409: Hell House LLC: Lineage (2025)

SPEAKER_02 0:04

What is lineage if not a synonym for bloodlines? Spooky season, greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hack or Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. Someone's here for you. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack.

SPEAKER_05 0:28

A total joke? A waste of time.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Or a splash. Totally killer, unintended. We believe horror is for everyone and adds such who are rating these movies with the perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris. I'm your friendly neighborhood splasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the classic horror connoisseur Sean.

SPEAKER_05 0:48

Are you sure you're ready for this?

SPEAKER_02 0:50

And the Paranormal Paramour, Binks. It was beckoning to me. This week we're back in theaters to check out the alleged final entry of a traditionally found footage franchise.

SPEAKER_05 1:01

And stick around for our B-side at the end of this episode to hear us take the conversation even further as we get into the curse of final installments in horror franchises and more.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Before we get down to business, though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_05 1:14

Let's follow up on a season. Sharpen your pencils and raise your knives, folks, because the spooky season is officially in session. This year we are opening our doors for our fifth annual new blood drive. That's 60 days of horror, community, and good old-fashioned hacker/slash spirit.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

We'd love to see it.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

Absolutely. And here's what's on the syllabus, folks. Let me tell you. We're doubling up episodes all October long. Fridays bring your regular movie reviews as you're used to, and Tuesdays serve up horror electives. Everything from spooky season essentials, franchise exploration, and horror hot takes. And you know we've got a lot of them.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Oh, I am so excited for this. There are some subjects that we have in the pipeline that I think it has been something that we really want to explore on the show at some point, but this is gonna be the spooky season for it.

SPEAKER_05 2:14

Absolutely. I love it. Can't wait. It's gonna be good. Free sides, folks. We know we all love our B-sides when they're free. And the Free Sides, I'm glad to tell you, are back in session. So all listeners can crash the teacher's lounge and hear the bonus segments normally reserved for our patrons all season long.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I remember when we first did Free Sides and Paris described it as see how the other half lives. And honestly, this is one of those perks that a lot of people end up joining our Patreon for. So you get it free for a limited time just to get a little taste.

SPEAKER_05 2:50

Absolutely. And listen, our Discord is hosting the full extracurricular lineup. We've got so much in store. There's franchise watch parties coming your way. We've got horror game nights happening, we've got Spirit Week and a yearbook of horror superlatives.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Yeah, I just want to say here and now that if Art the Clown does not win class clown, then something's fucking rigged. But I think it's gonna be great. The last time we did superlatives, I think I got most likely to survive. Paris got most likely to show nip. That tracks. And also to die first. So I don't know. We'll see.

SPEAKER_05 3:29

I feel like I got didn't I get die first somehow at one point?

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Well, some game we were playing. I don't something.

SPEAKER_05 3:35

I don't even know if it was this superlatives or whatever. I think it was just some kind of context where I was dying first. I don't know. It is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

It might be, but I feel like also you got big prom king energy. So we'll see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

If anything, I thought of thought that I'd be the one that would die first.

SPEAKER_05 3:50

Who knows? But listen, if you've been waiting to enroll, let me tell you, now's the time because during our new blood drive, new patrons get half off their annual membership. That's access to like milestone unlocks and a shot at exclusive school spirit swag, including our eighth anniversary poster. And let me tell you, these posters are like basically a collector's item at this point. I'm trying to get my hands on all of them because they are so good every year.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

We're cooking up some good stuff this year. I think it might fall into the realm of school spirit. We'll see. Our artist is cooking up some great stuff.

SPEAKER_05 4:30

It's gonna be great. Nice, nice. So yeah, grab your student ID, join the rally, and let's make this the loudest and proudest spooky season Hackerslash has ever had.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Man, okay. I'm sorry. Now I'm just thinking about this. Do you remember in Halloween 2018? And well, actually, it's there, and it's also in the 1978 Halloween. It's the cheerleaders at Haddonfield High saying, We're from Haddonfield, couldn't be prouder, can't hear us now. Well, yell a little louder. I mean, we need something like that for Hacker Slash, I think. Who knows?

SPEAKER_05 5:04

We do. We need a little school spirit cheer going on here. That's adorable. Maybe somebody can help us out with that. But listen, let's get on with the show.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Well, nothing says spooky season quite like Hans do, and this week we're revisiting a franchise that spawned its roots in a mystery surrounding a Halloween attraction. Nearly a decade after first inviting audiences into the Abaddon Hotel, writer and director Stephen Cognetti has returned to the franchise with what he's calling the scariest and final entry in the series. Filming began in late 2024 and brought together a cast of both returning faces and new players tied to the long-running mysteries of the Hellhouse universe. But its release hasn't come without controversy. The film is opened to absolutely abysmal reviews, and one of its producers stirred up even more conversation by urging unhappy viewers to post negative reactions on platforms that wouldn't affect its Rotten Tomato score, then later claimed it was a publicity stunt. Now the story follows returning survivor Vanessa from the third film, where she escaped a near-death experience. In present day, though, she's suffering recurring nightmares in Abaddon. When unexplained deaths begin to unfold around her, she uncovers her connection not only to the infamous hotel, but also to Carmichael Manor and decades of violent history. This week we're talking about Hellhouse LLC Lineage. What were you both expecting going into this?

SPEAKER_05 6:32

Listen, I can say that I have seen every movie in this franchise because when the third installment, Lake of Fire, came into the lineup for the pod, I decided to watch the first two back to back. And of course, we eventually got to the prequel origins as well. And listen, I really enjoyed the first one. I think it's a great one to watch in the spooky season. The second one I liked slightly less. The third one, let's face it, the third one sucked. And then I felt like we were back on track with the prequel. So going into this one, I was hoping that we would stay on the up and up, but knowing that this one was departing from the found footage camera style that I really enjoyed about the earlier films. I gotta admit, I got a little bit worried, and I was just hoping that maybe having a theatrical release for the first time would make this a pretty solid installment.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Honestly, what a safe expectation, though. I mean, like you, Sean, I loved the first movie. Second one, not as much, but still pretty good. The third movie, lake of bullshit. We've talked about it a few times. And then Carmichael Manor felt like, ah, it was a return to form. So when I heard that it was exiting the Found Footage franchise, I wasn't pissed off about that by any means. I think that was a real big step back for a lot of folks. I was very open to it, especially because I thought, man, if they did that with a Carmichael Manor, then they got the theatrical release. We're probably in store for something great. And I didn't watch any trailers for this movie, but I was actually really, really excited to see it because it felt like this franchise was really on the road to redemption. But listen, the expectation shifted because I started hearing general reactions from members of our community who are devout fans of the franchise. Shout out to you, Scooby-Doo. Between that and then learning about the producer's super cringe antics about how and where people should leave their negative reviews of the film. Hmm. I I think I can sum it up like this. I walked into this feeling like I was on flight 180 from Final Destination. I had just seen the premonition and I couldn't get off the plane in time. That's where I felt like walking into the theater.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

That's oh boy.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

It's sad. Nobody wants to feel like that going into a movie. Especially a Hell House movie. Hell House was so good.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

It's true. Yeah, no, I feel you on that one. So similar to Sean, I'm very new to this franchise. I watched Hell House LLC when we were doing Lake of Fire. Saw the second one. And I've seen every movie in this franchise with my best friend. So when I told him, hey, there's a new one out, and this time it's in theaters, I really had to be convincing. I said, we've seen all of them together. We can't stop now. We've got to go together to see this. And boy, oh boy, my expectations were low, but I also didn't know what this one was going to be about. We're talking, we both went in there blind. And I have regrets about that. Because what I didn't expect was that I needed to revisit all of these films prior to arriving. This is not a film that you can go in and feel like, oh yeah, I've seen those movies. No, folks, you gotta go fresh because I should have known with Cogneti and this lore that he's trying to build up, like it's the cerulean from Lord of the Rings. It's so dense that you have to be very fresh and come with your notebook ready because it was a lot. And I expected that maybe it would be a little less of that. Like, can we just water it down a bit and just be a good scary time? Especially with it not being found footage. I was thinking, damn, I I'm a little nervous because you've got to be really strong and effective and really unique if you're gonna change it up on me. Everything has been found footage, and sure, those things can be repetitive, but that's the brand at this point. So I don't know. I didn't really know what to expect because I went in blind, but I was hoping that at least, at the very least, A, don't make it so confusing. I'm really tired of that. And B, I really hope I get scared still.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Yeah, what a safe thing to also hope for. I feel like we walked into this all with the best of intentions. I think we can agree on that.

SPEAKER_05 10:54

Truly, truly.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

I should have known. I should have known. Because what is lineage if not a synonym for bloodlines? And this has been the year of bloodlines. We've got so much of it. And oof, man. I also love that you had to sway your friends so much to get him to watch this movie with you. I'm assuming this is also the very same one that tagged us on Instagram and said, I want my two hours back.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

I were I sat right next to him when he put that. The original message really was he was so excited for us to record tonight and just annihilate this film, in fairness. He was like really pumped for us to just destroy it because it it's really for this episode that he went to this movie like to see this movie for nothing else. I promise you that.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Well, let's just set the stage then, because I think going into this, and I think there is a lot of good that I want to say about this movie, which might be a little controversial. I'll have plenty of I think what people might expect. However, I think some of our funnest episodes have been when we're ragging on a movie. Like I think about the bunny man episode, I think about the mean one. I think we've got some good ones. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

We have fun with that. Absolutely. That's why he's so excited.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Yeah, it's giving misery loves company, I think, is a really fair way to say that. And why not kick things off by just acknowledging while I had hoped the franchise found its footing, this ended up just being pure disappointment.

