Our patrons decided that it was time for us to review Hellhouse LLC, and frankly, I’m not even mad. This is a found footage movie about a Halloween spookhouse from 2015 and it does a pretty great job at unnerving me late at night.

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Five years after a disaster at a local spookhouse known as Hellhouse LLC where 15 people lost their lives, a documentary crew goes back to the scene to try and determine what really happened.

What they learn is that a group of young but somewhat experienced spookhouse creators bought the abandoned Abaddon hotel, which they planned to make into a spookhouse for the Halloween season.

Good news for the documentary crew – the Hellhouse LLC crew decided to take video footage of their whole project from beginning to end. 

The premise at the start is that it’s a documentary, which draws my attention quite well. At some point it seems to shift into a first-person perspective of the Hellhouse Crew. and then it remains that way for almost the entire rest of the movie.

This includes buying the Abaddon hotel, and trying to make it safe enough, clean enough, and scary enough to be a Halloween destination.

As the group fix up the hotel, they also live there, because otherwise the cost-benefit-analysis doesn’t add up, and as you might imagine, it gets weird. 

This prop clown keeps showing up all over the house and it seems like there might be someone else living there. 

As Halloween draws nearer, they start to lose it, and end up with more Hellhouse than they bargained for.

Hellhouse LLC and both sequels, were written and directed by the same guy, Stephen Cognetti.

I immediately was hooked because it was a better-than-average found footage movie from the outset of the movie. The thing that struck me immediately was how they kept talking about “the incident” as though it was this astonishingly terrifying occurrence, and it sucked me in from there.

Almost the entire movie is set within this already spooky place that they are fixing up to be even spookier, so the set almost always includes weird imagery and backdrops.

The characters are jaded enough to be believable in their ability to live in such a place, which makes the premise solid enough to be believable.

Really, Hellhouse LLC boils down to a solid premise with a very scary setting and a lot of hype. 

Ultimately the payout at the end is pretty intense, but I can see how some might be underwhelmed when it’s been built up so much by the documentary portion of this film.

In terms of scary movies, this is one to me, and that’s something of an accomplishment in itself.

8/10

If you enjoy found footage horror, Hellhouse LLC is one of the good ones. I would also recommend this to anyone who digs on clown related horror – blech!

This week we are having a different kind of show. This show we are looking back at the delightsome year that was 2020, and awarding the best and worst of Horror Movie Talk.

Looking through the scores we’ve given for all the movies we’ve reviewed, it was interesting to see where we agreed and disagreed.

All of these films received a perfect 10/10 score from both Bryce and David.

These were the lowest scoring movies, including our first movie to receive a 1/10 from both of us (Rats).

Terror Train is slasher set on a train during New Years Eve. That’s pretty much all you need to know. 

It’s set in an alternate universe where people celebrate new years, by chartering a train for an eyes wide shut style costume party fuck fest, people never disclose pertinent life and death information, and David Copperfield is sexy. 

At the opening of the film, we are introduced to a group of friends including the ring leader Doc (Hart Bochner), and a sorority sister, and final girl expert Jamie Lee Curtis playing Alana. By the way, this was shot only a year after the release of Jamie’s breakout role in Halloween.

The beginning of the movie is set 3 years prior, on a fateful new years celebration where this group of friends punk-ed a fraternity pledge student so hard that he spun himself into an insane asylum.

3 Years later, during the train ride, the students start getting murdered by a mysterious… almost magical killer.

I picked Terror Train because I was trying to find a horror movie set during New Year’s, and apparently the picking is very slim, because this is considered “the good one”. It isn’t.

The plot, like most slashers, is incidental, and is held together by a thread composed of awful dialogue and terrible direction.

I was honestly confused about what happened in the opening scene, because I didn’t know if I was supposed to understand that the dead body featured was a murder victim, or a medical school cadaver. I guess all we need to know is that the victim of the prank was pranked TOO HARD.

The dialogue is truly laughably bad, it feels like the adlibbed lines in the fast forwarded parts of pornos.

I was bored throughout the whole film, and not because I was tired, but because it was boring and dumb. 

The most dread filled moment of the movie was when I checked the time code, and I had half of the movie left to watch.

There were two things that almost saved the movie for me though.

2/10

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We watched Krampus because it’s one of the biggest blockbuster releases in recent memory that is Christmas themed and for a PG-13 movie, it wraps a nice little present.

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Krampus is the story of Max, a young boy who still believes in Santa, and his family who are visited by some bummer relatives. 

As the relatives whittle on Max’s last nerve, he loses the Christmas spirit, which is the straw that breaks this town’s back in terms of being on Krampus’ good side. Or maybe a better way to explain it is to say, Max’s village loses their Krampus protection plan when he loses faith in Christmas.

Krampus comes, bringing a slew of “helpers” and a devastating blizzard that seems to gut the entire town. 

As Max and his family fight to survive, we learn the importance of family, and keeping the spirit of Christmas alive.

Director Michael Dougherty, who brought us holiday themed cult classic Trick ‘r Treat has deigned to bestow this holiday themed treat upon us.

Krampus is kind of like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation if it included the fictional anti-santa myth, Krampus. It’s based around a “perfect family” and their super trashy relatives who show up and turn everything wrong.

If that isn’t enough for you there is also a jack-in-the-box that resembles a massive worm that’s capable of eating people and a Krampus that looks like Satan and eats whole villages raw.

