This isn’t Hell House, LLC.
Or any other kind of meta / found footage horror feature.
No, this is 2001’s remarkably straight forward documentary following Trinity Church, in Texas, as they put on an evangelical version of a haunted house attraction that draws in curious guests by the tens of thousands and attempts to scare them into a relationship with Jesus. And it’s the most frightening film that will play at this year’s infamously horror heavy festival.
Director George Ratliff and his small team gained remarkable access to this community in order to document this phenomenon. What was initially a major challenge to the film’s reach (the fact that it made its film festival premiere roughly 24 hours before the events of September 11th, 2001), has today made it an incredible time stamp of American evangelicalism as it existed before that future-altering tragedy. And how did Ratliff and team even get the access that they did, what with being secular filmmakers and all? Well, Trinity had gotten into hot water in the past Halloween season by portraying a Columbine-like school shooting scene that had garnered national attention and some condemnation. So they felt an inclination to allow a team to document their intentions and planning for this endeavor, which they very much considered a mission and a soul-saving ministry.
This is going to end up being one of the most fascinating and engrossing films I see at Fantastic Fest 2026, even if is is 25 years old. The fine folks at American Genre Film Archive are actually restoring and re-releasing Hell House this year, apparently including a Blu-ray release as well as theatrical bookings. And it feels like the timing couldn’t be better. America is in a full blown crisis right now, and an ascendent Christian nationalism is a major contributor to where we find ourselves today. Hell House offers an incredible glimpse into the past to provide some clues into the mindsets and worldviews that contributed to our current level of crisis.
A production put on by the church’s youth group, the 2001 Hell House experience included a variety of “scenes” that guests would walk through. There’s a suicide scene, a domestic violence scene, a date rape scene, a drunk driving scene, an abortion scene, and a depiction of hell itself. And at the very end? A room where you’re forced to exit through one of two doors. Through one door are prayer warriors ready to pray with you and guide you through accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior. The other exit? Presumably back to your car, where your condemned soul will drive off dazed from the earnest and horrifying experience of Hell House. (One particularly mind-blowing scene depicts some proto-goth teens expressing their feelings of being offended by the whole thing to some of the Hell House leaders after presumably exiting through the “wrong” door…)
Ratliff structures the doc in a remarkably straight-forward way. We follow the adult and student leaders of the Trinity youth group as they go through writing and casting and building the Hell House experience for that year. We follow a few “characters” to get more insight into their personal lives and into the thought process behind the production of this grim spectacle. Then we get to make our way through the Hell House itself, seeing snippets of the scenes, audience reactions, and passionate alter-call style prayers (sometimes even prayers spoken in tongues). The doc benefits greatly from this simple structure and access. Ratliff and crew are nowhere to be seen, resisting the frequent documentary urge to make the filmmakers a part of the story. No, this is Trinity Church’s story, and while intentional editing shows us what the doc team wanted us to see, there’s a raw authenticity to Hell House that is undeniable. And that makes it all the more chilling.
It’s important for me to note that I myself am a person of faith who walked a fairly evangelical path in my teen and early adult years. Today I remain a follower of Jesus who has deconstructed and reconstructed my own faith (in a likely endless process of learning and practicing). But I myself don’t believe in any kind of eternal conscious torment, or “hell”, and find the self-important need to “save” people by converting them to your agenda to be anathema to the way I live out my own life and faith.
But that also means that I recognized very personally the culture represented in the film. The earnest feeling that lost souls needed to be saved, and that scaring people straight is actually the deepest form of love, because even if you’re highly offensive and have a massive agenda, you can justify it because it’s all in the name of saving the lost. One can truly see the seeds of Christian Nationalism being planted right here in Hell House, where we confidently condemn those who have practiced homosexuality, or chosen an abortion, or to end their own lives, to an eternal punishment. And we welcome the end times, because the end times simply mean that Jesus is all the nearer, ready to take the saved (and only the saved) to heaven with Him.
The guests to Hell House are tally marks. Souls to be saved. The tools to save them? Offensive depictions, played out by youth who themselves have barely experienced enough life to wrap their minds around what they’re doing and saying. Those putting on the show are deadly serious about it, absolutely earnest in their execution and confident in the righteousness of their cause. It pre-sages so many of the strident stances of today’s Christian nationalists: Convinced of their righteousness, they naturally act as though others matter less, and that the end times can’t come fast enough.
The documentary itself comes from an era of cinematic restraint, where one can tell that the team wasn’t drawing out, amping up, or juicing the subjects like a modern reality television would. They simply document and edit, showing us the hearts and intentions of the subjects. And those hearts and intentions play out like a car crash that you simply can’t look away from, laying bare the theology that has led us to a profoundly sad, reductive, and divisive present.
And I’m Out.
