Average Rating: 7.5/10
Reviews Counted: 33
Fresh: 31 | Rotten: 2
A fascinating, even-handed account of Hell Houses.
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Critic Reviews: 5
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 0
A fascinating, even-handed account of Hell Houses.
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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 2,820
There's hardly a community in America does doesn't offer some sort of a spook show or haunted house for kids during the Hallowe'en season, but the Hell House, sponsored by the Trinity Assembly of God Church in Dallas, TX, is something a bit different -- rather than scaring kids with folks dressed up as ghosts of vampires, the Hell House offers bizarre performance pieces in which youngsters are offered a glimpse of the fates church elders believe will await them if they stray from the path of a
Oct 1, 2002 Wide
May 27, 2003
Seventh Art Releasing
All Critics (36) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (34) | Rotten (2) | DVD (7)
Frightening, well-done documentary.
As a director, Mr. Ratliff wisely rejects the temptation to make fun of his subjects.
Lookin' for sin, American-style? Try Hell House, which documents the cautionary Christian spook-a-rama of the same name.
Texan director George Ratliff had unlimited access to families and church meetings, and he delivers fascinating psychological fare.
A candid and often fascinating documentary about a Pentecostal church in Dallas that assembles an elaborate haunted house each year to scare teenagers into attending services.
Even if you do not agree with the message that the Hell House haunt is purveying, you will find the Hell House documentary fascinating.
I encourage everyone to watch it and discuss the difference between Christ's ministry and the 'ministry' of these high-pressure gospel salesmen.
The whole thing's like a Jack Chick comic tract come to life, and it would be easy to condescend to, but director George Ratliff has not done so.
Perhaps it is as Albert Einstein said, 'Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.'
It is a strength of a documentary to disregard available bias, especially as temptingly easy as it would have been with this premise.
By focusing on the basic decency of these people [Ratliffe] exquisitely captures the irony of a community at odds with its god's message of unconditional love.
It's up to you to decide whether to admire these people's dedication to their cause or be repelled by their dogmatism, manipulativeness and narrow, fearful view of American life.
A tad controversial, Hell House doesn't exist to cast stones, but rather document their hurlers.
An interesting doc about a church that puts on a super elaborate Death House every Halloween.While I understand their goal... this is a very in your face chose-now-or-else kind of ministry that may just turn more people away or achieve false results in the people who accept Jesus at the end just out of fear and not out
April 5, 2009
Super Reviewer
I don't feel like this documentary reveals anything we didn't know was already there. People so ignorant of reality and into their own viewpoint so intensely that they think the Star of David is a pentagram, that Harry Potter and Magic the Gathering lead to Satanism, that AIDs can claim a victim in only a few days and
February 3, 2008Super Reviewer
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