SPEAKER_05 12:29

It didn't find the footage or the footing.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Yeah. It really, really sucks because it's not even the kind of bad that makes you angry. It's just that sinking feeling of watching something that you once enjoyed just completely fall apart. And this managed to somehow slide even lower than Lake of Fire, which I didn't think was possible. That's real.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

And that's honest. You're saying the things that people need to say that we're all like, that's a statement right there, Chris. Because to say that it's a little bit below Lake of Fire, I don't even know that it's a little bit it's in the realm of. Can we maybe say that it's in the realm of? Oh, it's significantly lower, I think.

SPEAKER_05 13:15

It's definitely lower. I can also tell you one thing that I felt very strongly, and that was the pacing in this movie. Because damn, this one felt like it was dragging on. Like I felt every single minute of this movie. And maybe I don't know, maybe that's not exactly fair because to your point, Chris, there were some good moments in this film, but the pacing was atrocious in this movie. It was so bad. It just some moments didn't even need to happen, I feel like.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Listen, I need to interject because I can't tell you how much I relate to that because a theater needs to be respected. It's a sacred space, no talking, no on your phone, the whole bit. But this was a challenging one. But this is a challenging one. And my best friend, every now and then, would whisper in my ear, 40 minutes left, 20 minutes left. And I couldn't help but cry of laughter.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

I said to you before we actually even started recording, I mentioned to you that I was about to fight some people in this theater. And it's not because of this movie specifically at all. And I'm so glad that this kind of resolved itself where I was able to give the movie a fair shake. But I had three fools to my left, like straight up talking and laughing the entire time between each other about unrelated shit, not about the movie. And this started immediately. So it wasn't even like in response to the movie being bad, they're gonna be clowns about it and try to have a good time. They were fucking vaping, they were shining their flashlights everywhere, watching fucking TikToks. Multiple people had said shh the entire time. I had to go out and get a manager after some confrontation. It was ridiculous. This movie didn't deserve that.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

No, no, no, no, absolutely not. To some degree, it's like, okay, I paid for this. Can we just be here? If you really don't even want to be here, then walk out. Because listen, even for me, I gotta say, I strongly considered it. I was at the edge of my seat thinking to leave. Not because of the movie being intense, I can tell you that much. I considered getting a refund. If there was a way to get the synopsis of this film to prepare for this recording, dare I say, I may have cheated and done it. I really, I really, really thought about it. It was a tough one because again, that pace was so freaking long. It was dragging. I thought I was suffering for a while. I'm not being dramatic. I usually am, folks. Like this is just not my thing. But something to know about me is that Hellhouse LLC, the first one, is the only one that I've liked. I haven't slashed any of the others. So they're not really my cup of tea. They just got worse and worse. Origins was a big disappointment for me. Now we've got something beat, but it's just that this film made me feel like I was actually wasting my time. It gave nothing to me. I was very confused. I also was feeling like, am I watching a borderline PG 13 film? What's going on here? Where's the meat? It wasn't until maybe the third act where I was like, okay, now we're actually getting to what I was expecting with a theatrical release and maybe a potentially bigger budget. I felt like a lot of the and runtime, I was just trying to rationalize things, maybe try to remember things from the lore, trying to figure out when was this gonna get really scary or gory. I I it just it was a lot of confusion for the bulk of the film that made me realize I can't leave here and guess whatever the hell happened. I've got to plant myself. I've paid for this ticket and I gotta see it through.

SPEAKER_05 16:46

Is it the third act or was it like the last 10 minutes if we're being really good? Oh, you're right. The last 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

It was really the last time. It's not even the last 10 minutes. It's that one thing that happened towards the end of the movie.

SPEAKER_05 16:56

It's literally the one thing, yeah. But let me tell you, the feeling that I really missed from this movie was literally the found footage, quirky, like faux documentary vibe from the earlier installments. And I get it's a bold choice to move away from that and to try something new. And you can't really knock somebody for trying to try something different in a franchise when you've been doing you know what I mean. I'll give it up for trying. But I wasn't sure if I was gonna miss it, but I really did miss the found footage, and I really do think that it took away a lot from this movie.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

You know, what's surprising to me is that I didn't miss it that much. This movie was really good to look at, like it was a very aesthetically pleasing movie. It looked and I thought I would miss it more.

SPEAKER_05 17:43

It looked good for sure. Visually, the way the movie looks, I'm not mad at. And we'll get into it a little bit later, but it's literally the use of the found footage to even build on the scares and the things like that that I feel like was super effective in earlier installments that I completely missed from this installment.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Yeah, I think the reality is part of I wouldn't say this is part of why found footage existed in this franchise. I'm not claiming that, but I think the benefit of found footage being there was that there was so much monotony and just stuff we didn't need to see in the other movies that we never had to be subjected to because it was found footage. And this movie actually puts you right in the middle of it, makes you suffer through every walk home from a therapist's office. And I mean, I'm still not mad at the absence of found footage, but I think there had to be a lot done in place to really make it a success because this movie, this whole franchise really was really strong in its use of found footage. And I think being able to step away from that is a really bold move for the franchise, and I think on paper it's something fresh, right? But what was disappointing was how badly they fumbled the ball with every almost everything else, right? So the acting was rough, the callbacks felt, I don't want to say lazy, but they they just felt like, okay, I'm just gonna tell you about this, or just throwing a clip on a saw James Wan style. And then the story just felt like it was buried under its own excessive lore. And that was that was a really rough experience. And I wish this movie had been different. Because I think a few small adjustments, I would have had a really good time, even if it wasn't great.

SPEAKER_05 19:27

I could see that for sure. And look, I guess the only thing that was really surprising for me about this movie was that the franchise listen, it must have gained enough popularity for Stephen Cognetti to to finagle this into a theatrical release, but it also it didn't really appear overall to have gotten any budget increase. Like it looked great because we weren't using like this grainy found footage style, but outside of everything else, it didn't feel like we were really increasing the budget that much. Because this movie looked like a feature-length Ghost Hunters movie, basically, is what it really on Discovery Channel, and not maybe the way that the cinematography is, but just the way the movie feels, right? That's kind of what this felt like. And I feel like that's just a little bit disappointing because I was really hoping that between getting a theatrical release and moving away from the found footage style, it would have felt a lot better than it did. So I totally agree with you, Chris.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

You know what? I would have loved to see the Carmackle Manor in the theater. Like that would have been rock solid. And you know what? Arguably, some really great moments in this kind of are that.

SPEAKER_05 20:38

It's true, very true.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Look, in the spirit of the Conjuring The Last Rights having just come out, okay? I feel like the Warrens would have really done a number on this whole show. Okay. This would have been there in the bag, would have been so their shit. I completely get you with the vibe, the aura of this movie feels like if it was an episode, it would have been almost better of like a TV show, like an episode or of some sort. But it's like an hour and 40 that feels like two hours and 10. And at the end of the day, what I miss from all of these films that I I feel like slowly but surely got like removed little by little was the raw fear that I got from Hellhouse LLC, the tension. I personally love found footage. So to your point, Sean, you mentioned earlier, although visually the this movie is so much like nicer because of the quality and overall, there's some great shots here and stills, absolutely. And we'll praise that later. But I think that it did really well was like you don't quite know what you're seeing. That's what I love about found footage. You're not too sure what you're seeing, and that's what makes you nervous. That's what makes you scared. When that was removed, I thought at the very least, I know that they're gonna give us this damn clown again 5,000 times over. What else are you gonna do? It's change it up a little bit. And it almost felt like the characters themselves weren't even scared. Like for a majority of the film, it's felt like an all-around disappointment when it comes to this like scare factor, right? So I have a hard time saying that this film isn't scary because again, I I always try to think of like the extremists, right? The ones that don't even really consume horror, that really want to dip their toes, they're trying to figure out if they can like brave something like this. I would say that there is going to be some moments that might freak you out a little bit, but of all of the franchise, maybe this is the one where it happened where you'll be the least scared, potentially. At least that's what I think. So from my own perspective, I didn't even flinch not once in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

Yeah, and that's such a disappointment because Steven Cognetti himself said that this was gonna be the last, but also the scariest of all the films. Wow. And like you being scared, I remember what it felt like to be scared during the first Hellhouse LLC. But this breath, this is not scary. I think the most entertainment I got, and you mentioned just a second ago, right? The extremes of this. There were about five groups of people, excluding the like troublesome three, the trio that were in my theater. Some of them it seemed like, okay, maybe one of them likes horror movies, and then the other in the pair, this is their first time, or they don't partake, or they think everything's demonic. Because there's a certain scene, which we'll discuss in the spoiler zone, where a couple people are like, oh hell no, uh-uh. And that was entertaining, was moving. But unfortunately, it never happened again the entire movie. And that's just a bummer, right? I think it's also because the franchise was built on the back of the clown with bloody tears, and now he's so overused that it feels like a mascot instead of a threat.

