Hell House
As with Devil’s Playground, Hell House is a fly-on-the-wall documentary look at a fringe group of Christians in America. This time, it’s an Assemblies of God church in east Texas that puts on a haunted house every Halloween depicting the sins that lead to Hell.
Using amateur actors (primarilly Christian high school students) the organizers of Hell House orchestrate a series of despicable, highly emotional scenes that tour groups stop to watch. A girl takes drugs at a rave and is raped. Later she decides to commit suicide. A gay man curses God as he dies of AIDS on a hospital bed while the girl in the bed next to him (bleeding profusely from her uterus due to a botched abortion) asks God for forgiveness. An angel protects the girl as a demon drags the gay man to Hell. At the end of each tour, the sometimes traumatized tour group is given an choice: either walk through door #1 and pray with a prayer councilor who will help you dedicate your life to Christ, or walk out door #2 and hope that your relationship with God is good enough to save you from the horrors of eternal damnation.
The film briefly focuses on several members of Trinity Church involved in the Hell House–some of whom have personal histories similar to the characters they are portraying. Although the filmmakers do show angry teens who strongly object to the message of the production, director George Ratliff doesn’t attempt to show any real concise counter-opinion to that of the church organizers. One question left unanswered is: where does the money go? Hundreds of people line up and pay $7 to view these nightmarish scenes. If many of those people are already Christians, how is this not “Christsploitation” in the vein of The Omega Code?
Whether you agree or disagree with the tactics used by church organizers (and I’m betting that most of you will disagree) Hell House is one of those films that will undoubtedly spark opinionated conversation afterward.