Evil Never Dies.
Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor is a 2023 Found Footage Mockumentary Horror film written and directed by Stephen Cognetti. It is the fourth film in the Hell House LLC franchise, and the first not to take place in the original trilogy's setting of the Abaddon Hotel. It serves as both a sequel and a prequel to the main trilogy, following a new storyline in the modern day, while also delving into the backstory and lore behind the Abaddon Hotel and its sinister owner.
Three years after the destruction of the Abaddon, internet True Crime sleuth Margot Bentley, her girlfriend Rebecca and Margot's brother Chase go to stay at the Carmichael Manor, a stately mansion in rural Rockland County, where two members of the wealthy Carmichael family were brutally murdered thirty years earlier. Hoping to make a documentary about the killings, the three soon find themselves getting more than they bargained for, along the way uncovering the mysterious connection between the Carmichael family and the Abaddon Hotel itself.
The film was released as a Shudder exclusive on October 30, 2023.
Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor provides examples of:
- Anachronic Order: Like previous installments, the film's wrap-around device is of a documentary made after all of the events shown in the film. This allows the film to show events that occurred prior to the main storyline, intercut as a singular narrative.
- The Artifact: The clown mannequins, even more so than the previous film. Not only does there seem to be no explanation for how they came to end up back in the Carmichael Manor following the events of the previous film, but their connection to the Carmichaels is ultimately tenuous at best, as it's revealed that Patrick Carmichael was simply asked to look after them by Andrew Tully.
- Artifact Title: By this entry, the series has well and truly moved away from the "Hell House LLC" concept that drove the originals, especially considering that the Abaddon Hotel was destroyed at the end of the previous film. The events of the original trilogy are mentioned in passing, but this film is more concerned with events that occurred long before the first film, making this an even more glaring case.
- Ascended Extra: In the second movie, it was mentioned that there was a Sole Survivor of Tully's cult, who missed out on the mass suicide due to being arrested for a bar fight beforehand. As we learn here, that cult member was Patrick Carmichael, who then killed his family as an extension of Tully's will, setting up this movie's plot.
- Backstory: The film not only delves into what happened to the Carmichaels, it also covers the history of Andrew Tully's cult, and how Patrick Carmichael was the connection between the two.
- Big Fancy House: The Carmichael Manor is a gorgeous mansion in the middle of a rural area. In a surprisingly realistic turn, the "fancy" part is actually downplayed, as while the home certainly has some nice furnishings, it looks more like the home of an average upper-middle-class family (albeit a LOT bigger) than the usual ostentatious wealth palace most prevalent with this trope.
- Bury Your Gays: Margot and Rebecca don't make it out alive.
- Connected All Along: Patrick Carmichael was a member of Andrew Tully's cult, specifically the one whose spirit is haunting the iconic black and white clown mannequin. Also, it's implied at the end that he was the man who tried to abduct Margot from a carnival when she was a child.
- Downer Ending: Margot, Rebecca and Chase are all killed by the spirits of the Carmichaels, and what's more, the fact that the ghostly cult still appears to be active means that Russell Wynn's efforts to stop them in the previous film seemed to have been All for Nothing.
- Eye Scream: When Margot finds Chase's dead body at the end of the film, both of his eyes have been gouged out in signature Hell House LLC fashion.
- Found Footage: A staple of the series, as per previous entries. This time, we get found footage from two entirely different sources, filmed thirty years apart: the main characters in the present day and Catherine Carmichael's footage from 1989.
- Foregone Conclusion: The movie states right at the start that all three of the main characters are dead. The story then becomes unpacking how it happened, and how the events linked to the original trilogy.
- Happy Ending Override: It's shown that at least some of Tully's ghost cult escaped being sent back to Hell by Russel Wynn and is still active in Rockland County despite the destruction of the Abaddon Hotel.
- Haunted House: An entirely new one this time in the titular Carmichael Manor.
- Intrepid Reporter: Margot runs a True Crime website with her friend Bradley, and makes a habit of staying at the locations of the murders she's investigating in order to get a better sense of what happened there.
- Mockumentary: The film leans into this more than the previous installments, featuring a rather polished documentary style, complete with full score and insert shots designed to emphasise locations and moments in the storyline, and intercutting the story of Margot, Rebecca and Chase with the footage that Catherine Carmichael filmed in the lead-up to her murder.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Rebecca ultimately hits this point towards the end, and it takes a lot of effort on her part to persuade Margot to come with her. Shame it doesn't help either of them...
- Shrine to the Fallen:
- A possible film version, it's implied that the entire "documentary" has been produced by Bradley as a means of paying tribute to Margot, Rebecca and Chase.
- An antique shop in Abaddon has opened an exhibit dedicated to the Abaddon Hotel, complete with items retrieved from the building after it was destroyed.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: The ghost of Catherine Carmichael appears as this.
- Too Dumb to Live: Can essentially apply to all three of the main characters, but especially Margot. Of the five nights that the story unfolds over, the situation has hit terrifying levels by night three, with both Rebecca and Chase begging Margot to cut the shoot short and leave. She manages to convince them both to stay, ultimately dooming all three of them.
