For the fifth installment in the unexpected Hell House LLC franchise, creator/writer/director Stephen Cognetti takes us on a convoluted trip through series lore in Hell House LLC: Lineage. Two years after the surprisingly good Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor, Cognetti returns in an effort to weave together all the disparate elements of his franchise with a wildly ambitious approach. For the first time, Hell House shifts to a strictly narrative format, and away from the found footage element that was such a distinct component of its personality. For this viewer, that major change feels like such an outlier, especially for an allegedly final installment, that it truly needed to justify its existence. Though Cognetti has a grasp on what makes for a frightening image, his scripting simply lets down this entry at every corner. A decrepit relic from a bygone era, Hell House LLC: Lineage swings for the fences in its attempts to tie up the franchise at large in a tidy bow, but merely crumbles apart under the weight of its oddities.
Is there an inextricable link between the Carmichael Manor and the Abaddon Hotel? Cognetti certainly seems to make that argument. Unfortunately, the best set piece gets wasted early—a drunken fool stumbles into a game booth at a fair in the 90s. He discovers a pile of money sitting near one of the signature clown mannequins. After he grabs the cash, the whole booth closes up on the man, sealing him inside with the chilling makeup-smeared visage of the clown. Nothing afterward comes close to the sheer terror this opening dredges up, which is a real shame. At its best, the series was almost always capable of delivering bold, horrific scares that would sear into your mind. Lineage seems only capable of showing recurring clowns. This element becomes predictable—if a red ball rolls into a frame, there will likely be a clown not far behind. What once functioned well as an exciting found footage gem has grown stale.
The actual storyline is even more frustrating. Vanessa (Elizabeth Vermilyea), the survivor of Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire, has been plagued by visions of the clown, and her time spent at the Abaddon. After the death of her friend, Bobby (Bo Bogle), Vanessa meets Alicia (Searra Sawka), a researcher linking the disparate tragedies into a sprawling tapestry of horror. One would assume that from here, the two women would team up together to face down whatever crosses their path. Instead, the narrative further splinters by sending each heroine off on her own journey. The editing frustrates as it juxtaposes their stories against one another. This often cuts into the tension, and annoyingly chops up a conversation into dozens of pieces.
Lineage‘s biggest misstep of all is dropping the found footage format. Especially if truly meant to be the final installment, why would abandoning the very conceit that started the series be treated as a good idea? The initial sequels weren’t great, but they did at least manage to retain some of the atmosphere and restraint from the ground-breaking original. Cognetti overstuffs the plot with explanations and Easter eggs that are just exhausting to comprehend. Even having seen every entry before, Lineage becomes difficult to follow at times as it meanders along from one symbol to the next. The unknown usually ends up scarier than the overexplained, and Lineage perfectly exemplifies this sad fact.
If Lineage didn’t go out of its way to make every entry essential to the endgame, would it even be worth watching in the first place? The characters are barely defined, and the acting leaves something to be desired. Vanessa’s trauma arc is undermined by clunky dialogue, which could absolutely be due to the writing rather than any shortcomings on Vermilyea’s part. Without the immersion offered by the found footage format, this one ends up as more of a yawn, a film that thinks showing numerous characters simply snatched by a clown is enough after all that buildup. That the finale ends up being the sole theatrical release also disappoints. Lineage should have been a potent swan song; instead, it fails to even justify existing in the first place. Should Hell House LLC have become a franchise at all when the first film works so well all on its own?
Hell House LLC: Lineage closes out a saga with a whimper when it debuts exclusively in theaters on Friday, August 22nd.
