Movie Madness: Hell House, LLC (parts 1 [2015], 2 [2018], and 3 [2019])
(Available on Tubi)
Yes, I sat there and watched the whole trilogy. Wanna make something of it?
Part 1
A group of young people arrive at the Abaddon Hotel, preparing to make it into a Halloween haunted house. Except creepy stuff starts happening long before the attraction is open to the public! There are shadows where there shouldn’t be and clowns where there shouldn’t be.
And of course, they are filming everything. And, it is framed as a documentary about what happened, so we get all kinds of angles on the story.
On opening night, disaster strikes, although police et al aren’t really sure what “disaster” there exactly was (or maybe they are but they are keeping it a big secret? How much do the authorities know about the supernatural/demons? What are they hiding from us?). There are some casualties and a surprise ending.
Part 2
The Abaddon Hotel sits abandoned (“Abaddon-ed”? Ha!). Stupid teenagers are breaking into the hotel just to do stupid YouTube stunts (and then they are never seen again! Serves ‘em right! Stupid young people).
(Why is this hotel still standing?)
The public is still trying to figure out what happened that fateful night when it was a Halloween haunted house. A town official, the camera guy from the documentary crew from the first one, and a psychic appear on some sort of mystery show (“Morning Mysteries,” maybe?) to discuss it.
A different film crew decides to go back to the hotel, including the camera guy and the psychic (who wants to be famous). So of course, everyone is filming everything. They are trying to find some old tapes or old documents or something – honestly I’m not sure what they are looking for, but that might be on me because I think I got distracted by my salt and vinegar chips (salt and vinegar potato chips can’t just be eaten; they have to be relished and truly enjoyed).
It doesn’t end well and there is a surprise ending (when are people going to learn to stay out of this place?).
Part 3
This one is different! They were going to bulldoze the thing (finally), but some rich guy buys it because he wants to use it for some performance art piece. A film crew is filming everything for a TV show (of course) – Morning Mysteries, the same TV show that was in part 2. I only mention this because there is a different hostess and they say something mean about the hostess in part 2 and I wonder if that was a diss on that actress or something. Drama!
This one, like the others, has its spooky moments (pay attention to what is going on in the background when the camera is on a character), but by this point the gag is wearing a little thin. There was another surprise revelation, and I suppose it worked but could have been used better at the end, which was a little wonky and almost seemed hastily put together.
Gratuitous horrible CGI in the last scene that just about ruined it (part 3)
Gratuitous stupid and repulsive guy who only wants one thing (part 1)
Gratuitous mentions of bad wine (part 3)
What did he whisper to the TV show hostess (part 3)?
What did the priest send to that rich guy (part 3)?
All of these were better than Scream 6.
