Last year, I discovered the Hell House LLC films on Amazon Prime. These found footage films (you can read our own Marie Gilbert’s review of the first one here) about the nefarious goings on at The Abaddon Hotel really captured my imagination, probably because of my love of both the found footage genre and real-life haunted house attractions. I’ve often said that I’m an easy scare. I truly, truly love me some jump scares, and the first three Hell House LLC films delivered those in abundance for me.
The same can be said with Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor, the latest installment in the series, which introduces a new location but that also ties in nicely with the previous films. Truth be told, as I sat in the dark on my couch, my faithful dog my only companion, this film had me extremely scared. I wondered with legitimate fear what was around every corner of The Carmichael Manor and I even let out a pretty big yelp at a certain moment. Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor scared the shit out of me, and that’s exactly what I wanted out of it.
Stephen Cognetti, the writer/director of all the Hell House LLC films was kind enough to answer some questions about Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor. You’ll find our interview after the synopsis and trailer below.
In 2021, a group of internet sleuths travel to the remote Carmichael Manor, deep in the woods of the Rockland County, New York, site of the infamous 1989 Carmichael family murders that have gone unsolved to this day. What they discover are secrets that have been hidden away for decades and a terror that has been lurking in the shadows long before Hell House.
Andy Burns: Stephen, congrats on making a film that absolutely scared the hell out of me. I yelped at one part while watching Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor and didn’t sleep well that night. Is this the sort of reaction you’d hope for with the new movie?
Stephen Cognetti: Thank you! Yes! Definitely the reaction any horror filmmaker hopes for. It was a full year of writing and planning out every frame of the scares in this film, and I can only hope they’re effective and the viewer feels something from them.
Andy Burns: Tell me about the genesis of this fourth Hell House LLC film.
Stephen Cognetti: There are so many reasons I wanted to make this film, but the true genesis of the film is that I was very eager to make another Hell House, but have it be original, and I also wanted to make use of a villain we only sometimes saw in the previous films, the clown. I love a good haunted house tale and I thought a found-footage haunted house story within the Hell House world would be a lot of fun to write, and it was. I had the story and scares almost immediately, wrote a draft, then spent the next year rewriting, refining the story, characters and scares right up until production started in April of ’23.
Andy Burns: You did a great job of weaving the mythology of the first three films with the story you’re telling in the fourth. Talk to me about how you went about plotting this new film and how important it was to have that connective tissue to the original trilogy.
Stephen Cognetti: Three years ago I wrote out about 120 pages of script of what happened in the Abaddon Hotel in the ‘80s leading up to the mass suicide. Who was in the cult, what they were doing, how it affected the town, and what part a young hotel employee named Patrick Carmichael played in it all. I wrote it out in the off chance I would get to make a prequel film or series with a real budget and shot traditional narrative style instead of found footage. For many reason it was going to be impossible to make that happen. So years later, when I decided I wanted to make a fourth, I immediately knew I wanted it set in the childhood home of Patrick Carmichael, and I weaved the backstory of what I already wrote about his experience at the hotel as the background to the main plot in this film. We get glances of what happened to Patrick at the hotel but only from the perspective of his family shooting home movies. I wanted to make sure that even though this was an original story, it still relied on the structure and mysteries set up in the previous films and gave the viewer something fun to piece together how it all fits, like a haunted puzzle.
Andy Burns: You’re creating a really interesting and engaging mythology for your films – what books or films have helped inspire you?
Stephen Cognetti: Anything Stephen King writes always inspires me. But actually, I drew a lot of inspiration from the TV series Lost, which is a totally different genre and style, but I absolutely loved watching that show, looking for easter eggs, jumping from different timelines to explain certain mysteries that were set up in previous seasons. Hell House is nothing on that level of course, but I always tried to write stories that had a lot mystery set-ups that you wanted to figure out, and easter eggs you can have fun spotting or missing, but obviously on a much smaller indie found-footage level.
Andy Burns: So much of the success of the Hell House LLC films is location, location, location. Could you tell me how you found the house that became The Carmichael Manor?
Stephen Cognetti: I kind of painted myself in a corner when I called it the “Carmichael Manor”, because I knew I then had to actually find a manor, which was going to be a challenge. So I started writing in March of 2022 and by the fall/winter of 2022, I knew I had a good enough draft that I could begin both casting and location scouting. So I began frantically searching all over Pennsylvania, my home state, where I like to film everything, mostly because it’s close to New York City where the majority of our cast and crew would be coming from.
In January of 2023 I came across a gorgeous manor location that looked too perfect to be true, and the best part of it is that it was only a short distance from where I live, near Scranton, PA. I met the owners, got a tour and they were completely on board with letting us film there. Once we had the contract signed I immediately began tweaking some of the scares based on this location. One of my favorite scares, when Chase sees the shadows moving in the hallway, came to me while just walking the halls of this new location and loving how creepy it could be in daylight as well as night.
Andy Burns: I’m a fan of found footage films, though I find it takes a certain amount of imagination and skill to make a really good one. The Hell House LLC films have all delivered for me – I’m curious as to what the keys are for you as a creator that makes a good found footage film.
Stephen Cognetti: I think it’s the same formula that applies broadly across every style of film, not just found footage. There has to be some hook that engages the audience, characters you enjoy seeing on the screen, and good scares. With the original Hell House, I tried to hook the audience early on with the mystery we present in the opening: What happened on opening night? Something that makes the audience lean in and say, “Okay, I’m interested, go on”. And with this latest film I wanted to do the same thing, open with a hook that would make the viewer want to stick around and find out what happened to Margot and Rebecca. They know the ending already. They know the Hell House crew didn’t make it, they know Margot and Rebecca didn’t make it, but if the viewer is interested in finding out the why, then I think we will have been successful. Hopefully, people enjoy it, fingers crossed!
Andy Burns: Have you considered taking the Hell House LLC franchise into other media – novels or comics, even video games?
Stephen Cognetti: 1000%. I know I will never have the budget to fully materialize what happened in the hotel in the ‘80s. So in the back of my mind I always tell myself that one day I will sit down and make a novelization of the events, and since I’m a visual person I would flesh it out with concept art. But reality sets in pretty quickly and I know I’m not really a novelist. That is a skill set I do not think I possess, nor do I have the time to write this story because every second I devote to that is a second I’m not working on my next film, and filmmaking is what I like to do most. So it remains just a fun idea.
Andy Burns: Can we expect a fifth Hell House LLC film?
Stephen Cognetti: I’m currently writing two different scripts. A non-Hell House horror film and the next Hell House of this new line of films. I’m hoping by the winter I’ll have a good enough draft of both to decide what will be next and there are many factors that go into making that determination. So, all of that to say, yes. There is a follow up story to this current Hell House that I want to make and I would really love for it to be traditional narrative and not found footage.
Andy Burns: Finally, it’s Halloween season, so I’d love to know, what’s the one horror film that left its mark on you, and why?
Stephen Cognetti: My answer is The Exorcist. Always and forever The Exorcist. It is my favourite by far and definitely left a mark on me. I think what they did on that film was classic filmmaking at its best, in-camera techniques and creating such an eerie uncomfortable atmosphere from the first frame on along with the perfect score. Friedkin was a genius.
Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor premieres on Shudder starting October 30. Thanks to Stephen Cognetti for his time.