SPEAKER_05 23:55

I mean, yeah, it's true. It's that's what I'm talking about. It's really the way that this movie tried to explain everything that we didn't know that really made it less frightening, and I'll tell you why, right? Because in the early films, the scares were way more effective simply because we didn't have any explanation behind why this was happening. That that's to me like what was really effective, or at least one of the reasons why the early films were really effective. You didn't see the clowns move, but you knew that they did. It was just off camera and it was fucking great. It was just this perfect feeling, it was creepy, it was that oh hell no moment, right? That you would continuously get throughout the franchise. So the fact that this movie had to try to tie all of the pieces that the previous installments left us between the Abaddon Hotel, the Carmichael Manor, and this fucking fair, it really struggled to be truly frightening. There were definitely some creepy moments. There's like one, two, maybe three, but let's be real. Nothing to keep you up at night.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Maybe actually something that should keep you up at night is the way this managed to be simultaneously innovative in its own franchise, but then also increasingly stale. It took a big but it also feels like it didn't amount to much. And it's hard to really call it original when so much of what this movie does is just recycle other parts of its earlier movies and then uses some classic horror tropes to try to glue it all together, right? It almost feels like okay, it's spooky season. We probably have all assortments of like cookies and treats and like snacks for spooky season. Like I'm thinking about the Oreos with the orange cream filling. People love that, right? This feels like you bought a pack of Oreos from the store for spooky season, you're settling in at home, you got your fall candles on, everything is set, and you open up that bag, you take your first bite, but little did you know there was a small hole in the packaging, and now every bite you take is into a stale fucking cookie.

SPEAKER_05 26:12

Uh the worst.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

It is the worst. It feels like, oh, how long has this been exposed to the elements?

SPEAKER_05 26:19

Too long. Yeah, I think this film relies heavily, heavily on the lore of the previous films across this franchise. And like, look, it I get it, but man, it tried to expand on that lore or mythology. And well, I think it definitely offers like the new take by shifting away from the found footage style, and that is trying to be original and a fresh take. It doesn't really make it feel all that original because we're constantly going off of shit that we've already seen or calling back to shit that we already know. And I think because it relies so heavily on the lore of the previous installments, it doesn't really make this one stand out that much.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

And to the earlier point that we had made when it comes to like this being bloodlines, like Final Destination bloodlines, right? Using that as an example, that's a long-standing franchise, several different movies, significant gaps of years in between, okay? But even that film was able to piece together and tie together a large franchise that maybe some people rewatched the whole thing before going into this new one because it's a more famous franchise, most certainly. But maybe some didn't and they're going off of their memory. And for that, they were able to still like wrap everything with a bow. It made sense. It wasn't, I don't even know how to compare this. I felt like I was yeah, I'm like I'm breaking my brain trying to understand what the hell's going on in this movie. Like, this has no right to be so difficult to understand, and I feel like a dumbass. And and I certainly like am not, I can promise you. But it's just so convoluted and dense for something that doesn't need to be. We've got almost like two plots that could be their own franchises in one franchise. Listen, I really tried my best after this watch. I went to YouTube, I watched an hour-long recap and analysis of this entire franchise in which this girl took notes, wrote takeaways from each film. She's a Virgo like me. So I was like, oh, this girl's prepped. And you could tell as each movie went on, she erased things, replaced them because Cognetti himself couldn't even stick to one plan. He kept retconning his own films. So I'm going into this one, like I want to say it's original because you have the audacity to continue to still invent something and find ways to thread it together. But you are reaching, brother. You really are. And it one thing to say that is like the pinnacle of this entire originality piece in this writing is this ending. The audacity with this ending is something to be applauded. Even like it was an ending. It's like it was a stop. Like you know, when you are watching your favorite TV show and you find out only after the cliffhanger that that season finale that it's been cancelled. That's what it's like. That's this ending. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Stop. I have the perfect comparison.

SPEAKER_05 29:39

That's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

You know what? Let me fucking check one more thing off your bingo card banks because it also feels akin to a specific episode of Glee. And that episode is when Rachel is about to get married to Finn and she's all like, hell no, I'm waiting for Quinn, because now they're friends, they're besties. They all should have been together, but whatever. As Rachel is texting Quinn, where are you? Where are you? Quinn looks at her phone, distracted because Rachel is texting her and fucking boom gets T-boned by an oncoming car. See, yikes. That's what this movie felt like at the ending. It felt like we just got T-boned.

SPEAKER_05 30:17

Yeah, we got T-boned.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

We for sure got T-boned. The ending is where everything in this movie just collapses. And I think it's honestly one of the most abysmal conclusions I've seen. At least this year. At least this year. They tried to land on like this big reveal, but instead it ends up feeling like absurd, unearned, and just also momentarily unintentionally goofy. And I think any momentum the film could have had or could have salvaged just died right there.

SPEAKER_05 30:48

Yeah, for sure. For sure. And you know, the more we're talking about like this whole bloodline like theme that we have this year, we definitely do. I'm thinking about it, and it's not even just horror, right? Like, we definitely have this, you know, Hellhouse LLC bloodlines, we've got the fucking Final Destination bloodlines, we've got all the bloodlines. We even have a bloodline story in fucking WWE right now. Like the bloodlines are everywhere this year, but yeah, you all are hitting like major points here. My problem with the ending of this movie is that it leaves you with unanswered plot points. Like, how are you gonna end an entire franchise with unanswered plot points? It fucking really boils my blood. The ending feels almost abrupt, right? It leaves you with the cliffhanger that doesn't sit right. Chris, you said unearned. Yeah, it doesn't feel earned. This is supposed to be the last installment in the franchise. So why are you gonna leave us with questions? It just doesn't sit right.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

You know what it's giving, Sean? It's giving the disrespect in this household, is what it feels like.

SPEAKER_05 31:55

100%.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

I really cannot wait to see how this translates into our ratings. But before we make it there, Sean, how would you at least describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_05 32:06

Listen, the problem with the gore in this movie is that we don't really get a ton of gore in this movie. Like, there's a couple of moments that give us some decent gore, and it actually looks pretty good, I gotta say. Like, I was happy with what we got, and maybe that's where the budget went, but overall, this one's getting a low gore score.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

And what about the animal report?

SPEAKER_01 32:30

The only good thing about this movie might be that we are actually safe for the animal report.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

Well, let's go ahead and get into our ratings. Was it a hack or a slash? And you know what? What is an episode of Hack or Slash that is gonna end up in the rating that I expect it to be if I don't just kick this shit off? There is a very revealing quote from a Stephen Cognetti interview where he said this. I had originally gone into lineage thinking that origins and lineage were one in two films of what would be a trilogy. My first draft of lineage was really intended to be the middle chapter of the trilogy. Then I realized that wasn't going to happen. I wasn't gonna do a sixth film, so I had to make the five the final film. That influenced the rewriting process of how I incorporated some of the finishes I wanted to put in there. So there was some pressure to end it as well as I could and to tie up as many loose ends as I could while also progressing the story and also making it scary. I really, really feel for this man. This has been a labor of love. The first Hellhouse LLC came out around 10 years ago, and Carmichael Manor was such a strong movie, and the original Hellhouse LLC is legitimately just a great found footage movie. And I want to know what happened here, right? I want to know the why. I want to understand the history behind the moment he said, then I realized that wasn't gonna happen. Because it sounds and feels as though this was the last opportunity to say anything he had left to say on Hellhouse. And if that's the case, I'm really sad to say that those things may have been better off left unspoken. This didn't feel like a movie. This felt like a nearly two-hour lore dump disguised as a finale. And if the franchise is really dead, then this was less of a finale and more like a mercy killing. And sadly, this was the epitome of a hack, and I feel badly about that, I really do.

