“I knew it was going to be bad. I did not know it was going to be this bad”.
It occurs to me that a final act can certainly do a lot to change the state of a movie; to elevate it or as the case may be lower it. I am thankful that Hellhouse LLC 2: Abaddon Boogaloo
I also wonder what it is about people like Stephen Cognetti that drives them to see a vision all the way through, for better or for worse. At least it feels like there was a larger vision here going to the first movie. It’s just not a compelling one. It’s hard not to compare him to Corscarelli - both impressive first movies (Phantasm is weirder, and better, than Hellhouse but still), both created a series based on that movies for better or for worse (as it turns out), both have first names that start with “C”. Ok so it’s not hard not to do it but I did it anyway.
I guess I should be happy about the finale, since it at least made the proceedings interesting. In a “I’m watching Michael Scott melt down” sort of way, granted.
Let’s get to it.
In my humble, non expert, just another random asshole on the internet opinion, the very end of the first movie was a mistake. Whoever said it failed to stick the landing was right. It should have ended with (1) the documentary crew - well the two of them besides Mitchell - setting out to enter Hellhouse and we never see them again. (2) the girl not showing up since all she was going to be is basically the avatar of hellhouse on the move. And that’s just less interesting, IMO, than the story of a haunted hotel that seemingly reawakens and claims victims on hand in spectacular fashion.
But the reveal there doesn’t ruin the movie or anything. What it does do is set up a shtick for the seqel that doesn’t work at all until that spectacularly awful finale. Hellhouse is out recruting people to come explore and build forts in the back yard, and mailing people shit, and emailing other people shit, and submitting poems to /r/poetry and /r/nightmarefuel and the well crafted mystery of the first movie diminishes in the face of this, before. . . well. . .
Cognetti knows a lot more than me about movies and movie related things. But this was an awesome misfire. The sequel is mostly an ineffective retread for the first hour, making bad “expand the universe/explain backstory” decisions and not really doing much of note. There are a few creepy segments but they were all done in the first movie. You never come to feel a particular way about any of the characters. You wonder, what’s the point really?
Well, the motherfucking point is what I believe is cinema’s first Satanic GhostDemon Bond Villain showing up and dropping knowledge bombs like mad. And suddenly we’re in the plaid, as the bard once said. And while the entire finale is awful, it’s spectacularly and amazingly awful in ways I have never seen. I mean he expositions for 15 minutes. Like that actually just happened. A movie series that never features a single extended dialog sequence said "not only are we going to introduced what is apparently the main series antagonist, but we’re going to do it Bond Villain style. Except he’ll kill the people after because he’s smarter than Bond Villains.
Don’t tell me this wasn’t the most unexpected thing like ever. Because it was. I am at a complete loss. Now I wish the third movie was a Raid: Redepmption crossover where expert martial arts trained cops infiltrate his tenement base and just fuck shit up silat style for 90 minutes but never mind.
A microcosm of the movie not working is the end, when we cut back to the MI6 police interrogation room and the dude crosses in front of the camera and when he does the blond journalist lady’s face turns into beat up angry monster face before he crosses back and she looks normal again before saying “I was at Abaddon hotel. You should visit there”. If you’re going to ride the “Abaddon Hotel is on the internet haxing your shit” wave, just stick to the “you should visit there”. It’s more effective and creepy, even in the circumstances, than monster face. But where the first movie opts for some subtly and leaving much to the imagination, this movie does not do that. And it suffers for it.
But at least we got a Bond Villain out of it.
There is no way I can skip the impending trainwreck of the third movie now. No way. It’s destiny.