The day is finally here. It’s Halloween, and you know what that means. It’s the end of the Creeptober movie marathon for 2025. This year I picked a brand-new movie for the 31st, though that selection was mostly out of necessity due to the timing of its streaming release. Do I regret my decision of putting a movie I’d never seen before in the Halloween spot? Read on and find out, because tonight we watch Hell House LLC: Lineage.
Reacting to Hell House LLC: Lineage
I’m not going to bury the lede here. Do I regret putting Hell House LLC: Lineage as the final movie in this year’s marathon? Yes, for the most part I do regret it. I did want to put the movie in the list because it’s one of only two new horror movies we watched during Creeptober this year, the other being V/H/S/Halloween). So, I do not regret putting it in the marathon, I just wish I had been able to put it in a spot earlier during the month. But Lineage was released on Shudder on October 30th, so this was really the only day I could watch it and write about it. Next year I’ll just pick an old favorite for the 31st.
I don’t hate Hell House LLC: Lineage, but of the movies in the franchise that I’ve seen, it is by far my least favorite. We watched the first movie, Hell House LLC, during last year’s Creeptobe, on the 13th of the month. I think that movie is great. Very fun, quite creepy, and well paced. I can’t describe Lineage with any of those same descriptors. It’s subdued, not very scary, and surprisingly slow.
Truth be told, I haven’t seen all of the Hell House LLC movies. There are now five, and I’ve watched all but the third one, Hell House LLC: Lake of Fire. The main character in Lineage, Vanessa, was also in Lake of Fire, but it wasn’t too hard catching up on what I needed to know about her before watching this newest film. At least, I think I knew enough going into this one. There’s a lot of lore built up in this franchise, so maybe watching Lake of Fire is more important than I realize. But there’s a character in Lineage who is a walking and talking exposition dump (Alicia), so I really wasn’t lost for what this movie was trying to accomplish. The problem is, I just never found a reason to care.
Hell House LLC: Lineage focuses way too heavily on the lore of the franchise. I know many people are all about the lore and having every minute detail explained, but sometimes that detracts from the effectiveness of a film. If we compare Lineage to the original Hell House LLC, the original is much more frightening because the focus is on building the main characters and setting up a series of scares. The backstory of the hotel that we get in that movie comes out naturally through discussions and events. The lore makes the experience more interesting, but the main focus is on how the movie affects the viewer emotionally. In Lineage, we get a heavy focus on lore, and the characters all feel underdeveloped. The scares are fairly weak as a result.
Another part of why the scares are weak is because of the switch from found footage to a traditional narrative style. I think that change was a mistake. After experiencing the franchise’s clowns multiple times through the lens of an in-universe camera, seeing them from a detached point of view in Lineage is completely underwhelming. They’re just not as creepy. Also, they’re mostly going after characters we barely know, so the fear is muted. Seeing a character in a movie you know nothing about get stalked is far less tense than seeing a character you do care about go through the same thing. One of the advantages of found footage is that it feels like you, the viewer, are practically in the world yourself. That immediacy is the point, and it heightens the effect of the fear. I also just think that the filmmakers are better with found footage, and they have a ways to go with crafting genuine frights in a traditional way.
I’m sure if I was a rabid fan of the Hell House LLC lore, then I’d be more into Lineage. But I’m not, so I can only judge the movie on how well it works as a supernatural horror film. From that perspective it’s okay at best, but worse when I think about how they could have given us a lot of the same information, but in a found footage movie. I absolutely think that would have been better. Also, leave some things as a mystery. It’s spookier if I don’t know why the killings started in the first place, or if it’s presented as an urban legend that may or may not be true.
So, since Hell House LLC: Lineage was a bit of a bummer to end Creeptober on, please go watch something else spooky tonight. Watch a few of your favorite horror movies well into the night. I’m probably going to go watch Night of the Demons (1988) and Halloween III (1982) since I haven’t done that yet this year. There were also a ton of new horror movies released through this month, so maybe take a chance on one or more of those. Just so you know, I’m going to finally dive into the new movies from October throughout next month when the Creepy Catalog Daily Digest returns. So please look forward to that. For now though, happy Halloween!
