He's coming and you're all going to Hell.
Hell House LLC III: The Lake of Fire is an indie Found Footage horror film from the Hell House LLC franchise, written and directed by Stephen Cognetti. A year after Jessica Fox's investigative team went missing in the Abaddon Hotel the infamous landmark is about to be demolished when media mogul Russel Wynn buys the property and converts it into the set for his interactive theater show Insomnia. He invites newly hired Morning Mysteries reporter Vanessa Shepherd to film everything in the run-up to opening night, even encouraging the cast and crew of Insomnia to carry cameras provided by her at all times and film everything going on behind the scenes. The eerie sightings captured on tape by the crew only raise further questions about Wynn's entire venture as the fateful day approaches.
Hell House LLC III: The Lake of Fire was released as a Shudder exclusive on September 19th, 2019.
Hell House LLC III: The Lake of Fire provides examples of:
- The Artifact: In-universe, there is no reason why the crew for Insomnia would keep the clown mannequins around. The most effective scare in the movie comes from them.
- Bittersweet Ending: Tully is finally defeated and the gate closed forever, and the Morning Mysteries crew members are resurrected by Wynn, but the Hell House LLC crew are trapped in a purgatory of some sort. Then Wynn appears and opens a portal to the afterlife, and their souls, and all the souls that Tully had trapped, are finally free from the Abaddon.
- Chekhov's Gun: Max's motorized Lazy Susan is prominently shown during his introductory scene. At the film's climax, one of the Morning Mysteries cameras lands on it, providing a literal Round Table Shot as Tully's cultists swarm out of the basement and attack the guests.
- Dead All Along: Andrew Tully really did commit suicide but the rituals he performed allowed his spirit to inhabit the Abaddon Hotel. Like other spirits, he can leave for a time to lure more "guests" to the hotel.
- Deal with the Devil: Insomnia, the show that Wynn is producing, is a modern-day take on the Faust legend. Tully interrupts the show mid-filming to mock this trope before murdering one of the actors.
- Drone of Dread: Much like the previous films, the score either consists of the piano melody or this trope.
- Good All Along: After acting shady for the majority of the film and being fully aware that he was bringing souls for Tully to damn, Wynn is revealed to have died in the car crash but come back, granting him the power to finally bring an end to Tully's diabolical schemes.
- Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Playing With. The previous instalments led the viewers to believe that the date of October 8 might have some special significance for the Abaddon Hotel. After this instalment though, it rather seems that it's the month of October as such. Probably due to Halloween...
- Karma Houdini Warranty: After several decades of luring souls into Hell, Tully is finally Killed Off for Real by Wynn.
- Messianic Archetype: Wynn is given many subtle details that make him analogous to Jesus Christ throughout the movie, fitting his ultimate role in defeating Tully. He's revealed to have died in a car crash but, much like Jesus, rose from the dead as an agent of Heaven. When he brings the crew to dinner the night before opening, he's only able to get a bread basket which he lets everyone else take from, mirroring the Eucharist at The Last Supper, Wynn's seating position even having him in the same spot as Jesus. He likewise provides his own wine for the crew to signify the Blood of Christ. Lastly, much like Jesus was crucified to save people from sin, Wynn gives up his own life to kill Tully, destroy the Abaddon Hotel, and free the souls it had already claimed.
- Mission from God: It is implied that this is a literal example for Russel Wynn. His mission is to end Tully's reign of evil and close the hellmouth for good. He apparently was granted some sort of divine or angelic powers as seen in the final confrontation of the movie.
- Monster Clown: The iconic clown mannequin makes a few more appearances ... and scares.
- Off-the-Shelf FX: The basement erupting with cracks of fire and the resulting cave-in in the finale.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Nobody actually dies until the opening night. Andrew Tully wanted as many victims as possible, and any death before that time would probably have led to the canceling of the show.
- Status Quo Is God: The ending of the second movie (Jessica luring the police to the hotel) implied that Tully was finally prepared to abandon his unstated policy of no direct harm to the authorities, law enforcement, emergency services etc., but nothing of any such attack was ever mentioned in the third instalment. On the other hand, the authorities in the franchise only ever react to everything with trying to stop any information flow (done easier if all the victims are state servants themselves), and then
for some reason they ''did'' decide to tear the hotel down before Wynn bought it... - Voice of the Legion: Tully's voice distorts at times, as does the offscreen Sara Havel's.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Wynn allows his cast and crew to be put through the torments of the Abaddon Hotel and knows he's bringing in sacrifices for Tully and his cult, but it's all with the intention of killing Tully and closing the gate once and for all.
