It’s nine years since the ill-fated documentary on the Abaddon Hotel and the town was planning on demolishing the building. However, zillionaire Russell Wynn has purchased the cursed Hotel and is planning on putting on a production of Faust in the creepy lodging house; seems appropriate somehow. Along for the ride are Vanessa Shepherd and her film crew who have been given access all areas exclusive rights to film a behind-the-scenes documentary of the production of his new show. Interestingly Russell is famed for his audience-interactive show Insomnia, which is exactly what Vanessa is going to get as all hell breaks loose and she discovers the billionaire’s true intentions. Strap in kids, we’re booking into the Hotel for another go around.

More of the same folks, more of the same. And you know what, that’s exactly why we are here watching the third movie in the franchise. The clowns are back, hell yeah, the dark claustrophic spaces are adding tension, things happen behind characters, and we get the freaky deaky happening like it is going out of fashion. Having said that, things have been rinsed but not recycled, there’s a new shine to the old paint job and I was having a hell of a time with what was on my screen. Hey how many Friday the 13th movies did we get? People still showed up to cheer on good old Jason, which is kind of weird when you think about it, but who ever said horror fans were always on the straight and narrow. The Lake of Fire then is like a well-worn jacket, it’s comfortable and fits just right, and is exactly what the audience is tuning in for.

We even get a documentary team involved, which of course is going to be a requirement for this franchise in order for the viewer to actually have something to watch. The movie takes it a step further however, while we do get plenty of documentary footage we also get each of the Faust team equipped with their own individual cameras to allow for further exploration of the source material. Hey nifty way to get around the multi angle thing and also to add some shots that otherwise wouldn’t be explainable in the old “who the hell took that footage” problem a lot of movies in this subgenre fail to resolve. 

Where things start to divert from the previous movies is in the character of billionaire Russell Wynn. We learn through the course of the movie that Russell was involved in a serious car accident which left him with a scare and more important involved the dude dying for a few minutes. More on this later. Now for the sharp eyed amongst us Russell has a quiet conversation with a local Priest and later with Vanessa. We don’t know what these conversations are about, but clearly there is information being hidden from the audience that will have impact. Nice introduction of mystery to proceedings and I was left wondering what exactly Russell knows about the Hotel, and what is his purpose in staging a crowd event there. Once again more on this later, hey we’ll get there.

Let’s get a few of the bad points out of the way before we head toward the final chapter in the sordid Abaddon Hotel history. If possible the acting in this movie is even worse than the acting in the previous movie, yes we are seeing talking to camera – oh dear. There is a certain amount of sameness to proceedings, a feeling we have seen this all before, and are simply in a rehash of scare tactics. And I guess to round out this segment, the dialogue is at times strained and face palming. You can quite happily put this movie on mute in the background and not lose track of what is going down.

The premise of Lake of Fire sort of had me scratching my head in bemusement. Local authorities have condemned the building and its due for demolition, which is just as well as apparently local law enforcement is spending a notable amount of their budget failing to keep teens out of the building. We then find Russell Wynn has purchased the property and is putting an interactive show on, because nothing has gone wrong previously when this was done right? I’m talking from my local area, which isn’t in the U.S, but if you purchase a condemned building that you want to use, you need to bring it up to safety standards and not simply get ready to rock and roll with no remedial work. Where’s Kevin McCloud when you need him!

During the last movie, and definitely in this movie, we have been confronted with the Latin verse “Est aperta porta”, which translate to “the door is open”, which has nothing to do with portals as claimed by some sources. Anyways it took three movies, but we now know a door to Hell exists in the basement of the Abaddon Hotel, and this leads directly to the mythical lake of fire. The door was opened apparently by Andrew Tully and his disciples, this point is important, we’ll return to it shortly. So hey, explanations etc., for those prepared to follow the actions on screen. Not entirely sure we needed things explained to us, but you roll with the punches in the horror house that dripped blood.

There’s one aspect of this movie that had me scratching my head, see previous paragraph. During the concluding scenes the original Hell House team are still trapped within the confines of the Hotel, and Russell Wynn makes an appearance to explain they can never leave because they all died within the Hotel. Go into the light or something. Strangely Russell decides that they opened the door to Hell, which is kind of not what happened, we forget about Andrew Tully for a moment there? I guess some proof is in the continued disappearances of diverse teens since that fateful Halloween evening, but still we are edging up to plot hole country here, the Hell House team didn’t after all summon a demon or do anything else remotely like opening doors they shouldn’t open.

Well I for one had a lot of fun with Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire, which considering the movie ends with the Hotel burning down should underline the franchise and we can all move along. Oh wait no we can’t, the obligatory prequel has dropping on shudder.com, hey I’m there no problems at all. Full recommendation on this one, we are talking one of the great found footage franchises and proof positive that this subgenre hasn’t died out as some are claiming. The movie is intriguing, watch for the clues, and does successfully finish the happenings at the hotel we have been experiencing through three movies. The characters may not be entirely likeable but at least they appear fair dinkum rather than being actors. Hey just an idea Stephen Cognetti, but someone could build a condo on the vacant land, and away we go again. Shite like this worked for Amityville, lets not abaddon, uhmm, the township of Abaddon just yet Bro.