Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Stephen Cognetti
Starring: Elizabeth Vermilyea, Searra Sawka, Mike Sutton, Joe Bandelli
For those of us who are fans of low budget indie horror, Stephen Cognetti's Hell House LLC series has been our equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Over the last decade we've gotten a new instalment every couple of years, and amazingly, the quality has never diminished. In fact, the most recent entry, 2023's Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor is arguably the best of the bunch, a rare feat for a fourth entry in a franchise.
Unfortunately that run of quality comes to an end with fifth entry Hell House LLC: Lineage. This is The Phantom Menace of Hell House LLC movies, a tedious movie filled with leaden exposition that seeks to expand the series but only makes it unnecessarily complicated in doing so. It's only short of including a scene where characters argues about the taxation of tax routes.
Returning to the series is Elizabeth Vermilyea as Vanessa Shepherd, the heroine of the third instalment, 2019's Lake of Fire. In that movie Vanessa was a TV journalist hired to document the production of an interactive theatre experience held at the series' pivotal location, the infamous Abbadon Hotel. After several spooky occurrences, the hotel was attacked by a cult, with Vanessa one of only two survivors. She's now running a bar in the town of Abbadon, and is menaced by nightmares and visions that tie into her ordeal at the hotel. When a local man dies in mysterious circumstances, Vanessa suspects the hotel is connected. Showing up in town is the previous entry's Alicia (Searra Sawka), an investigator who believes someone or something is enacting revenge on the descendants of those connected with a 1989 car crash involving the Carmichael family.
If you've seen all four of the previous films this will all make sense. If you haven't, you'll find yourself lost early on in Lineage. But even for fans of the series, sitting through characters rehashing its lore while adding complicated new elements doesn't make for an entertaining experience.
Cognetti has dropped the found footage approach of the previous films, and Lineage lacks the immediacy that format brought to its predecessors. With this year's 825 Forest Road, Cognetti's first film outside the Hell House LLC series, the director proved himself adept at working within conventional horror filmmaking. It's surprising then to find him struggling to conjure up scares, suspense and atmosphere here.
Cognetti falls back heavily on the infamous clown mannequin that has given us the willies throughout the series. But with said clown now moving around like Michael Myers it's nowhere near as creepy as when it remained an inanimate object. In previous films Cognetti wisely kept the clown's movements offscreen, and much of the creepiness came from seeing it appear in various places with no explanation of how it got there. Watching it now lumber around like a second rate slasher villain feels like a betrayal of the series' ethos.
Lineage suffers from some amateurish supporting performances, which is a real problem when the cast is burdened with so much explainey janey dialogue. Vermilyea was very good as the lead of 825 Forest Road, but here she struggles to bring life to the mopey Vanessa, who sleepwalks through the movie, more disinterested than traumatised.
With this fifth chapter expanding the mythology (in uninteresting directions) and climaxing with an open ending, it's clear Cognetti isn't done with this series yet. A sixth entry will need to do a lot of work to get the series back on track after this derailment.
Hell House LLC: Lineage is on Shudder from October 30th.
