Fridge / Hell House LLC

Fridge Logic: How did the ending footage showing what happens to Diane in Room 2C wind up in the final cut of the documentary?

• While the basement is scary and atmospheric, in terms of logistics (audience flow, fire safety) it doesn't seem like a very good choice. (In fact, at the beginning there's a closeup of people getting stuck on the stairs, as it looks like there's only the one door. Although it's not like better logistics would have fixed the malicious supernatural presence.)

• Diane's decision to go to the house herself looks like the epitome of Too Dumb to Live, but remember: she'd never seen even a second of the footage - she immediately gave it to Mitchell. She only relied on Sara's narration, of which only tiny bits are shown. Just how truthful was that? We think that it basically matched the footage, but about the only thing about the events themselves we do explicitly hear is "I was just happy to be alive. They didn't ask me any questions or anything. They just rushed me out." Really, the final reveal could be more of The Ending Changes Everything than meets the eye.

Fridge Horror: When the crew first shows up at the hotel and checks out the basement Paul picks up an old high heeled shoe, dumps it out and asks Sarah if it's her size. When you take into account the stories of mysterious disappearances that come up later in the film and that the worst stuff all happens in the basement it raises all kinds of disturbing implications about how that shoe got there.

• Who the hell would name an entire town - not just a hotel! - Abaddon? Who? The hell...
  • Funny, you should type that; there's a real town called Hell in Michigan so a town named Abaddon doesn't seem that out there...
• The number 23 is considered an evil number in the occult world, mainly because it foreshadows tragic events. Sara tells Diane that she is staying in room 2C. C is the third letter in the alphabet, hence 23. Diane discovering and entering the room at the Abaddon hotel, sealed she fate.
  • "2C" also sounds like "to see", which could be significant since Diane was lured into the hotel to satisfy her own curiosity about it.
• When Sara is sleepwalking, she starts talking in Sdrawkcab Speech - when reversed, it turns out to be some of her lines from the interview with Diane ^note  "I got to the front door as the police were arriving", "...happy to be alive", and "...ask me any questions or anything. They just rushed me out.". The reversed lines all relate to Sara escaping the Abaddon hotel with her life - which of course she didn't; in reality, this may have been done by the filmmakers for irony, but in-universe it seems like the supernatural presence taunting everyone by revealing a hint to its plan in a manner no one would understand unless they reversed the tapes after the fact.