Hell House LLC: Lineage review
What the Hell (House) happened here?
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Hell House LLC: Lineage
Directed by Stephen Cognetti
Screenplay by Stephen Cognetti
Starring Elizabeth Vermilyea, Searra Sawka, Mike Sutton, Joe Bandelli, Cayla Berejikian, Victoria Andrunik and Gideon Berger
Hell House LLC: Lineage Review
Two years ago, Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor dropped on Shudder to series high critical acclaim. The fourth installment of the franchise, Origins felt like a leap forward. Though the original Hell House LLC is a fan favorite, Origins followed two sequels that weren’t nearly as well received. I skipped those two sequels due to word of mouth, so I have no opinion on their quality. I can, however, speak on the first and fourth films in the series. The 2015 original was a good movie. 2023’s Origins was a great one.
Writer/director Stephen Cognetti has been the creative force behind the entire franchise. I left Origins with two distinct feelings. First, I couldn’t wait to see what Cognetti gave us next. The creative and production quality of Origins opened exciting possibilities for a fifth iteration. Second, I wished that Origins had received a theatrical release. I watched it in the middle of the day…sun shining through my windows. And it genuinely frightened me. That’s no small task when you watch a half a dozen horror movies every week. I could only imagine how effective the film would have been in a darkened movie theater. I actually paused Origins at one point to recognize that I was actually feeling scared. You can’t do that in a movie theater. Nowhere to run. Surrounded by darkness and sound.
Hell House LLC: Lineage has arrived as an answer to my first feeling. It’s now playing in theaters as an answer to my second. To say I was excited about the prospect of another unnerving found footage horror romp would be an understatement. Then the movie started…and it wasn’t any of those things. At all. To a stunning degree.
This is where we need to revisit our old friends: intention and execution.
I have all the respect in the world for Cognetti’s intention with Hell House LLC: Lineage. His found footage franchise peaked with the release of Origins. Instead of trying to top it or simply repeat it…Cognetti changed it completely. Lineage is not a found footage movie. The first film in the franchise presented as a standard narrative production. It’s a jarring choice at first…but, hey, there’s too much complaining about the format to be upset when someone chooses not to use it. I’ll admit to being bummed that the creative leap of Origins was being abandoned completely after such an effective outing…but most great horror movies aren’t found footage, are they?
Which brings us to execution.
Oh boy. Hell House LLC: Lineage is a total dud. The story leans all the way into connecting the pieces of its lore that have been scattered throughout the series. Maybe I was mistaken about what was making the series work…but it was never the preponderance of lore. It was creepy clowns, strange noises and sense of impending doom. Lineage believes otherwise. It plays like a compendium novel for viewers seeking extra backstory on the events of the series. It would be like Mark Frost making a movie out of his Twin Peaks companion books and calling it season 4. Hard to imagine a worse idea…and that’s what Lineage actually is.
I suppose super fans of the franchise may get a thrill from seeing a past survivor’s story continue. It’s from one of the movies I didn’t watch so everything I understood about her situation came from the copious amount of commentary delivered within the film. It also brings back characters from Origins…both living and dead. That part I enjoyed a bit more…but even it was just window dressing for what felt like taking a class on a subject you only have a passing interest in. Every aspect of the series is touched on, connected and recontextualized into a bigger picture. My question after watching it happen is simple. Who asked for this?
The switch away from found footage does the film no favors either. Whatever touch Cognetti (no pun intended) found that allowed him to deliver the terrifying moments of Origins is completely gone in Lineage. It’s simply not scary. Textbooks often aren’t. The clowns are still here, of course. The lead clown is on a path of vengeance…actively running around like a routine slasher killer. It completely strips the character of what makes him work. Which is something that Cognetti must have known given that he created what made him work in the first place. I get it…you can’t just keep doing the same thing. Like I said, I respect the intention. But the execution buries it.
Hell House LLC: Lineage is said to be the final chapter of the Hell House franchise. I don’t know if that will end up being true or not…only Cognetti can know that. He’s also the only one who can know why the series chose this radical departure from what made it work. Ending a series with something totally different is a bold choice that should be celebrated. If the result had been at all effective…maybe we would be.
Scare Value
There’s no way to look at Hell House LLC: Lineage as anything but a disappointment. I’m all for bold swings…but this one missed completely. If it truly is the end of the Hell House franchise…the series goes out with a whimper. An overly serious and totally unscary lecture about the meaning and connections behind a series of films whose greatest successes came from hinting at a bigger picture while letting scary clowns stand in the corner of the room. It’s cool that it meant more to its creative director…but this would have been better off as an answer to a Reddit AMA question than a feature film.
1.5/5
Hell House LLC: Lineage Link
Buy tickets on Fandango
