Writer-director Stephen Cognetti wraps his “Hell House LLC” trilogy with the consecutively filmed “Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel” (2018) and “Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire” (2019). These sequels – again mostly set in the Abaddon Hotel — are more ambitious than the original “Hell House LLC” (2015) in narrative, and Cognetti comes up with alternately ridiculous and clever ways to stretch the notion that everything has been captured on camera.
The sequels alternately impressed me with their low-budget ambitions and disappointed me for being too cheap to do the scripts justice. They are technically amateurish when it matters – at the conclusions of both films, when Cognetti tries to say something profound about supernatural forces.
The original “HHLLC” has respectable performances, part two immediately strikes a viewer with its worse acting, then part three gets partway back to the original level. The uneven nature of the performances is bizarre, like Cognetti was saving money in this arena on the sequels. Yet the original cast does return in newly filmed cameos. It’s not like any of them struck it big in Hollywood.
“Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel” (2018)
Director: Stephen Cognetti
Writer: Stephen Cognetti
Stars: Vas Eli, Jillian Geurts, Joy Shatz
“Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire” (2019)
Director: Stephen Cognetti
Writer: Stephen Cognetti
Stars: Gabriel Chytry, Elizabeth Vermilyea, Sam Kazzi
Life (and death) is a show
When we’re immersed in the “found footage” of professional and amateur investigators, the acting is good enough. The creepy-as-hell clown who became an icon in the first film by inexplicably moving around like the “Annabelle” doll is now used as a spice. The hotel remains a star, with the maze of hallways and dusty, unused rooms never ceasing to be disconcerting. It’s never a nice place to visit – outside of its haunted-tour possibilities.
Oddly, when we get to the pivotal characters – like irked town councilman Tasselman (Brian David Tracy) in part two, and part three’s Russell Wynn (Gabriel Chytry), the latest businessman to turn the hotel into an attraction – the movies’ flaws show.
It’s not that these are bad actors; it’s that they don’t mesh with the faux-umentary stylings. Tasselman and Wynn are playing out bigger games involving the Biblical version of Hell, and Cognetti can’t do justice to his imagination on the page once he steps behind the camera (or various shaky handheld cameras – augmented by increasingly annoying “on the fritz” effects).
“The Abaddon Hotel” picks up seven years after the original, and the hotel is basically untouched since the deadly opening night of the “Hell House” tour. It has a fun narrative approach: New York’s “Morning Mysteries” interview show is intercut with future footage of people daringly (or idiotically) going into the hotel for the sake of street journalism or YouTube clicks. It’s mildly amusing. But then the movie gets extreme and can’t stick the landing.
“Lake of Fire” is a step up, even though it reuses the first film’s “buildup to opening night” premise. Wynn’s attraction is clever – something that probably exists in reality but which I wasn’t familiar with. “Insomnia,” an adaptation of the works of Faust, is a combination of a walking tour and a play. Instead of set changes on a stage, the audience moves through the rooms in order to see each scene acted out.
The latest attraction
Part three challenges itself to be scary even with Wynn’s logical safety measures in place (after all, it’s well documented that people have died or gone missing at the Abaddon; it’s just the how that’s unknown). No one is allowed in the hotel after the day’s rehearsals, a buddy system is in place, and the hotel is well lit, even featuring stark white passages. Maybe because of this, “Lake of Fire” is the least scary (although it has its moments – in the basement, natch). The payoff is again ambitious but awkward.
The back-to-back filming of the sequels allows for tie-ins. Some old scenes get expanded and redefined in the nature of the “Saw” narrative, but these moments often feel gimmicky.
Aside from the “Morning Mysteries” host from part two (Amanda K. Morales as Suzy McCombs) giving way to part three’s Vanessa Shepherd (Elizabeth Vermilyea) for no good reason, it’s apparent Cognetti had a trilogy in mind all along. To the sequels’ detriment (but to the benefit of people who hadn’t rewatched “HHLLC” recently), he bluntly intersperses clips from the superior original as we go into the newly remodeled rooms for “Obsession.”
The creepy-as-hell basement still looks the same, though, and whenever someone suggests going down there, it’s worthy of just as much of a “nope” as in the beginning. But can a place be scary and also become so familiar it’s boring? The first two “Hell House” sequels suggest “yep.”
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“Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel” (2018): 2.5 stars
“Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire” (2019): 3 stars