SPEAKER_05 34:31

Damn, it is true, not the epitome of a hack. It is true though, and listen, I'm not gonna be a complete downer on this movie, but I'm also not gonna say that it's a good movie because it really isn't great. But I do think that if you have been following the Hellhouse LLC franchise, like we have, like I have, you'll be able to appreciate how this film attempts to expand on the lore and mythology behind the Abaddon Hotel. I think if you're like really into the story and unraveling the mystery, right, maybe you'll have a good time with some of the stuff that they give you in this movie. But unfortunately, that same ambition almost works against it because the lore, you said Banks convoluted. The lore is too convoluted, and the complications of the mythology tend to pull away from that raw, stripped-down charm that made the earlier installments so much fun to watch. But look, it really it's not all bad. There are still some unsettling moments throughout the film, the atmosphere remains effective for the most part, and there's a certain satisfaction in seeing the story come full circle for dedicated followers of the franchise. So I do still think that if you're invested in the Hellhouse story, then it's probably don't hate me. Like, it's probably worth the watch just to get it in there, right? Like, I feel like at the very least, to close out the story in some way, even though the end like left you with more questions. So don't hate me. But if you're if you're invested in the franchise, I feel like you still kind of have to finish it out. So listen, it is what it is. But between the torturously slow pacing, the complicated lore building, the fact that you really have to remember every single bit of the lore going into this one, and the fact that the step away from the found footage style really putting a spotlight on the poor acting, like all of that together, it's tough, man. And I just wasn't down to clown, so this one was definitely a disappointing hack.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Oh boy. Meanwhile, I have no issue saying that this is the definition of a hack, along with like a majority of the films in this franchise. I think that this movie is it's basically like I think I I feel like it's criminal for this to be in theaters, most definitely. I haven't been this pissed that I paid for a film since Chris and I went to see the mean one. And that's going on almost like three years, I think. So like I I feel really upset, which is insane to say because I didn't even have that high of hopes knowing that I I'm not like a mega fan of this. I think I'm upset mostly because I feel protective of the fans of this franchise, because there's several things with this film that make me feel like it's a slap to their face when Cogneti's trying to say that this is like an ode to them. How, brother? How? I I don't even I I I can't really see it. Please enlighten me because it's like the screenplay, like it was written by Chat GBT. The acting hasn't improved that much, if at all. The scares were lazy at best. And the entire story added less than zero to the overall franchise. Like you said, it just adds more questions and like doesn't really give you a takeaway. I don't quite know what the purpose of this is. So it almost feels upsetting to think that people are like paying money to go see this movie and to think that it's supposed to be the scariest or that it's supposed to answer a lot of their questions, like be a great conclusion to the franchise. And then instead you're leaving the fans dizzy walking out of the theater thinking like still to this day, I'm reading comments and like reviews or whatever about this movie with fans thinking that there's more movies to come. Like, I don't even think that they believe this man when they say that this is the final installment. And I don't blame them with an ending like this one, right? So I think that it's just a really bad hack. Now, I will say that you know, if you stick around for the spoiler zone, I'm sure all of us are gonna praise other departments that do deserve its praises because this is a great example of it sucks to be a part of a film sometimes that you you know is probably gonna get insane heat, but you at least put in your best work. And there are some great departments, makeup, uh cinematography, like there's some moments that do deserve some like praises. I'm not like saying that they also were trash. I'm just saying like this is a film where I struggle with telling people to pay to go see this movie, but I really don't think it's worth your time. So maybe just like watch the first one, pretend that nothing ever happened. And if you want to keep exploring, sure, go ahead, but try to leave this franchise remembering that there's a lot of people that go into a theater, like that go into putting a film in a theater. And think about those small folks that you know, I'm I see you guys. This movie was abysmal, and it's a for sure hack, but you did your part, and you are a slash.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Wow. You know, they really did deserve a slash on the level of effort they put in, and not that was not a pity slash. So we get that. But there you have it, folks. Hellhouse LLC lineage has earned a universal hack, and you better believe there is so much that we have to unpack still when we get into the spoiler zone. Now, this movie is in theaters, but you can also go check it out on Shudder in October when it hits streaming. But stick around and we'll get into the spoiler zone in just a bit. We'll be right back.

SPEAKER_04 40:42

Step wrap it up, step wrap it up, ladies and ghouls. Welcome to Abaddon Clowns for Hire! The only service where your vengeance comes with a painted smile and a ticket straight to the basement. These aren't just props sitting in the corner of the Abadon Hotel lobby. No no. These clowns move when you don't look, they follow when you swear you're alone, and they laugh when you've got nothing left to smile about. Got a neighbor who mows at 6 a.m.? A co-worker who steals your lunch? Or maybe just maybe an ex who deserves a one-way tour of the Abaddon Hotel. Well, for just three easy screams, you can hire yourself a vengeance clown today. Remember, folks, our clowns don't just show up, they show out. And once you book them, the only thing funny is how fast your enemies run. So come woman, come on, have it on clowns for hire, where the jokes kill and the punchlines always hit the jugular.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Welcome back, folks. You're now entering the spoiler zone for Hellhouse LLC lineage, which has earned a universal hack. Now we have a lot to unpack here, but before we get into the specifics of how much we want to drag in this movie, let's go through those kills.

SPEAKER_05 42:15

Yeah. Let's go through the kills, man. Well, for a film with 10 kills, it felt pretty fucking lackluster because almost all of these kills were off-screen and some only mentioned within the story. I think I don't know. I think we only had one good gory kill, and then we had a couple that had good setups, but ultimately felt pretty flat. And listen, I couldn't even mention all of the kills because at what point do we just not care to add them in the kill count if we already know that some of these people died from earlier installments in the franchise? Like we're just revisiting shit at this point. But here we are. So let's talk about them. Which of these kills had you dancing in your clown shoes?

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Literally none of them. And the problem is that we're the clowns for watching it. Like, put on the fucking clown makeup. Let me tell you, I'm gonna be dancing in my clown shoes at Halloween Horror Nights with Art the Clown walking around that bitch. But this right here, I'm gonna go with Bobby's death. Okay, and it's not because of the death, because in fact, the death was so lackluster and infuriating. But I'm going with this because of how it was set up. It did have potential, yeah, absolutely. There was this moment where the camera drops, and when he's filming on his phone, you get that little nod back to the fountain footage roots before shifting back into the narrative. And that created a very brief moment of tension. When that fucking camera fell down and is looking up at the clown, and then we see the shot from the staircase looking down at the clown. A completely recycled from the franchise. But B, I know there's from first time we're. To Hellhouse LLC in my audience because they're like, oh hell no, uh-uh, uh-uh. And I'm like, yep, see, we come to this hellhouse for magic.

SPEAKER_05 44:08

That's it. That's it. That's when I got really excited that we busted out the phone. We were getting some of that found footage vibe, but then I realized that this was literally not going to be something that we lived in for very long and then it kind of sucked again.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

Mm-hmm. Yeah. But even frustrating. But even for that moment, it for those that have seen the previous films like us, I was so about that because it reminded me of how effective they can be when it is found footage. So even when it was a little bit of a like flip, right? Using found footage for just a moment, it was effective. And I was excited for what was to come. We're talking.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Yeah. But it's just disappointing that all it ever really ends up with is this clown putting his hands on someone, and then now we're done. He's a groper of the head.

SPEAKER_05 44:55

Yeah, I would like to know like how we're dying here. Like, are we getting choked out? Are we getting our necks snapped?

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Because he's not even twisting the head.

SPEAKER_05 45:06

We don't see anything though. Yeah, you're just like, yeah, what's going down? I don't know. It's weird.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Well, now that yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, it's yeah, it's very odd. It's very odd. That's why I thought this was a PG-13 film. If it isn't, maybe it is, but we don't see a damn thing, and we continue to not really see a thing until the father's kill.

SPEAKER_05 45:29

Yeah, the only good kill.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

The only good kill.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

You know what? The shame about that kill is that I already was so done with the movie that I I didn't even care. It didn't even strike me as particularly good.

SPEAKER_05 45:41

Yeah, it's true. It's true. That's valid. It's the goriness of it though. What I actually liked about it though was the whole fact that he's sitting there the whole time, like really just tell just like literally telling Alicia, right? Just like telling Alicia the whole time as they're walking through the house, and Alicia is walking into all of these, you know, ghosts or demons, whatever, and he's like, just ignore them. Have your faith. Don't don't waver, don't let them, don't let them get to you. And what does this motherfucker do? Literally gets fucking stopped in his tracks by the first sight of blood and that fucking weird demon thing that ended up fucking ripping his throat out. You know? Where was your faith then, father? You know what?

SPEAKER_02 46:28

That's what he that's what he gets for delegating his exorcism. He was using her like a second pair of hands. Sir, do your work.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Also, that you are literally like, this is your whole thing, brother, is like to full on exercise. Like, what do you mean? Why is she there to ask for your help? Well, again, this is why the warrants would have been like, sign me up, ready to go. I'm just saying. I just feel like although that might have been the only like actual kill that we get, that's not saying much because everything else just reverted back to not being seen. The exception Max's kill. Because that I was a little surprised by because it just seems like also what kind of movie are we talking about now? Because this just seems a level of dark that no, like we don't need to go that that's not what this franchise is for. Okay, like we don't need to do that.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Yeah. Can we just acknowledge that Max gives and adds genuinely nothing? Okay, yeah, you're one more person whose relative got into a truck. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 47:36

Because first of all, the entire movie up until this point, you're like, why what what it why is Max like at first he's chill, then he cares. Like, why do you care so much all of a sudden? You know what I mean? Like it just doesn't fit. And then we get to this one scene and we're like, oh, okay. And then he offs himself, okay, whatever. Do you, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

It's still a little confusing because I don't even know why he is so like intensely hooked by this whole thing. It I felt like if we should have maybe started introducing his character from the jump and kind of like letting that build out throughout the film, because his intro made me feel like, was I supposed to know you from somewhere? And if again, did I miss it? Literally wrote, kid, why are you so concerned? Because I didn't understand why he was like so passionately like concerned about Vanessa. I don't even know who you are. I continue to not know who you are until I get a long-winded dialogue, beautifully shot, I will say, but long-winded dialogue between the two-supposed to be scary. I'm like Relisha and the father like exploring this house, and let me ride that tension out. It continuing to be cut by some like Shakespearean dialogue. Like this guy is like running off with all kinds of poems saying that this house was like beckoning to him. I'm like, what's happening here? Who says that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_02 48:57

What? Well, it was the curse of the red ball.

SPEAKER_05 49:02

Go fetch them. It was the curse of the red ball. This movie should have been called like Revenge of the Clowns or something. That's what it should have been.

