Hell House LLC: Lineage

It all started by Rockland Lake, in New York, where Stephen Cognetti came across an abandoned house and thought of a name: Hell House. In 2015 he turned it into a found footage mockumentary about a haunted house attraction whose opening night ends with fifteen people dead. The first distribution offer came on condition that he fix the dreadful sound, and he paid for it out of the family savings. That's how a cult series began, one that found its home on Shudder, and 'Hell House LLC: Lineage' is its fifth chapter and the first not told as found footage.

Vanessa Shepherd, the only person to get out of the Abaddon Hotel alive in the third film, hasn't been the same since. She's living with PTSD and keeps seeing visions of a derelict house. Her psychiatrist tells her she isn't alone: other people had similar symptoms after what happened at the Carmichael Manor.

Then people around her start dying, people with some link to the Carmichael family, and behind every death there's a figure in a clown costume. Alicia Cavalini, a true crime writer looking into what happened in Abaddon, is sure it's all connected and seeks Vanessa out. With the help of Father David, a priest who understands the danger better than anyone, they set out to stop whatever is coming out of that house.

Cognetti, who wrote and directed all five, wanted to scare people in a new way rather than repeat himself. Even so, the format doesn't vanish completely, and phone and handheld footage still creeps in. Elizabeth Vermilyea returns as Vanessa, Searra Sawka plays Alicia and Mike Sutton is Father David, while Joe Bandelli, who's produced the whole series, wears the clown masks. Shooting began on 29 October 2024, and Cognetti has called it his farewell to Hell House, though he warns that the story isn't fully wrapped up.

It had a limited US cinema release on 20 August 2025 before arriving on Shudder on 30 October. Reviews were mostly negative: critics found the mythology so convoluted it's hard to follow without having seen the earlier films, and the script too long, though several admitted the clowns are still frightening.

• Horror
• Mystery