While this is not the most impressive movie I’ve seen, it’s damn solid and very full of Christmas feels. It’s got lots of fun characters, and enough creepy imagery and tension to keep you on your toes while sippin’ on some nog.

I can remember watching this in theaters and being somewhat surprised at how well it held my attention, but on second viewing I did lose interest around the ¾’s mark.

 It does a decent job of not being too long and is a great movie to watch with kids who can handle really scary imagery, because it’s not terribly violent.

Overall, if you are in need of a Christmas horror movie, I would say this, and Gremlins are the best choices when you have to keep your family entertained.

6/10

If you have family over and want to watch something very Christmassy but also horrorish, Krampus is your jam. Keep your Christmas spirits up to keep him out of your face!

Better Watch Out is one of the strongest christmas themed horror movies of recent memory. It’s a unique viewing experience and worth your time this holiday season.

Better Watch Out is available on Shudder and various streaming platforms for free if you don’t mind ads.

Better Watch Out starts out as a home invasion thriller, and turns into something completely different. Young Lucas (Levi Miller) is a twelve year old that has the hots for his only five years older babysitter Ashley (Olivia DeJonge). He’s got a whole night planned out to seduce Ashley with horror movies and his mid-pubescent body. 

As they are hanging out having pizza, someone starts terrorizing them. You won’t believe who it is. Click through to horrormovietalk.com to find out!

This is a pleasant surprise of a home invasion movie. It stays on the well laid trope tracks until about third of the way through the film, then it goes off the tracks and then onto essentially the same tracks again.

The concept was interesting, and they did do a lot with it. I think it could have gone farther with the set up and delay the twist a little longer. Another gripe was that the villain was way too broad a lot of the time.

7/10

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Dead End aims to finally answer the questions “are we there yet?” This is a tight package of a movie and the simplicity really sells it for me.

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Dead End is the story of a family who are on their way to their grandma’s house during Christmas Eve. Husband Frank (Ray Wise), Wife Laura (Lin Shaye), son Richard (Mick Cain), daughter Marion (Alexandra Holden) and her boyfriend William (William Rosenfeld) are pretty much the only characters throughout the majority of the movie.

As they make their way down the road, things become strange when they pick up a women in white holding a baby. 

Slowly, the passengers start to realize that this road doesn’t seem to end, and they are haunted by a terrible car that occasionally drives by.

Dead End is a French movie by Directors Jean-Baptiste Andrea, and Fabrice Canepa and like so many French horror movies, it packs a punch.

It remains off most people’s radar for reasons that elude me, because this is a special gem.

Our blogger, Keith, reminded me of this vaguely Christmassy movie, and I knew I had to review it. 

Dead End takes a car ride and slowly builds it from something mildly disconcerting to something so horrifying and perverse that I knew it was something special many years ago after I first watched it. 

The dry comedy and believable characters add a charming element that make this something special. 

When you add in the seemingly supernatural goings on around this road that they are driving on and the interesting twist at the end, I think you have a solid horror movie that is sure to make you laugh, and will stick with you in the grossest way possible.

8/10

I really enjoy this movie because of how it handles comedy and the characters who are believable but kooky. While it’s not a well-known movie, I think it’s worth a watch because you probably won’t forget it, and that’s what we all love about horror movies.

Where did Remi Weekes come from, and why is he out of the gate, such an amazing horror director? That is the first question I have for this film. His House has instantly become one of my favorite horror movies. That may seem like hyperbole, but I have legit not seen anything like this film, and have rarely felt the same amount of emotion while watching a horror movie.

His House can be found only on Netflix.

Two Sudanese refugees Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) and Bol (Sope Dirisu) arrive in the UK after a perilous journey. After a stay in a detention center, they are granted asylum and a new place to live, which they are assured isn’t just a shit hole, it’s a palatial shithole.

They are given a set of rules that all refugees are given to maintain their status, that being, they are only to live off the meager wage the gov’t provides and not seek employment, and to definitely not move away from their apartment.

The couple who have definitely seen some shit… start seeing shit in the apartment. Soon it is apparent that there is an evil force preying on them.

Without hyperbole, this is one of the best horror movies I have ever seen. I’m reminded of my experience with Hereditary, where I asked myself, “How is this director so good on his first film and where did he come from?”.

The main difference between Hereditary and this film, is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a horror movie like His House before. Sure, at its core, it is a haunted house movie, but the aesthetic and subject material are uniquely new to me.

The best horror movies in my opinion are those that have a human core, that focus on character and relationships while drawing a line to real horrors that people experience every day. Rosemary’s Baby uses the fear of the unknown and social pressure during pregnancy.

The Exorcist uses the terror of having an undiagnosable, severely sick child. The Shining uses Jack Nicolson. In this film, it uses the lived experiences of refugees of war torn countries and the trauma associated with it.

This is exactly the type of storytelling that the horror genre excels at. It amplifies real human emotions and fears to the level of overload, resulting in a uniquely empathetic experience.

I’m very excited to talk about this movie, and also excited to see what Remi Weekes, the director will do next. 

10/10

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This is the final episode of the series, and it focuses on the Red Room and how everyone finally escapes the pull of the dreaded Hill House.

In this episode we finally learn what happened “that night” with Liv and the Red Room.

This episode marks the beginning of the end of the series. Luke has gone missing, It’s Halloween, and while Steve and Hugh try to find Luke, Theo and Shirley deal with some nefarious goings on at the mortuary.