SPEAKER_02 49:10

Mm-hmm. Killer Clowns from Abaddon.

SPEAKER_05 49:12

Killer Clowns from Abaddon.

SPEAKER_02 49:15

That's gonna be the next Dead by Daylight chapter, I swear.

SPEAKER_05 49:18

There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

I believe it. But speaking of clowns, I will say that again, I tried to sing their praises in my scoring because I really do feel for these people that get roped into a film that has in insanely terrible writing and terrible execution, costume design, makeup, props, like the clowns really do look cool. I'm I know that we're all tired of it, but I think that they're really great. And I hope that down the line in horror history, like it this particular clown, obviously, like it just kind of is the staple in horror because we do have our clowns. It's not gonna be art, sure, but he is intimidating, most definitely. I don't know why every character dismissed him constantly when they saw him, uh when it's very clear that there was a human being underneath that mask, whatever. I can disregard that. But I think that he's very fucking scary, that's for sure. And for sure, the shots of him in every moment that we got him were clean and really, really great. When we see him just standing there in broad daylight in front of that house, hell to the fuck no. When we see him at the ends of those stairs, again, the callback to the previous films and the found footage piece with Bobby, like absolutely fantastic. When cinematography was at play here, there were some moments that were really, really great. Some other subtle things like the lighting that was behind Alicia and the father when they walked into the house, the Carmichael, the fucking manor, which we pray we loved it in origins. I know that we highlighted that, but there's so many great things here to on a technical level, but just people are not gonna they're not gonna remember that down the road, which is which is fair.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

Yeah, I think where I struggle with this is and and I'll compliment this in in just a moment, but the thing with the clown is he's seen in broad daylight, and it's akin to seeing Michael Myers in broad daylight, and it's just not as effective. You know what I mean? Like we still get the same shots of A, them looking down the stairs in Hellhouse LLC and seeing this fucking clown. It was just like copy paste from other movies where we've seen the clown be scarier, and that's disappointing for me. Now the clown looking as great as he does, absolutely. For me, it was the sound design and that combined with the cinematography where this movie actually shined, right? They combined to help this actually feel in several moments immersive. And it actually gave some atmosphere that the rest of the film really couldn't keep up with or match. Aesthetically, there are moments here that really work, even if the overall storytelling didn't. And I can't wait to get into our favorite scenes in just a moment, but there's a lot in this movie to really appreciate on a technical level.

SPEAKER_05 52:13

Yeah, it's true. There are some good like visuals that we get in this movie, but yeah, I do think like even just to go back to the clowns, because I do think like those are always gonna be the highlight of these movies, and I think I was reading some stuff out there, and there's some people out there saying that they have like clown exhaustion from these movies, like it's like, okay, like we're just getting the clown again, and that they're tired of seeing the same clown bullshit across these films. But to me, that's like saying I want to watch a Halloween without Michael Myers, or I want to watch Friday the 13th without Jason at this point, right? Like, you'll always have and always will love the way the main clown and the whole clown posse looks in this film and and the other films across this franchise because they are truly frightening. I would love if someone would actually put out one of these as a prop that I can buy for my house. I would absolutely love it, it would be fantastic. Maybe I just need to find the costume that I can just like stand around in hallways really still and it's like really fuck with people. That sounds great. But yeah, this clown posse, I'm here. And no, I don't mean ICP, not that clown posse. I'm talking about the clown posse from Hellhouse LLC.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

Yeah, the LLC clown posse.

SPEAKER_05 53:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 53:33

Yeah, no, I get that. Man, now I'm just imagining this is how differently you and I are built. Sean, I want the art the clown animatronic, and you want the hellhouse clown animatronic.

SPEAKER_05 53:44

Yes, yes, and I want zero fucking clowns. But this animatronic literally just has to this animatronic literally just has to, as you pass by it, has to slowly turn its head. You know what I mean? Then that's all it really needs to do. Very simple, very simple.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Holy shit, that would be so freaking great. Man, that could be iconic. I honestly I think I think I would spend money on that.

SPEAKER_05 54:08

Right? Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

When do you get Spirit Halloween on the phone?

SPEAKER_05 54:13

Ring them up. Let's go. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_05 54:16

I'm surprised we haven't done it yet. That's crazy, actually.

SPEAKER_02 54:19

Yeah, that's fucking great. Man, yeah, let me tell you, these clowns were definitely something, and they actually played a really strong part in what was my whole favorite scene of the movie. And this may not be a surprise to literally anyone, but the drive-in scene.

SPEAKER_05 54:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

Drive-ins and horror honestly, they always have this like really special kind of magic. Yeah, and that came through here. It's one of those actually one of the only times that I thought, damn, that looks cool, and it also feels real cool. Because Vanessa's sitting in her car, and the way that it's shot, okay, sure, she like obviously drove drunk over here, which is unacceptable. But she's passed out in the car. We have a hallucination or a nightmare of the screen warning her, telling her to turn around. Creepy as fuck, BT Dubs. She turns around and then sees the clown, and then we also get the exterior shot of the clown sitting in the back seat. So fucking good. It's like the headlights coming on in back of her. There's something about like those warm tones against the blue night sky that I absolutely love. And there's this like sudden intrusion of horror into an everyday setting. And it really, really worked for me. I really enjoyed that moment.

SPEAKER_05 55:41

It is such a good moment, and you know, it's this weird kind of vibe with drive-ins, right? Because that when one point, like you're in public, so to speak, right? You got people around you, but it's also semi-secluded because you're kind of intimately in your own little box. So like you are in public, but you're also separated and by yourself. And so, like, it's a very interesting dynamic, and you can do a lot of different things with it.

SPEAKER_02 56:08

Yeah, you know what else it reminded me of? It reminded me of going to the drive-in with John Binks and seeing Terrifier 2, and having Arthur Clown walk around and then using a prop head as like the candy bowl to like distribute things. I was hysterical.

SPEAKER_05 56:25

But also good.

SPEAKER_02 56:26

You're such a vibe, Sean. I we have to make a drive-in happen this spooky season.

SPEAKER_05 56:30

We actually're doing it. I put I put my votes in for the movies I want to see. I hope at least one or multiple of them are played. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

And it's funny that we're talking about the drive-in because they showed this movie at the drive-in in Miami.

SPEAKER_03 56:45

Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 56:45

Uh there was an 1145 showing on the night that I went to go see this, and I only didn't go because I was like, God damn, I'm gonna end up going home like at two in the morning. But if I was gonna pay for this stupid movie, I would have watched it at the drive-in, and maybe I would have liked it just a smidge more because the meta of it all would have been incredible. Damn. And I stopped.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

Imagine we could have been in that bitch. It could have been called. We could have had drinks that are not alcoholic, but like great drinks, we could have had nuggets, we could have had so many things.

SPEAKER_05 57:20

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

Oh it was an 1145 showing though.

SPEAKER_05 57:25

I haven't been to like a truly a late showing in so long. Because like they don't even like for the most part, like you can watch new releases early as hell now. Like it used to be like you would go at midnight the night before, and that's the ear that's like the first showing you can get. And like, I haven't done that in probably over 10 years, it feels like. So I don't even know if I can get through it, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_02 57:48

I think the last time I did that, oh shit. Yeah, okay. The last time I did that was Scream 4. I remember that distinctly. It was like a really late showing. It started before midnight and then ended the next day. And then I remember because my friend came over the next morning banging on my door at 5 a.m. like nothing ever happened, wanting to go to IHOP. That was ridiculous. But then before that, I think the last time I went was for the Star Wars prequel trilogy. At midnight.

SPEAKER_05 58:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 58:16

Yeah, the Star Wars movies, Harry Potter movies, a lot of those was were coming out at midnight on new on the same night release or whatever. But yeah, yeah. But let me tell you, listen, one of the I mean, I guess the almost opening scene, right? Like, that's definitely one of the stronger scenes in the movie because it's just like it's literally when Troy is like going, you know, or trying to leave rather the fair, right? And I guess it's like obviously a flashback, but what a great moment! Like he's drunk as hell, he's leaving, he's getting in his car, all of a sudden, the little you know game, whatever the fuck thing turns on and the music comes on, and he's like, Ah, let me go check out what's going on over here. And he sees the wad of cash. First of all, let's pick apart this scene for just a second because that stack of 20s didn't belong in the 90s or wherever the fuck he was from. Those are too new. Those 20s were too new to be in that time frame. So they cucked up there. They should have found some old 20s.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

Nothing like Eagle-Eyed John back in the case.

