellent use of caption cards and repeating footage so we can get more details, as one expects in a documentary.

In fact, other than the footage from them inside the house being a little long – which is necessary for the horror of the movie – every part of this movie until the very end actually feels like watching a documentary. Other than Lake Mungo I cannot think of another horror movie that so accurately recreates the feeling of watching a documentary. And before anybody mentions The Blair Witch Project that movie is an excellent example of found footage, but other than the intro, little effort is put into making it a “documentary” and is instead just us watching the footage of what happened. But I digress. If you are the type of person who watches documentaries you will recognize all the techniques, the pacing, the tone, the way things are teased out, it all feels exactly as you expect, and I LOVE it.

And of course there are all the tricks that found footage can afford a low budget movie to help really sell the experience. I think Hell House LLC does an exceptional job with a lot of it. Great use of broken cameras and messed up footage to hide effects that might not have been as good and also use them to tease out scares and sounds.

It sets up what ends up being not the best movie in terms of the actual movie itself, and scares, but a truly worthwhile version of this type of horror film. I find myself thinking of it when similar movies come out, and I always end up enjoying it when rewatching. It’s just such a great example of a well thought out movie that had a goal and accomplished it. The follow ups feel more like they are trying to be a movie that happens to be found footage. The effort put into the documentary aspects fall flat and the story quality dips so I am left wishing for the truly “believable” documentary.

Hell House LLC will likely remain one of my go to examples of a true mockumentary horror movie rather than just a horror movie that decided on the found footage aspect. For its success in pulling it off so well it will also remain a go to recommendation or simply a horror movie I will say is an example of how much the genre can do.