Horror Movie Review: Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019)

We are back in Hell House again with Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire as the series looks to correct what went wrong in the second instalment and fails miserably.

Over the years, found footage horror movies get a lot of flack. After the heady days of films such as The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity and [REC], every man and his dog tried to get in on the act, churning out miserable repeats of the same thing over and over again. So yes, they got flack, but mostly deservedly so. Having said that, there are gems. Like gems, they are rare, but they are there if you are willing to mine deep enough. One such gem is the first movie in this franchise, Hell House LLC. A film that did very little new for the genre, but just did everything fantastically well. Good acting, great scares, a good story – it’s a fine example of what can be achieved in this format.

Writer/director Stephen Cognetti followed it up three years later with Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel, and the mistakes start coming The first, and most obvious, as per all of the films mentioned in this piece so far, is that attempt to capitalise on a successful first movie, but failing as shocks and frights diminish after first viewing. We now know what to expect so it rarely works. The second movie, like the first in the Hell House franchise, runs a mocumentary style and tried hard to expand the story, with a few good points, but just makes so many missteps, and lost the heart and soul that made the first film so damn good.

And so we enter Hell House again, for what is meant to be the final part of a trilogy with Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire.

Many years have passed since the gruesome events of the first two films, and the town of Abaddon has finally and wisely decided to destroy the hotel. That destruction never comes to pass though as a very rich man called Russell Wyn (played by Gabriel Chytry) buys it with plans to hold an “interactive dinner experience” there, apparantly an event he is famed for staging annually. You may remember the name Russell Wyn as he, and his company, featured in the second movie and were behind the release of that film’s documentary footage.

Wyn’s show, known as, Insomnia, is a retelling of Faust’s hellish dealings with the devil from German legend, but as the days tick toward opening night it becomes clear that once again, there are more demonic goings on in The Abaddon Hotel than the crew and cast of Insomnia were expecting. Though why they weren’t expecting it is beyond me – a little bit of research into the property would surely show around 30 deaths on the premises so far and even if you don’t believe in ghosts, that is an offputting statistic.

Anyway, as is the way and is necessary for us to get a film out of this, we need someone to document all of this. Luckily, Wyn has invited the new host of Morning Mysteries (that terrible show we first saw in movie number two) down to document the days leading up to the big night of the event.

The host, Vanessa Shepherd (played by Elizabeth Vermilyea), is responsible for most of what we see in this movie. It is her and her crew’s footage that has been “found” and of course, as expected, to get a full raft of scenes, we meet her camerman and see them pass out GoPros to every member of the cast and crew. To be fair, that is all pretty believable from a true documentary perspective as well so there are no issues with that.

So it starts, and as we move towards opening night, we start to look back at the footage found. It should be noted that the people showing us this footage are Wynn’s people, in hindsight, as they try to piece together the footage of the night and work out what happened (or make a show out of it all) – in that, motive is unclear to me. Different scenes in different parts of the house are shown. The bar, the basement, the bedroom – everything we know about this house comes back and we start glimpsing incidents and tension building. A shadow in the background, faces from previous movies appear in different scenes and of course, that infamous Hell House piano melody.

There are some good scenes here and some genuine scares. Interviews, and footage shown to the more experienced watcher will often see us scanning the background, the darkness and the corners, looking for where we believe the action is going to come from and the director doesn’t disappoint. Such is your strength of belief in every scene that something will happen that scenes where nothing happens also works well as a vehicle for building tension. The scares themselves, the ghostly figures and the like – look, being honest, they aren’t as effective anymore.

That isn’t a fault in the movie, it’s just a fact that after three movies (and I have watched The Carmichael Manor prequel too, so technically 4 movies), I have seen these characters, know their movements and actions, know the locations – there is nothing new in this movie that surprises. It is just the exact same, albeit well executed, scares again.

So, despite the obvious concerns with goings on in the house, despite the fear and frustration on those working within, of course the event goes ahead and there, on opening night, all hell breaks loose.

Panic, death, cult members and never not scary clowns kick off in a big way culminating in the return of the franchises real “big bad”. Satan’s number one fan and original hotel owner, Andrew Tully (played by Brian David Tracy) is back from the second movie and ready to reap souls and add to his significant body count.

So how do you judge a film that is a chapter of a bigger story? That is the difficult bit here for me. I think the Hell House LLC franchise, the trilogy, is fantastic. They are ambitious, genuinely scary at times, well filmed and with a nice flowing story that connects perfectly throughout all three films. But, as individual movies that can stand alone, there are issues. Here, in Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire, as far as closing out the main Hell House story goes, it’s well made and well played, makes sense, mostly, and shows Cognetti as a very capable producer, director and writer.

The issues though are plentiful, and sadly, and unforgiveably, often repeats of issues that first arose in the second movie. The first movie, is up there with the very best found footage horror films. The second two are nowhere near as scary as the first. You cannot pin blame to the film makers for the second and third having less shock value because we already know the house, already know the bad guys so recreating that initial discovery fear is nigh on impossible, unless they try something new. Here, what they do is try new things in the story direction, but never change up the scares. How many times in this trilogy did we go down the stairs to the basement, see the clowns sitting against a wall, pan away, pan back and there has been a head movement? The answer is too many.

So, is Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire a scary film? Yes, just not as scary as the first unless it is your first watch which leads me to another issue. In order to cover for people that may be watching the film for the first time and haven’t seen the prior movies, this film is fattened out massively by cutbacks to the previous movies. There are a lot, and they are really irritating. Firstly, when they do cut back, why must it be done under a storm of obnoxious static and distortion?

Also, why do it at all? It adds nothing for those who have seen the first two movies and seems unnecessary. I am confident that anyone watching a movie titled Hell House III is likely to figure out there are two others and they might need to watch them first if they want to understand the story? That leads me to think they only added them to lengthen the movie because without them, this would be a very short film.

A final complaint from me here then and it is to do with Tully. With time running out, and so much of the story not quite having it’s ends tied yet, they use Tully to stand in front of some of his victims and deliver a very long speech that seems to be directed at the viewer, not the victims. This speech is used like a monlogue to inform us of all the things we need to close the story out. Tully, delivering this extended and overacted epitaph, makes sure there are no unanswered questions and no mystery left to our imagination and it felt lazy watching it. It’s a shame really – even as it is explained fully to us, you can’t help but admire the ambition in the story, but can’t help feeling underwhelmed and a little like they just gave up by this point.

I like this franchise enough that I don’t want to leave on wholly negative thoughts so don’t misunderstand me, there are positives. To really appreciate them, you must watch all of the trilogy and engross youself in all of the story. As a story, it is ambitious and clever and interesting. There are good scares, there are some decent acting performances and Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire does give you the closure you would have hoped for at the end of a trilogy. It still for me represents some of the very best of found footage horror and is well worth your time, even if overall, we start on a high and roll downhill at pace coming to a stop with an overarching feeling of disappointment.