My most anticipated release of 2025 sadly turned out to be my biggest disappointment. Stephen Cognetti’s Hell House LLC: Lineage fails to land a successful sequel to a franchise I adore. What could’ve been a deep dive into Hell House’s lore ended up being two hours of time-wasting dialogue and unsuccessful scares.
This fifth entry follows Vanessa Shepard (Elizabeth Vermilyea), a survivor of the Abaddon Hotel who returns seeking closure. Instead, she’s haunted by nightmares and cryptic visions of the hotel. When another survivor dies mysteriously, Vanessa heads to the Carmichael Manor, where the horrors of Abaddon first spawned.
The franchise began in 2015 with the release of Hell House LLC, a found-footage supernatural horror. To this day, it’s the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. Everything about it keeps you on edge: the claustrophobic setting of an abandoned hotel turned haunted attraction; the use of light and shadow to draw your eye away while something lurks in the corner of the screen; the character dynamics creating tension and urgency. Hell House LLC is a simple but effective film: it pulls you in, makes your heart race and your breath shorten. It’s a masterclass in found-footage horror.
Hell House LLC: Lineage abandons the found-footage approach for the first time in the series, opting instead for more linear storytelling. While I wasn’t excited about this change, I figured that letting go of the found-footage gimmick would give Cognetti room to experiment, to showcase new skills and new scares. Somehow, the opposite happened. The movie lacks the charm and intrigue that made the original Hell House so special. There’s no mystery, no tension. Each scare is more predictable than the last. The clever use of darkness and suggestion that once defined the series is gone; everything is over-explained and over-lit, which only undermines the horror
This is especially true for the clown. Hell House’s clown is an icon. He IS the moment. What made him so terrifying in the first movie was his unpredictability. We didn’t know where he was going to appear next or what kind of evil hid behind the mask. We only knew he was dangerous. Lineage makes sure every question is answered, every angle shown. We see the clown so often in this movie that he loses all power over us. The fog has lifted, and instead of a pure force of evil, we’re just left with a puppet, a man in a costume.
The film’s structure also feels unbalanced. The first hour is expository dialogue of Vanessa’s trauma, her struggle with alcohol, and night terrors. I spent the whole time wishing we would just get to Carmichael Manor. When we finally did, nothing happened that we hadn’t already seen in Hell House LLC: Origins. Cognetti played it safe to the point of boredom, predictability.
This franchise is far from perfect (Lake of Fire, I’m looking at you) but insofar it had been cohesive, there was a very specific vision of it which kept fans wanting more. This latest installment wasn’t dissimilar to a filler episode, an excuse to drop in random bits of lore just for the sake of it. If Cognetti is building up to a better 6th movie, maybe it would’ve been better to jump straight into it, and not have us sit around for 2 hours waiting for something scary. If this had been labeled a spin-off rather than a direct sequel, maybe it would’ve worked better. But as a continuation of Hell House LLC, it doesn’t.
Hell House LLC: Lineage lacks the pure, unapologetic horror of the first few films. I saw none of the intelligence that made the originals work. None of the playfulness, well-rounded characters, and cleverness that I know Cognetti is capable of. Just a flat story and predictable jumpscares that made me long to go back to Abaddon Hotel once again.
Hell House LLC: Lineage is now streaming on Shudder