The Final Descent That Forgot Where It Started

Read Time:5 Minute, 55 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Hell House LLC: Lineage
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Genre: Horror
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director(s): Stephen Cognetti
Writer(s): Stephen Cognetti
Cast: Elizabeth Vermilyea, Searra Sawka, Mike Sutton, Joe Bandelli, Cayla Berejikian, Victoria Andrunik, Gideon Berger
Where to Watch: available on Shudder October 30, 2025

RAVING REVIEW: After nearly a decade of hauntings, possessions, and theories about the infamous Abaddon Hotel, Stephen Cognetti’s HELL HOUSE LLC: LINEAGE arrives with the heavy task of tying it all together. What should have been a dark, satisfying sendoff to one of the more inventive found-footage franchises instead ends up as a muddled, exposition-heavy finale that leaves you asking the same question as its characters—why are we still here?

The story follows Vanessa Shepherd (Elizabeth Vermilyea), a woman recovering from a near-death experience who begins to suffer terrifying nightmares connected to the Abaddon Hotel and the Carmichael family. Her trauma soon bleeds into reality as mysterious deaths occur around her. Each new clue draws Vanessa deeper into the mythology that stretches across the previous films, connecting her fate to Abaddon’s cursed lineage. On paper, this setup sounds like the perfect way to close the loop. In execution, it feels like Cognetti got so tangled in his own mythology that the scares became secondary to explanations no one asked for.

What once made the HELL HOUSE LLC films work was their sense of immediacy. The first movie’s found-footage format made every creak, shadow, and “clown” around the corner feel close enough to touch. You weren’t watching a horror story unfold; you were trapped inside one. LINEAGE abandons that format entirely, opting instead for a more traditional cinematic approach. The decision alone isn’t inherently bad—horror evolves—but in stripping away the franchise’s signature aesthetic, it also strips away its tension. Without the raw, documentary-style fear that gave the earlier films their punch, LINEAGE feels sanitized and distant, like watching someone else watch a ghost story.

The cinematography may be cleaner, but the scares rarely land the same way. Most are telegraphed, often punctuated by predictable or overly bright lighting that undercuts the menace. The series’ once-iconic clown—arguably one of the better modern horror images—loses his bite here. Rather than the eerie stillness that made him effective, the character now moves, almost comically, draining the terror from every scene he appears in. What was once a nightmare presence has become a mascot.

The performances hover between earnest and uneven. Vermilyea does what she can with the material, grounding Vanessa’s fear in something tangible, but she’s buried beneath endless exposition and dream sequences. Searra Sawka fares better, bringing flashes of energy to Alicia. However, the film’s heavy reliance on dialogue about “bloodlines” and “ancestral curses” leaves both actors stranded in conversations that sound like recaps rather than revelations. Mike Sutton, as Father David, has moments that recall the franchise’s early eeriness, but they’re fleeting. Everyone else is essentially delivering pieces of lore to connect dots that were better left to imagination.

Cognetti’s writing shows ambition—there’s no denying he cares about the world he’s built—but ambition without restraint can smother a story. LINEAGE leans too hard into backstory, devoting massive chunks of screen time to information dumps that neither clarify nor entertain. Characters discuss timelines, connections, and tragic histories, but we rarely feel the weight of those horrors. The film constantly hints at something larger, yet never delivers on that promise. For a supposed final chapter, it ends not with resolution but a shrug.

There’s also a thematic issue at play. The early films in the series thrived on ambiguity—the terror came from not knowing what the Abaddon really was. LINEAGE attempts to define it by connecting the dots between the hotel, the Carmichael family, and a supposed “blood bond rooted in evil.” But in giving the mystery too much shape, it robs it of its power. Horror rarely benefits from overexplanation; the unknown is where fear breeds. Once the franchise starts spelling out its secrets, there’s nothing left to fear—just a tangle of names and events that sound important but feel hollow.

Fans hoping for a full-circle moment will likely leave disappointed. The film’s ending teases a deeper meaning yet refuses to resolve its own questions. Even the haunting presence of the Abaddon Hotel feels diminished—no longer the silent, omnipotent entity of earlier films but merely a reference point in a long-winded mythology lesson. By the time the credits roll, it’s hard not to feel that Lineage mistakes volume for substance, talking endlessly while saying very little.

In fairness, Cognetti’s dedication to his universe is admirable. He’s built a series that, despite ups and downs, carved a space in modern indie horror. But every series deserves to end with clarity or catharsis—preferably both. Lineage offers neither. It’s too long, too busy, and too self-conscious of its legacy to let itself be scary. As a standalone, it’s watchable. As a conclusion, it’s a hollow shell of what it could be. It’s the horror equivalent of someone turning on the lights mid-seance—everything is visible, but the magic’s gone.

For all its effort and lore, HELL HOUSE LLC: LINEAGE doesn’t feel like a nightmare—it feels like homework. And that’s a disappointing way to end a franchise that once thrived on pure dread. A film that isn’t unwatchable, but one that lost its way long before finding the door out of the Abaddon.

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[photo courtesy of SHUDDER, COGNETTI FILMS, MARYLOUS' BOYS]

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