Hell House LLC is finally getting the big screen. Terror Films Releasing and Iconic Events Releasing are bringing Stephen Cognetti‘s found-footage breakout to theaters nationwide for the first time, a four-night engagement running Thursday, October 29 through Sunday, November 1, to mark the film’s 10th anniversary.
The timing is exact. Terror Films first released Hell House LLC on digital platforms on November 1, 2016, so the run closes ten years to the day after the film arrived. It has had a handful of seasonal screenings through IFC and Alamo Drafthouse over the years, but this is the first time it will play in major theater chains across the country. Tickets are not on sale yet. Participating theaters have not been announced, and fans can register with Iconic to be notified when both are.
A Theatrical Run Ten Years in the Waiting
Terror Films CEO Joe Dain made clear this was the plan from the start. “We believed then, as we do now, that this film belonged on the big screen,” he said in the announcement. “But the industry was very different ten years ago, and we repeatedly heard that found footage was dead.”
Found footage did not stay dead, and Hell House LLC is a good part of the reason. This is also the second time Terror Films and Iconic have paired up. Their first collaboration put the fifth film, Hell House LLC: Lineage, in theaters in 2025.
“Over the past decade, Hell House LLC has grown into an incredible franchise, and the film that started it all remains one of the most terrifying and unsettling entries in the found-footage genre,” said Fred Santos, SVP of Distribution at Iconic Events Releasing.
Why the Abaddon Still Gets Under the Skin
The premise is simple. Five years after a malfunction kills 15 tour-goers and staff on the opening night of a Halloween haunted house attraction, a documentary crew goes back to find out what really happened. Cognetti, who wrote and directed, builds the scares out of the crew’s own tapes, which means long, patient shots of rooms that are almost empty. Almost.
The film’s most famous resident is a clown mannequin that never seems to be quite where the camera left it. Entertainment Weekly recently ranked Hell House LLC No. 7 among its 28 best found-footage movies, crediting it with making “creepy clowns genuinely frightening again.” Seeing that clown forty feet tall is exactly the kind of thing a theater was built for.
Where to Catch Up Before October 29
The original spawned four more films and a director’s cut. Every sequel was acquired by Shudder: Hell House LLC II: The Abaddon Hotel (2018), Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019), Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor (2023) and Lineage (2025). That makes the service the obvious place to do homework. Our guide to the best horror movies on Shudder has the rest of the month’s picks, and Dain talked about how Terror Films got here in our exclusive interview on the company’s decade of indies.
Four nights is not long. If you have only ever watched the Abaddon on a laptop at 2 a.m., this is the week to see it with a room full of strangers who also cannot look away from the clown.
