by MATTHEW HAYS

It has long been established that there is a link between horror and comedy. It was Hitchcock who once suggested that comedy and suspense were Siamese twins; early in his career, John Waters made a series of films that were as horrific as they were funny. And witness the Scream trilogy.

Just in time for Halloween comes the release of Hell House, the new American documentary that will freak you out entirely while making you laugh hysterically. It’s entirely straightforward in its approach: basically, it’s the story of a spook house that’s run by fervent Christian fundamentalists. As various kids tour the spook house, they’re treated to vignettes created by a group of students from small-town Texas Trinity Church. Here, onlookers learn about the evils of contraception, homosexuality, the abortion pill, suicidal tendencies, raves, drugs, alcohol and infidelity. Watch it—disobey God’s word and you could end up going straight to Hell! The result is brutally funny, a perfectly creepy Halloween treat that will leave you in tears.

It’s a portrait both hilarious and entirely disturbing, as stunned-looking kids wander through this Hell House, one that received national attention after the annual event featured a Columbine-inspired segment that the national press reported on. That’s when filmmaker George Ratliff, a University of Texas film school grad, learned about the story and wrote a piece about the house for The New York Times.

“Access really wasn’t a problem,” recalls the filmmaker from his New York home, whose previous doc feature is the nuclear-industry exposé Plutonium Circus. “All the press were doing stories on it. It was on a lot of the local newscasts. But it struck me that they were all missing the story. Who are these people and why do they think it’s okay to do this??”

Short cut

After that, Ratliff headed down to the church with a cinematographer, capturing enough footage for a 10-minute short. Ratliff said funding fell into place fairly easily considering the rather absurd subject matter. “The church liked the short too,” he says, still seemingly surprised by their response after all this time. “They liked the fact that someone finally let them speak about what they were doing.”

That trust in turn led to Ratliff and crew gaining full access to the community for a year. Thus the film takes us through the audition process, in which kids are dying to get to play the slutty kids who get turned onto drugs in the rave scene, to the rehearsals, to the extremely amateur high-school acting which unfolds as the final product is presented. Each scene is more priceless than the last.

Which, as Ratliff explains, was part of the challenge. “We looked very closely at documentaries about theatrical productions. Films like Moon Over Broadway and the faux doc Waiting for Guffman are great, but they tend to fall apart after the actual production occurs within the plot. We wanted to avoid those traps wherever we could.”

The look Ratliff aimed for—and has achieved—is old-school cinema verité, à la Frederick Wiseman or the Maysles Brothers. “I thought of Salesman, in particular. To me, those are the documentaries that I grew up with and they’re the greatest films. We even watched films that were imitating the verité look, like Husbands and Wives. Unfortunately, those verité-look films are going out. In fact, we thought this will probably be the last of the line of ’70s-style 16mm documentaries, which is sad. They’re all being replaced by digital handicams.”

Nutty but nice

Ratliff says, as might be expected, that making the film was often an eerie experience. The director and crew looked on as the spook house creators rather clumsily infused each sketch with their own entirely judgemental philosophies. A self-described liberal, Ratliff says the things the creators of Hell House were saying were often “creepy and unsettling. It was a very difficult and long shoot. When you’re looking at it through the lens though, you have a layer of protection.

“At the same time, though, I have to add that these people were essentially very nice. I don’t agree with them psychologically, ideologically or theologically, but they were nice, kind people. I was impressed with the way they treated us. They promised us full access and that’s what we got.”

One condition Ratliff asked for was that he and his crew be off limits in terms of the Church members’ recruitment efforts. He didn’t want the filmmakers and the focus of the film getting into any theological discussions, nor any attempts at “saving” his heathen crew. “I didn’t want them trying to convert anyone,” Ratliff says. “One sound guy did step over the line. At one point, they were talking about how God had spoken to them, and how the devil had spoken to them too, while trying to tempt them. He asked them if they weren’t sure if it wasn’t just their own consciences speaking to them inside their heads and not actually God or the devil. That was it: he was set upon by a group of them who wanted to tell him all about their discussions with God. We left him alone with them for 30 minutes. He was really pissed that we ditched him, but he started it.

“We all had a bet going that that sound man was either going to seduce one of the Christian girls or end up getting saved. Neither happened.”

Looking for some tension in the feature, Ratliff found a group of young people who were mighty pissed at what they saw and heard during the tour. After, they are captured on film as they confront the self-righteous Christians, in particular for the virulent homophobia that runs throughout their moralizing spook house. One young man, furious at their proselytizing, steps backward in anger and gives one of the Hell House organizers the finger. This young man has become a heroic figure for many audiences of the film. When I caught Hell House at the Toronto Film Festival last year, his gesture was met with cheers, screams of approval and loud applause in the audience. “Those were very bright kids and we were lucky to bump into them. But you know, I don’t know where that kid is. They signed their releases, allowed us to film them and then off they went. It was difficult to find dissenting opinions, because most of the people were not attending Hell House for ironic reasons. Most who weren’t diehard Christians were dying to get out once they realized they were surrounded by Pentecostals.

“Certainly, that was one of the things that made the film unsettling. Some of the kids seemed like they were probably gay. I can’t imagine the issues they’re dealing with as they tour a spook house like this one.”

Avoiding the Church Lady syndrome

As with Dana Carvey’s Church Chat sketch on Saturday Night Live, the ridiculing of out-of-control Christian evangelicals has made Hell House a hit with the gay community (the film is doing especially well in its current San Francisco run). But while Ratliff welcomes that community’s respect, he says he was never out to simply trash the Christians he was focusing on. “I grew up in small-town Texas, where I was surrounded by this kind of mindset,” he says. “Usually, they are represented by extremes in cinema, either piously or like nutjobs, or Ned Flanders. The Apostle is one of the few films I felt represented evangelicals accurately. I wanted to represent them accurately. There were many points where we could have skewered them. If they were doing offensive things, we just captured it on camera and then presented it.”

In true sensitive-documentary-filmmaker form, Ratliff even set up a private screening for the members of the church before screening Hell House elsewhere. “I was scared to death of what they’d think. But they liked it. To them, it was like a home movie.”

But the church members had never attended a screening packed with liberal film festgoers, the latter group clearly getting major laughs out of the Christians’ dire piousness. That was, until a fest in Dallas, near where the church is located. “I left a message at the church telling them it was going to screen. I didn’t think it would happen, but a ton of them showed up. So half the crowd were liberals who were laughing at them, the other half were laughing as people would while watching home movies. When the lights came up, we did the usual question-and-answer session. When I announced that there were people from the movie in the audience, everyone just shut up. The Q&A session died right then and there.”

Ratliff says he feels part of his success has been in making a film that is an entirely different experience for various different audiences. “I’ve had screenings where the laughs don’t come until later—I guess it hits too close to home. Then there are those who begin laughing at the opening frames. Your level of irony is a big factor in your enjoyment of it.

“I like that people react to Hell House based on what they bring with them to it. I think that’s what’s going to allow the film to stand the test of time.” :

Hell House opens today, Halloween, at the
Cinéma du Parc. Don’t go alone!

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