Stephen Cognetti’s "Hell House" films have a “cult following.”
“A very dedicated fanbase of something very niche,” he explained.
And he loves to make scary movies for them.
“Horror fans are dedicated,” he said. “They want to be scared, they don’t care if you have an A-list actor, how big your budget is, all they care about is, is this movie scary?”
For the first time, fans will have a chance to experience a "Hell House" movie on a big screen with surround sound in a dark movie theater.
The fifth movie of the "Hell House" franchise, “Hell House LLC: Lineage,” will premiere in theaters locally, nationally and in Canada and Mexico and other countries on Wednesday, Aug. 20.
Filmed locally
The first three films of the five-part franchise were mostly set at a haunted attraction in Carbon County, the Waldorf Estate of Fear.
“A lot of these haunted attractions like they look abandoned from the outside and spooky," Cognetti said. "They're functioning inside, so they have electricity, things we need to shoot.”
The last two were filmed entirely in the Scranton area.
"I like filming here in Scranton," he said. "I was driving 20 minutes to or 15 minutes to a location and coming home every night, which was ideal."
Cognetti, 44, was born in Scranton and spent time in Philadelphia and New York before moving back to Lackawanna County.
“Hell House LLC: Lineage” was filmed in the fall of 2024, and a few dozen extras and crew members were hired locally.
Scenes were filmed at the Fern Hall Inn, Carbondale City Hall and the Circle Drive-In in Lackawanna County.
"We couldn't start shooting until the sun went down into the night," Cognetti said as he recalled a November shoot at the drive-in. "We didn't leave until 1 or 2 a.m., and everyone was freezing. But everybody, all the extras, were just having a good time."
NEPA SHOWINGS
Locally, the 108-minute film will be screened at Cinemark Montage Mountain 20 and XD, Regal Dickson City & Imax and Cinemark Stroud Mall and XD. For more information, click here.
Theatrical release
"Hell House LLC: Lineage" is the first of the 5-part series to receive a theatrical release.
The film will be in theaters Aug. 20-24, and will then be available exclusively on AMC Shudder beginning in October.
Cognetti started to gain a following after his first film, "Hell House LLC," was released on Amazon Prime about 10 years ago.
He says for independent and low budget filmmakers, digital and theatrical distribution is the “toughest thing.”
But he is seeing theatrical distributors take chances on lower-budget films with a dedicated fanbase.
More than the opportunity to see his own work on the big screen, Cognetti is excited for the fans to experience it this way.
“This Hell House [film] was built in post-production in such a way to have epic sound … it's all encompassing, going to really put you in the moment and add to the horror,” he said. “I just really want people to get out to a theater to see it, rather than wait for it to come to streaming, just so they experience it the way it's really meant to.”
Locally, the 108-minute film will be screened at Cinemark Montage Mountain 20 and XD, Regal Dickson City & Imax and Cinemark Stroud Mall and XD.
The last ‘Hell House’
The "Hell House franchise," which he first intended to be a trilogy, will end at five movies.
"The fans were disappointed when I said this was the last one," Cognetti said.
"I would never say never," he added. "But for right now, it's just ... not something that I can or want to do for personal reasons."
Cognetti has plans to produce more original, standalone movies that don't require "studying" a story line.
He says he's currently working on a script that's "terrifying," and will go into production for his next film in Vancouver.
