Director: Stephen Cognetti
Starring:Vasile Flutur, Jillian Geurts, Joy Shatz .USA. 1h 29m
When a team insists on making a trilogy the second movie often fails to hold up it’s own narrative and becomes a filler, this is exactly what happened to Hell House II. After the massive success with the original movie in 2014/5 which broke all the rules, the sequel lacked in energy and passion but just managed to keep the dream alive for the next installment… but first you have to get through this unbalanced, squiffy movie.
Nine years following the tragic events at the abandon hotel, an investigative news team went searching for answers. The truth was more terrifying than they ever imagined.
It had been eight years since the opening night tragedy of Hell House, LLC and still so many unanswered questions remain. Thanks to an anonymous tip, investigative journalist Jessica Fox (Geurts) is convinced that key evidence is hidden inside the abandoned Abaddon Hotel-evidence that will shed light on the hotel’s mysteries. She assembles a team equally hungry for answers with one goal: break into the hotel and discover the truth.
Usually, with investigate found footage movies the teams go into a situation totally blind or with strange assumptions about what they might run into but in Abaddon, the crew are highly prepared but somehow make a ton of really dumb mistakes, and for the audience, we saw all of these mistakes in the first movie. Running around in a knowingly haunted house, splitting up in small groups and falling for superficial haunted tricks just seems so repetitive. It’s not one that was created for the dedicated fan base to enjoy, but to get people talking about the next feature only. I think for all the people who subscribed to Shudder in hope of continuing this horror gauntlet, the film is only going to dull the impression left by the original.
Everything in HH2 it’s just setting up a third movie, so much could be done to give this it’s own identity and beefed up a whole new set of scares, but rather than trying to be anything itself, most of the new content is all developed around one mysterious and obvious new character who holds information about the cult who started all of the demonic bullshit, but is this enough to build an entire movie?
It’s good to see the props from the first movie had some more use, it’s almost heartwarming to see those freaky life size clowns still stalking around. Producer Joe Bandelli donned the clown mask and costume for this adventure , it’s a shame that the movie has so little impact.
Rating: 3/10
Related: Hell House LLC (2015), Mandy (2018), Terrified (2017), One Cut of the Dead (2017)
Lists: Favourite Found Footage to date, Haunted Houses, Post Discussion
Trailer
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