I watched the original Hell House LLC back in 2018, shortly after it had landed on streaming and earned its fair share of positive buzz. Unsurprisingly, it was an experience I didn’t really enjoy and just moved on from. Seven years later, the fifth film in the franchise is set to land on Shudder, Hell House LLC: Lineage, so I decided to not only revisit that original entry, but also check out some of the sequels I never had an interest in. Unsurprisingly, I still didn’t like it, nor did I enjoy the sequels. In case you can’t see the writing on the wall, let me confirm that, having now seen Lineage, I still don’t like these movies! And I’m calling it quits on watching them!

With the previous film in the franchise, Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor, having elements that took place before the events of other entries in the series, Lineage serves as more of a sequel to Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire. Lineage focuses on Lake of Fire‘s Vanessa Shepherd (Elizabeth Vermilyea) as she tries to process and move on from the horrifying events she experienced in that movie and in the Abaddon Hotel. Even though she may have left the hotel behind, others who have been inside the Abaddon start to die, leading Vanessa to wonder what is happening to them and how long it will be before death catches up to her.

The first four entries in this series were largely a combination of found footage recorded by the characters, interspersed with footage from news programs, talking-head interviews, and police recordings. Lineage, though, made the choice to pivot away from found footage and unfolds like a traditional movie. In this sense, I was immediately interested in the experience, as the found footage nature of previous films highlighted the poor writing and the inauthentic performances. It’s that much harder to believe a character is experiencing these events in a found footage format, as no one really acted the way genuine human beings act. In addition to allowing the actors to deliver different kinds of performances, this new format allowed director Stephen Cognetti to deliver scares in entirely different ways. This decision will likely be divisive among the franchise’s fans, as those who liked the found-footage angle will likely be disappointed, while others might appreciate seeing this mythology from a new lens.

Given that the transition in the [REC] franchise from found footage to traditional filmmaking with the third movie opened the door to new terrors while still keeping the spirit of its predecessors alive, I had hope that a new cinematic perspective could make me like Lineage. Instead, Lineage is the same quality as the installments in the franchise that came before it. For every pro Lineage earns from leaving found footage behind, there’s a con, making it an entirely lateral move. The shaky nature of the found footage is gone, but these movies don’t feel quite as frightening when you no longer feel like you’re experiencing it firsthand. The cinematography in Lineage is relatively competent, yet by getting better looks at what’s meant to be creepy, we realize they aren’t all that creepy after all. Rather than injecting a freshness into the franchise, we’re just looking at the same stuff from a different angle.

For those entirely unfamiliar, the debut movie focused on a tragedy occurring in a haunted house that was supposedly the site of real-world tragedies. Throughout subsequent films, audiences learned more about these tragedies, who was responsible for them, and how this house was only the tip of the iceberg of terror, as the films also followed characters in the present day still trying to revive the Abaddon Hotel.

Even having seen multiple of these films, the mythology and characters are so uninteresting and so convoluted, it’s hard to keep track of anything. I know for sure that there’s a creepy clown that moves around when it’s not supposed to, but outside of that, I don’t remember any of these characters or have any sort of connection to them, as both they and the narrative feel like they’re meant to appeal to the lowest common denominator to the point that it’s all forgettable. They aren’t necessarily offensively bad or actively make these movies a painful experience; they just leave my head immediately after the credits roll.

That said, I do know that these movies have fans, and I don’t fault those fans for being drawn to these movies. Some people have a soft spot for found footage or haunted houses or mockumentary terror, and that’s great! For those people, Hell House LLC: Lineage is a lot more of the same, though told through a different cinematic lens — which is sure to entice some fans and irritate others — and since it’s a lot more of the same, it’s a “same” that doesn’t resonate with me at all. Oh well, at least I still have the horrors of the real world!

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