There’s a reason nobody talks about the sequels to a top-tier entry in horror’s most polarizing subgenre

Few genres have as many offshoots in horror, with the realm of the spooky and supernatural being capable of telling a thousand different stories in a thousand news ways, but few extensions of terror have proven to be as polarizing as found footage. One of the best to emerge without a doubt is Hell House LLC, provided you don’t mention the sequels.

Released in 2016, writer and director Stephen Cognetti makes the most of the limited resources on offer to tell a terrifying tale that largely doesn’t devolve into the cheap jump scare tactics and obvious gimmickry that’s blighted countless films of similar ilk. As a result, it ended up securing a reputation as one of the subgenre’s finest-ever efforts.

A low budget handheld tale of things going bump in the night securing Rotten Tomatoes scores of 75 and 72 percent from critics and crowds is virtually unheard of given the barrage of bargain basement duds being thrown our way on a constant basis, and a celebratory Reddit thread has found the site’s gorehounds in firm agreement that Hell House LLC definitely deserves to be ranked near the top of the pile.

However, as soon as successors The Abaddon Hotel and Lake of Fire are brought up, things take a turn for the worse. The fact the top-voted comment at the time of writing simply states that “we don’t talk about the sequels” tells you everything you could hope to know and more, because it isn’t a patch on the original that finds a documentary crew investigating the haunted house where 15 people died in unexplained circumstances.