SPEAKER_05 59:22

We'll let it slide. We'll let it slide. But it was a great scene, nonetheless, like him going around, stumbling around to get around to the other side. First of all, he should have probably just reached over and grabbed it, but who am I? So he goes back there, he's going to get it. All of a sudden, there's a clown there now, you know. He's kind of like, that's kind of weird. He grabs the money, anyways, and then it's just like the way that it progresses, and the door is shut, the thing shuts, he's got nowhere to go, the lights go off, he's freaking out, it's perfect. He's got his little lighter. What is that doing? Absolutely nothing, but it's fucking fantastic, and the terror is kind of building, and he's going down the hallway. And what I love about it is, you know, you're like he's going down expecting to finally see the clown and realizes the clown isn't there, and he's right behind him and emerging from the light behind him, and then he obviously we don't get to see the kill, he dies off screen because that's how this fucking movie rolls, but what a great buildup, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Yeah. I feel like the only favorite scene that I've got is um it's gonna be cliche because of the paranormal-ness of it, but it's the exorcism scene, I suppose, because although it lasted all of four minutes at best, was what I thought this whole movie was going to be. And I was shooting for the stars. I recognized that. But at the very least, in terms of gore or like uncomfortability, I shouldn't have felt uncomfortable by how long I was sitting in this theater and wanting to leave. I should have been uncomfortable by the tension and like the fear that I was feeling, and I felt more of that in Lake of Fire than in this movie. And certainly in Origins. I feel very differently about Origins after watching this. So I guess thanks to this movie, we can revisit that, you know, scoring in a future time. But I definitely liked the exorcism scene because it, although it was very cliche in, you know, the father all of a sudden not like you had mentioned earlier, not having quite that faith that he had been preaching the whole time to Alicia, but all just demonic work at play, the whispering, the like fun of him, because like, oh, you think that this is gonna work? That's sweet, that's real cute. I there's something so sinister about that that I really appreciated. So I really wished that we had gotten more of that throughout the film for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Yeah, part of why that exorcism scene works is because of the lead up to it. And honestly, it's this idea that Hellhouse LLC was a mysterious like disappearance murder, etc. That happened in a haunt, and this whole section of the movie feels like they're walking through a haunt. Yeah. They're walking through this haunted house. And yeah, we had that before in Carmichael Manor, but this felt more so because it felt like they knew what they were getting into. It felt like they knew they were walking into spectacle. It also felt like were this executed a little bit better, this whole thing could have been way cooler. Because I'm thinking of even the moment where Alicia goes into the room and she sees Rebecca on the video call, and as she's turning back, Rebecca's head just snaps backwards. That kind of shit was great in this movie. And it feels like it belonged in a different movie. But that's you know the point that you were making, Binx. There are so many people involved with this production who really deserved a better outcome for this film because their work was just fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:59

I just tell you, even just the hands, the use of the hands in this movie, the hand that is like wrapping around the corner of the hall, or the hand emerging from the fucking coffin. Actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:15

Absolutely was great. And it even the callback to m-I think it was my I said it was my favorite scene in Origins, because the hands around the corner of the of the hallway, and it's the girl with the mask, like that scene was great in Origins, and I have I don't care that they redid it. At that point, I was like, give me more of the previous movies, it's gonna be better than whatever I've got right now. So hands are such a delicate thing, and I think that they can be super effective. We just talked about this recently in Conjuring 3 with the hand, you know, with the shower rod, right? So like those little moments are so great because it's delicate, you know? So I I definitely appreciated that. But I think that all in all, I really wish that the actors themselves were just as scared as like they needed to be. But I think they too didn't even emote that much fear personally. I think that maybe Vanessa was the one that really gave it her all. And maybe it's because you know, she's this isn't her first rodeo type thing. But in general, the characters were just rough for me, didn't feel any which way about a lot of them. I think the acting was once again not so great, so it was a little tough buy-in. Just it it didn't even feel like they were scared of the circumstances that they were in. Not too much. Vanessa f certainly, but everybody else, I don't know, I didn't believe it too much.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:48

Yeah, I think it's because the characters are messy for sure. And it's because they feel more like a PowerPoint presentation in human skin. Is really what it comes down to, right? Everyone else in this movie, aside from Vanessa and Alicia, are there to either die or just deliver lore. And their dialogue is stilted most of the time. This is the only thing that's frustrating. We think about even like Vanessa's husband. Everything that he said, it felt like they they took the first take from rehearsal.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

Not even was I missing some kind of lore to the two of them and their relationship. I was about his character to an extent because it seems he was very much like, I'm very much over you, don't care, I've got business to conduct. I was loving his sass, but I also this very early on in the movie, and I'm here still trying to figure out what's going on. I was like, was I supposed to remember this whole lore of Vanessa?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:47

He was just kind of a piece of crap, but you could tell because when he got out of the courtroom, wherever the fuck he was, like wherever he was working, he was checking out the secretary or whatever going down the staircase. So you know he was just. Kind of like a piece of crap that but for sure, yeah. He was just lame, he was just lame. He didn't, he was another actor that didn't really. I mean, I guess he kind of played scared a little bit as he was like running away from the clown towards the end, and that just brings me to another point. Like, I love the look of the clowns, but the clowns weren't as effective this time around because they showed too much of the movement on screen, and it ended up forcing us to feel like the red ball was the antagonist of this whole fucking movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:32

Which is such a crime. How do you shit the bet on the clowns? That's super frustrating.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:38

You know that's your bread and butter.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:41

Mm-hmm. You know who else was a clown? That therapist. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:44

I was gonna say breaking all those HIPAA violations, baby. Yeah, yeah, left and right.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:48

Okay, let's be clear though, like it's it's not even the HIPAA violation of it all, because I also grew up why, not me growing up, I was a full fucking adult when I watched this show. I watched Pretty Little Liars, and that show is full of problematic stuff. However, this therapist was just a means to an end, a vehicle to deliver news to Vanessa about Bobby. Except somehow she goes back to Max at the bar and Max knows Bobby and already apparently knows that Bobby's dead. There were things in this movie that were simply unnecessary, excessive the therapist, Max being two of those things.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:32

100%. But listen, I also think, you know, while Vanessa did a really good job as a like the character of Vanessa did a really good job at like being frightened, right, with that whole portrayal. Also kind of a letdown as a protagonist. Like the fact that she was like checked out and like separated from anything that was really going on around her. Like I just couldn't really invest in caring that much for her as a protagonist, which I think was also a letdown for the film. It was kind of rough. It was kind of rough.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:09

It's rough because, yeah, okay, sure, she's a returning character from the franchise, but they don't give her anything meaningful to do. Like she had potential, but the potential was unfulfilled. Because instead of feeling like a satisfying payoff, her present just highlights how little Stephen Cognetti had left in the tank when trying to cram apparently two movies worth of content into one. And she's reduced to just reacting to exposition rather than driving the story.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:42

That's just another example, though, of how necessary it is to watch some of these films, especially at the very least, obviously lake of fire before watching this one. A mistake that I clearly made because I went into this blindly and not even knowing what it was about. If I had known, then I would have remembered, oh, the movie that I hate the most of this franchise, I'm gonna have to revisit because she's in it. And I think because I didn't do that, I started watching this, and it took me like a good 10 minutes to realize, oh, this is the girl from Lake of Fire. So there's that fault. Second one is that I couldn't remember what happened to her at the end of Lake of Fire to then try to make sense of how she's here right now and why is she like a part of the story. So I don't think that they did necessarily the best job at giving her purpose. And if there was one, it was for this of an ending, I suppose.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:41

Which kind of brings me to like the real question and how we're all feeling about the reveal of Mitchell.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:47

Bullshit. What reveal? They didn't even cast that man. That might have been Cognetti underneath that hoodie. Didn't even reveal his friggin' eyeballs. It's true. Who knows who that was?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:57

Yeah. Disappointing, disappointing. I think what are the kids saying today? Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. Yep. Yeah, it's tough tomatoes. Yeah, it's tough because I like Mitchell. Mitchell deserved better. Alicia in this movie also deserved better, to be clear. She was in her own caliber of performance. Good for her. But Mitchell, man, if as if it wasn't enough to have like used a stand-in for Mitchell and to make him akin to like A from Pretty Little Liars, again with the Pretty Little Liars. But as he's walking swiftly away from her and she's saying, No, stop, hey, like trying to get his attention. He also has the goofiest arms out fucking walk and posturing. That I'm like, oh my god, is he doing a little jake? What is he listening to in his headphones right now? Because it was ridiculous. I thought this man had the clown shoes.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:53

He was walking with a purpose, like real wide-shouldered. I don't know. And it kind of reminded me of Winnie the Pooh, like Pooh in Blood and Honey and all that, like his stance when he was walking and storming from left to right. I don't know. It was very bizarre. But I thought that at the very least, show me the whole face.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:12

Yeah. It's just why though? Like I just don't get it. Like, why are we ending on this note if we don't have any plans to continue the story? Or are we trying to purposely maybe leave it open in case we do want to continue the story, even though we said we're not gonna continue the story?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:30

Yeah, it is honestly atrocious. It's disappointing. It feels as though you know, I can't even think of another franchise that would have like the equivalent treatment to this. And I'm sure they're out there maybe, but to end this franchise with her just saying Mitchell, no no no no no no no no no. Ma'am, sir, gents, folks, you're mistaken. Put it back in the oven. This wasn't done. It wasn't even half baked. No, not a golden brown crust at all.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:04

Imagine anyone being happy with that ending. And maybe there's some out there that do. Let me know, but dang, I just don't get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:12

It's super disappointing, and I think that's a lot of what I struggle with in this movie. Because and we'll discuss best parts of this movie in just a moment, but it's truly that uh the ending feels like a disaster. And it's the disaster that says a lot because this movie's also just endless exposition dumps, and these characters are used as vehicles to not just like overload you with lore, but to waterboard you with lore. It's just it's too much. It's too much, it's a it's a heavy hand.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:48

