“Hell House LLC” (2015) was one of the last decade’s best “found footage” horror films. Then writer-director Stephen Cognetti got narratively ambitious with his sequels – in 2018 and 2019 – and aimed a little too high given his mediocre casts and technical abilities.
In the saga’s fourth entry, “Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor” (Shudder), he rediscovers his strengths in an effectively terrifying way. This film – set after the Abaddon Hotel has burned down, but including flashbacks to a 1989 tragedy at the titular mansion (captured on video, natch) – gets back to pitch-perfect pacing and expertly staged creep-outs.
To its benefit, the fourth film breathes more than the previous three. This manor is larger than the Abaddon Hotel – albeit just as scary for all its emptiness. One of the first forbidden rooms the characters enter features creepy-ass clown manikins and a trunk of carnival goods, including round red clown noses that double as bouncy balls.
“Hell House Origins LLC: The Carmichael Manor” (2023)
Director: Stephen Cognetti
Writer: Stephen Cognetti
Stars: Bridget Rose Perrotta, Destiny Leilani Brown, James Liddell
The story doesn’t lock the ghost-hunting trio in the manor itself; indeed, one great segment features a trek through the woods that’s like a throwback to “The Blair Witch Project” at its best. But the abode is suitably isolated, surrounded by miles of woods and backroads before you get to a significant road.
Intriguingly indirect backstory
Cognetti crafts a backstory to “Hell House LLC” in an indirect manner that enhances the chills. But in the end, we get back to where we want to be, with a fuller picture of the Abaddon curse and key figures such as the moving manikin colloquially known as The Basement Clown due to where it’s found in “Hell House.”
Again, Cognetti uses Northeastern actors you haven’t heard of. But this batch is a clear cut above the first three films. Bridget Rose Perrotta’s Margot is chipper without being annoying as she sets up herself, her girlfriend and her brother in the supposedly haunted Carmichael for the sake of her “FreakyLinks”-type website.
Margot’s insistence on filming everything cuts to the question that plagues so many “found footage” films: Why do they keep recording? Here, it’s 100 percent the point of their visit — to capture evidence of ghosts on video. A scary situation is a reason to keep filming, not to stop, and Cognetti and cinematographer Josh Layton know how to frame and light this stuff. They draw our eye to every black shadow and cracked-open door.
Girlfriend Rebecca (Destiny Leilani Brown) is easier than Margot to scare – and understandably so. One of Cognetti’s best set-ups finds Rebecca doing a Zoom job interview and sharing her screen when the file suddenly pops up some surprise photos.
Brother Chase (James Liddell) has a background of psychological troubles, but this is like a vacation; he’s refreshed by what’s essentially a bed-and-breakfast to him. Until things get much weirder than what’s in his brain.
You may not like what you find in this footage
The original “HHLLC” had decent performers in the main roles, but the actors in the framing mechanism – talking heads looking back on the tragedy of a haunted-house walk-through gone wrong – tended to be stiff and fake. The first two sequels seemed to cut corners in the acting department. “Carmichael” notably improves in this arena.
Additional solid turns come in the 1989 footage – with purposely flawed audio (but not to an irksome degree). We meet the Carmichael family, including the youngest daughter Catherine (Cayla Berejikian), who is enamored with her new video camera.
“Carmichael” held my attention the whole way as it places the viewer in the haunted house itself. But cuts to the backstory, as well as side trips such as the women visiting an antique store in Abaddon, provide temporary reprieves in the tension while also adding to the mystery.
We learn about the backstory of the manor, unsolved deaths and disappearances in the Carmichael family, the Basement Clown and perhaps the Tully cult of the “Hell House” trilogy. A lesser saga – say, “The Conjuring’s” “Annabelle” branch – would tell a rote story safely set in the past about a haunted object.
That’s not to say Cognetti doesn’t hit expected beats about how “evil never dies,” etc. But he comes at it in a grounded manner that leans toward realistic rather than slick. Unlike the lower points of the previous “Hell House” films, what we find in the “Carmichael Manor” footage isn’t distractingly gimmicky, nor does it aim too high with grand sequences or statements. But it’s often terrifying, and that’s more than enough.