 Hell House (2001) Trinity Church in Cedar Hills, Texas stages the elaborate Hell House event each October, aimed at harvesting some lost souls for Jesus. Instead of the usual vampires and zombies found at your local park district haunted house, Hell House features dramatized depictions of rape, suicide, abortion, AIDS, and other modern buzzbogeys, with church members acting scenes out for maximum "realism." The film documents the organization and execution of Hell House, from initial script meetings through the audition process and finally the big show itself. You'd think that an indie documentary about this sort of thing would be either fiercely critical or fervently propagandist, but director George Ratcliff wisely chooses to simply let the phenomenon speak for itself. No easy potshots or editorializing—the viewer is left to face the event and its participants however he/she may. The material is therefore challenging no matter what side of the fence you're on … if you think that Hell House is all misguided Christian self-righteousness, you'll have to contend with your own judgments, and if you think it's a bold attempt to reach out to the non-saved, you'll have to decide whether it's being done at all tactfully. Certainly I had difficulty with the characters in Hell House ("abortion girl," "AIDS boy," etc) being damned to hell for forsaking God after being raped or molested. But my real issue with the film is that while Ratliff gained total access to Hell House and its creators, he doesn't seem to have garnered ample trust for the people to really let him in. His attempts to delve into the life stories of individual church members as a means of showing their intent mainly produce glib, dogmatic soundbytes about their religious beliefs. So you never really get to know these people as people, just as Christians. And unfortunately, the people Ratliff does manage to draw out a little don't add much to the subject—one strand of the film follows a single dad who participates in Hell House along with his daughter. We see him struggling to raise a family with two special-needs children, one of whom actually has a seizure on camera. All of which is interesting, but it feels like padding, an unnecessary detour from the Hell House story. The issue is probably that Hell House in an of itself doesn't sustain a feature-length film; it probably would have been a great 40-minute documentary. Still, Hell House is a strong and unique film; overlong, but a powerful document. Like Capturing the Friedmans, it raises your discomfort level and forces you to either stare it down or turn away. Whether the film is "good" or not ultimately seems beside the point.
Review by Ronna Lee Ribrub |