Which I feel like is tough because the best part of this movie is probably the lore, but it doesn't do itself any favors in this movie because there is almost too much lore that it's hard for viewers to follow along. So it's sort of this double-edged sword because the lore is interesting, but I wish it was just handled differently.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:13

Yeah, yeah. And I agree with you. And and I feel like the part of the lore that is a lot but could work had its conclusion at Lake of Fire. Like this whole to hell and and angel and demon, all like, okay, all right, we got that. That was the end of Lake of Fire. Give me origin, sure, to give me this origin story of the clown, but that's it. Leave it there. We didn't need more origin or understanding of things too much personally, I feel, than what we already got. If origin was supposed to be a prequel of sorts, right, like we kind of got our conclusion, I feel. I don't know why they needed to keep going. But alas, I feel like at the very least, if I had to have another takeaway or a positive to share aside from the other departments that deserve their flowers, it's that I do appreciate that Vanessa hits the ground and faints so often because I actually felt seen in that regard. There was some type of pot's representation, one way or another. And for that I say thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:24

Wow, that's a generous reach. And you know what? I bet Stephen Cognetti himself would say, You're welcome, Binx. For me, the best parts of this movie were as follows in this order, Rebecca, Margot, and Alicia looking at Rebecca and Margot that's really that's really what it is. But also shout out to Brian Keenan, the cinematographer. I want to see more of your work because this was a damn good-looking movie. Honestly, everyone below the line on this one. I genuinely hope you have a positive step in your careers because this movie is well assembled from that perspective. I just really wish there was a clearer story, a stronger sense of direction, and a vision that wasn't just cramming two movies worth of needless exposition into one.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:12

And that's exactly why I regret to say, for their sake, uh, that I would never watch this movie again. I will never watch a lot of these movies again. I think that now I have another like newfound appreciation for Origins. So I would probably just watch Origins and the first movie. But that is it. I am done. I literally don't have it in me anymore. If I if we have to if somehow Cognetti wakes up tomorrow and says, joke's on you, April Fool's, and we have to review another one of these movies. It's gonna be a tough one, guys. It really is. It's gonna be tough.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:50

I'll just make you do a rewind on all of them, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:52

Yeah, that sounds like hell.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:54

House. Sounds like yeah, house.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:58

It sure does. But you know, I can imagine a scenario in which I'll rewatch this. Are you ready for this? Nathan has found out that you can rent the Carmichael Manor on Airbnb.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:11

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

So I could partake in this. Yeah, I could partake in this if it was a full franchise marathon at the Carmichael Manor. Do they have props? I don't know that they have props, but I think we can look into this. I'll try to find the link and drop it in the show notes. But I think that could be something that we could do, right? Like maybe for episode 500, we do a telethon all night in the Carmichael Manor.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:36

Hold on. Because listen, listen, I can't believe I'm gonna say this, but that actually sounds really cool. I'm gonna vomit thinking about watching these movies there. But if one of you brings out a Ouija board, it's on site. It's on site.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:53

You know, we're gonna have a fucking Ouija board. You can't you can't just go into the situation expecting Sean Line to not do that.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:00

You gotta be well equipped, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:03

Just pick let me know when that's let me know when that's gonna be in the itinerary so I can make other plans, and then I'll come back when you guys are done.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:09

But you know what, on a serious note though, like outside of that context, rewatchability at this one is is flat. Flat zero.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:18

Flat for sure. The one thing I feel like I didn't do to what I think we all probably didn't do, which I do regret now, was actually watching the whole franchise in a marathon before going into this one because you really do need that refresher to be up to speed on the story across all of the films before going into this one. So watch this one again after hacking it. You will in a marathon at some point. I probably will, because I feel like I gotta I gotta just watch the story unfold. I'm not necessarily in any rush to do so, but I just can't say no.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:00

Yeah, you know what? Joke's on you because Nathan, the hero he is, did a whole franchise watch party once a week every week, leading up to this movie's theatrical release in our Discord server. Shout out to Nathan. You're the best. Appreciate it. But I just thought of a second way that I would re-watch this movie. I would do this if I needed to come up with an example of how far a franchise could fall. Oh, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:25

I think that's where I'd scoop it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:27

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:28

But hey, who's to say whether or not you really have to watch this one again? Maybe you stuck around this whole episode and you know we watched it so you wouldn't have to. Because there you have it, folks. Hellhouse LLC lineage has earned a universal hack. And we've certainly had a robust discussion here, but the conversation about this movie's atrocities doesn't end here by any means.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:51

If you love the lore of Hellhouse and want to find out more of the lore of Hackerslash, consider supporting the show. You can visit patreon.com/slash hackerslash and enjoy even more of the show, including bonus content with early access, extended episodes with our B-sides, which are free sides for the spooky season, also movie nominations and live shows.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:16

We'll see you next time, folks, and remember it's not real. Okay, so this movie claims to be the last of its bloodline. Designed you can resist the opportunity. But this also feels like it's the curse of the final installment, right? So tell me, just from your memory, how many horror movie franchise have promised closure but then just kept going?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:53

Final destination for sure. Uh Friday the 13th, for sure. So right.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:00

Mm-hmm. Paranormal activity, the ghost dimension.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:03

Ah, paranormal activity for sure. Jaws.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:07

Mm-hmm. Oh, I didn't know that about Jaws. Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:10

I don't know if they'd promise closure, but I feel like it definitely the franchise should have ended a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:16

Fair. How about Nightmare on Elm Street? Was that one? Potentially. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Freddy's dead.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:22

Oh, duh. You're right. You're right, of course. Yeah. Why do they keep doing this? They just like if you're gonna say something, stick to it.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:29

You did last summer.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:30

Oh god.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:32

Oh gosh. Oh atrocious. Atrocious. Okay. Also, I think Scream positioned itself to be pretty conclusive and done and then kept going.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:44

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:44

Now different franchise because all the movies are just great. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:48

That's true. Interesting. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, Leprechaun feels like it's another one that has five billion, but I don't think they ever tried to say that they would stop. I think they know what they are and are like, let's just keep putting this leprechaun in random places.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:03

Yeah. And I haven't seen every single leprechaun movie, but I'm sure one of them in there was like, yeah, this is the end all be all. I mean no more lips from here.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:18

The final Friday. The final Friday. I mean, how many finals can we possibly get in that chapter? I have no idea. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:30

You can pack so many finals into this bad boy. Just bad boy being the horror genre.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:38

I guess we, you know, maybe are figuring out the rights to that franchise. I have no idea, but like you know it's gonna go on at some point here.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:46

Mm-hmm. And you know, even Halloween did this to an extent.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:51

Although it wasn't fully baked and completely advertised as such, but we think about H2O. Things you've seen H2O when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:01

Ha quality. Okay, I remember I remember some of it though.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:04

But there's nothing surprising about H2O for you. No. Okay, great. Because H2O was pitted as this idea that it's gonna be like the final confrontation between Lori and Michael, and Jamie Lee Curtis is like, yeah, I gotta kill him. And then we all know what happens after that. So there's that aspect to it, but I think the thing about this, right, and you're thinking about like the final film curse, I think there's two sides of this because on the one hand, I think fans complain about too many sequels. But I also think the box office tells the truth, right? Like we secretly want to be lied to. I don't know that I want to be lied to about this movie. I think this movie needs maybe like a course correction, and that's the only way I would take another film. But at this point, it's like just let sleeping dogs lie. But on the other hand of it, it feels like horror might be for me the only genre where failure can feel like a resurrection fuel, you know?

SPEAKER_05 1:23:02

Well, yeah, but the problem is, or I don't even know if it's the problem is the right way to put it, but the thing is with horror is that we can just do reboots. You know what I mean? We could just reboot the franchise, we can do a requil and erase shit in the franchise. Like the rules get bended so much in horror franchises that truly you can make anything go on forever.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:24

Yeah, I think it would actually be fun though to even think about franchises that did that did just that, right? What are some of those franchises that climbed back from the brink of death? Well, you mentioned a good one there. I know what you did last summer.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:37

Yeah, it definitely is it definitely climbed back from the depths of the fucking mountain landlocked fucking goddamn but Jesus Christ, dude. It was horrendous.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:49

But uh Final Destination as well, because with Final Destination 4 being the final one, with five, they ended it like that. Was a game changer concluded really well, actually tied back really cleverly. I I think that then there's all of that, and then they did bloodlines several years after that, and almost if not like exceeded expectations for sure, at least landed the plane. But you know, like I think that they did a really good job in extending that franchise, not just with the fifth one, but also with the six in such a huge gap in between.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:25

You know what else got a great extension? Child's play, because the series felt like it had bottomed out, and then we got the seed of Chucky, exactly, and then it went from child's play to Chucky. We got bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky, etc. Even Seed of Chucky was like a little down, but Domancini then resurrected it with Curse of Chucky, and it felt like it got back to like this gothic horror style, and then I mean look at them, they went on to go with the cult of Chucky and then the Chucky TV series. That was an incredible comeback.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:00

Yeah, that's a really good point. I don't know. I know man, we're talking about bloodlines. I just thought of Hellraiser Bloodlines. We definitely had that, but then it wasn't really the end because we got like six more movies after that, but it is a franchise that bounced back because obviously all those sequels or whatever weren't the best, and then we've got the Hellraiser uh movie that we got just a couple years ago that went to Hulu, I believe, and that was actually pretty solid.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:28

