HELL HOUSE
PLOT-Documentary about a church in Texas that assembles a huge elaborate "haunted house" every Halloween to scare all the kiddies straight.
VIOLENCE-Attractions in the house depict all kinds of death, of note is a girl who bleeds to death due to having taken the "morning after" pill.
SEX/NUDITY-None.
WHY I WATCHED IT-I just happened to be watching the Independent Film Channel late one night, and this movie came on. I couldn't believe what I was seeing was real. Excuse the pun, but HOLY SHIT!
THE DOPE-When I was a wee lad growing up in the city, we had this thing every year called "The Haunted Crack House" that our school took us to. Basically it was a spook house designed to freak us out so we wouldn't try drugs. Around each corner was a bug-eyed smack addict, or a screaming woman, or someone dead on a toilet with a needle hanging from their arm. Granted, I came up in the 80s during the height of "Just Say No", but if the stench of pothead hippies at my school wasn't enough to turn me from drugs, the Haunted Crackhouse definitely helped. Anyway, HELL HOUSE is supposed to work in a similar way, I guess. But it does more for spreading ignorance than it does education. Like I said, I couldn't believe how nuts these people were. The documentary is almost making fun of the church people who run Hell House, although they don't need the help of editing to look stupid. All they have to do is open their mouths. Any free-thinking person, christian or non, will shake their heads in disbelief at the stuff that goes on in this film. The church has been putting on Hell House for well over 10 years, and it's turned into a technological marvel, complete with high grade lighting and special effects. The engineers watch all the people going through the house on little monitors, and everything is meticulously planned. I wonder how they got the money?
MEMORABLE SCENES-In one "scene" acted out in the house, a young man lies in a hospital bed, dying of AIDS. The angel of death explains that the only way he can go to heaven is if he apologizes to god for being a homosexual. What the fuck??? After a group goes through, we see an outraged teen screaming at one of the organizers of Hell House, horribly offended by this. Wouldn't you be?
NOTES-This movie will be released on DVD sometime this month, no clue what extras will be on it, if any.
(May 2003)