Yeah, that was a really great one. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:31

I I don't know if Alien how well would maybe Alien count within this conversation, because I don't know if it was that it was like set to be a true conclusion, I suppose. I mean, we did get like Prometheus and Covenant, we haven't reviewed those yet, but I mean, just thinking of like where it starts off. And I know that there are some films in that franchise that people are not big fans of Prometheus Covenant, maybe like Alien 3 or whatever. I know that there's some that people aren't a big fan of, but Romulus was fantastic. And although that's like mm-h maybe that's kind of the conversation we're having in terms of like reboots, right? Because it's not quite the same characters, the same like entry, but it is a revival of the general franchise that I think would did exceptionally well.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:21

I think one I lack the familiarity with the alien franchise to speak definitively on what like was it really on Death's Door before it got resurrected? But yeah, I bet some alien fans out there are about to blow me up saying, like, yeah, that shit was terrible.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:37

I think we could think of it in terms of like, did the franchise kind of fizzle out? Like, did we get to a point where like maybe they didn't necessarily intend to end it as a finale, but it definitely like got to a lower point, and then we bounced back with some really nice, fresh like takes. And you know, actually gonna pain me to even bring this up, but it is an example that I know a lot of people are probably gonna resonate with, but like the Evil Dead franchise, right? Because we went from Army of Darkness to a really taking quite a turn into a much more serious version of this franchise. And listen, I love both you know, both parts of the franchise or both however you want to say that. I love the campiness of the original three evil deads, and I especially still love Army of Darkness, and I know some people maybe don't like it because it's too campy and too weird, and the new and they might like this these new evil deads that we're getting because they're really dark, they're really gruesome, they're definitely more terrifying, they're much more serious, and that is definitely a good example of a franchise that has really maybe just brought that franchise out of the depths of like horror. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:00

Yeah, I am people. The people you're talking about are is me. I do not like those move the first three like movies. I mean, um, I have a little bit more of an appreciation of the first two. Army of Darkness is complete ass, and I will I've I've got the flag ready to go. I will say it's the end of time. But the like more recent ones, absolutely sick. Like so good, extremely good. And I think that because of that, because I enjoyed those two, it made me want to revisit one and two, give it another shot, and that's how I gained even more appreciation. Because I I like Sam Raimi, but I think it just goes to show you that like you just need a little bit of a of a reinvigoration sometimes in a franchise to give it new life and new perspective. And that's at least what happened with me with Evil Dead.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:46

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Man, now I'm just thinking about other movies that came back, but maybe not quite as successfully. Like, okay, Psycho, incredible, iconic. Psycho then had other sequels, some of which were better than others. Then it had the abysmal fucking remake. But then it came back in Bates Motel, and that was top-notch.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:09

Amen. Absolutely. One of the best shows ever. What a time. I wish I could relive those days. I've locked in every week. So so so good. Another one that I was just thinking oh, what another one I was just thinking of was The Exorcist. There's several of those. We got Exorcist Believer.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:30

Yeah, it's like, did it get better?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:32

Maybe Did it get better? I don't know. Sample of maybe of like an attempt to, right? But didn't quite hit the mark.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:39

Well, like even like Slumber Party Massacre, because Okay. The 2021 version, do we like do? I mean, do we think it was a step up, or what do we feel about it?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:50

Okay. 2021 version.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:53

What? Banks, did you not?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:56

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:56

Okay, hold on. Okay. Wait, what? Here's the thing. I love the Slumber Party Massacre. It is a fucking feminist masterpiece. I love that movie. The sequel? Weird. Weird as fuck, but still really fucking fun. The remake, not as good, but still fun. I enjoyed it. Yeah, I did enjoy it. I don't think it's a step up. I think it's just a step in a direction. That is not backwards.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:24

Interesting. I mean, I I think I had fun with it. I haven't, yeah, it's been a minute since I've watched it, so I I actually kind of want to revisit that whole franchise a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:32

Do we need to do we need to do do we need to do some watch-alongs? Do we need to do some rewinds?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:37

I'm honestly down.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:38

I wouldn't be mad at a rewind.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:40

I've only seen the first one, and that was I think I watched that this year for the first time. And the same thing with Sleepaway Camp that I just watched like two months ago for the first time. That one was crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:53

Thanks. Why aren't we doing a slumber party for Slumber Party Massacre? Oh my god. You gotta have a new job.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:59

This is great.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:01

Okay, okay. One that now jumps to mind that I wish would actually get a good treatment. I haven't seen the remake yet, but I didn't hear good things about it. One of the slashers that I love, and actually it's coming up on the crypt from our first episode ever on this movie. Terror Train. With Jamie Lee Curtis. You've never seen it? Me either. I've I've heard about it. Terror Train is a New Year's movie. Feels like we gotta do it. But the remake I think takes place around Halloween. And I haven't heard great things about it. I do want to watch it. Maybe I'll put that on tonight before I go to bed. But that is one that I think could be revived. There's some franchises that for sure need some resuscitation.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:48

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:49

Friday the 13th is also already getting new life breathed into it with Jason Universe. I don't know if you both watched the Sweet Revenge short film. Okay, well, I'll have the link to that in the show notes. You should check it out. Mixed reviews. Uh I think it's just okay, it's cool to see Jason on a screen again. Wasn't great, but we'll get a movie. Silent Night, Deadly Knight also being brought back from death later this year.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:14

That's right, that's right. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:17

Starring our boy Corey Cunningham.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:20

You know, it's time for some of these. We'll see what they do with it. We've had some good, I don't know about remakes in general, but we've had some good reboots in a sense, like, or just like new installments. Like even just thinking of the Predator franchise and getting prey in 2022, like that was such a good installment. Now we've got Badlands that looks interesting. I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:45

Hmm. Listen, I'm just here for the Crystal Lake show.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:49

I am here for the Crystal Lake show. I'm here for the Welcome to Dairy show.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:55

I mean, I know it's time to be a friend, one part two, blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:59

I know. I'm here for all of it. I literally am in the midst of watching the alien earth, and that has been kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:08

Me too.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:08

It has been kind of fun. I kind of like it. But listen, the Camp Crystal Lake, I just bought a nice Camp Crystal Lake hat, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:18

I have the big ready for Campbell. Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake sign that I thought I had room for in my office, but don't yet. I'll find a spot for it. Back here somewhere.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:31

You can find a spot for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:33

Yeah, listen, I fucking I spent so much money at Spirit Halloween, and you better believe I'm going back to spend more.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:40

Yeah, I was trying to piece together like what I'm gonna wear at Horror Nights this year, and just thinking of the themes, and so like I got that you know Camp Crystal Lake hat, you know, just to go with the Voorhees themes of it all, and then I got like a terrifier shirt that's like a white t-shirt and it's all red, but it's just like such a cool I don't know, it's just such a cool shirt. So I'll have to show you when I get it in, but I feel like I'm gonna have the themes, you know, this year. I'm gonna have the themes there. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:09

I'm excited. I'm excited. I have a very lightweight short sleeve Friday the 13th button up that I just got. So there's that. I have multiple art the clown shirts. There's also that. Yeah. I think the outfit outfit planning has to be very strategic this year, especially with the white the wet path.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:26

I'm waiting for like a video or something or somebody to leave a review saying, like, be careful when you go in this wet path because you're gonna ruin your clothes.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:34

I've heard that you're straight up gonna get drenched.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:36

But is it just like is it gonna aimed like are you gonna thread or is it gonna be just water? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:41

It seems to be water.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:42

Okay, because I can't be walking around with a ruined white t-shirt, you know what I mean? No, I think you're gonna be water. But there's that's what it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:50

Like some videos they're saying, like, this may not be it, you know how it is, but soon, you know, we're gonna get some like real-time videos. I'm supposed to potentially be going in a week, so we'll see how that goes. But I'm also maybe potentially this is also up in the air, but we need to decide soon because I'm leaving soon, going to Halloween Horror Nights in Japan. So that's going to be we're going to Japan? What the fuck? That's a big announcement. Oh yes, oh yes. What? Yeah, I'm going to Japan. Did I not share this? Oh, really? Did I not share this? Oh, oh well. Yeah, I'll be there during Halloween. So at the end of I leave October 23rd. Yeah. So that's gonna be quite a time. I've heard that Halloween Horror Nights is like four or five houses there, but this is also like, you know, where horror really is like serious. They're not gonna have terrifier. But they I think they're gonna have I think it was Resident Evil that I saw, maybe something else. But either way, I hit the ground, as we know, as we saw, in a lot of these uh haunted houses. So um wow. I don't know how that's gonna go for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:02

Yeah. Listen, I I'm just excited to get drunk with Sean and uh go through uh take pictures with Arthur Clown as he walk he's walking around scare zones and restaurants.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:12

No, godspeed. My brother, because it's you know our thing, terrifiers our thing. So we saw that it was a house and you he was like, we're going. And since basically my entire family has moved to Central Florida, at this point, this is the best way to go visit everyone all at once while also just being terrified out my ass. So yeah, it's gonna be great family bonding. Can't wait.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:33

Let us know how the wet path is.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gonna be lovely.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:38

Get ready to get wet.