Finding movies like Hell House LLC is a massive pain because most found footage is, quite frankly, garbage. You know the drill. You spend forty minutes watching someone walk through a dark hallway with a shaky camera only for the "big reveal" to be a loud bang and a jump scare that feels cheap. Hell House LLC (2015) worked because it understood the specific, primal fear of a space that is supposed to be fake-scary becoming real-scary. It tapped into that "haunted attraction" aesthetic where the line between a mannequin and a corpse gets blurry.
Stephen Cognetti didn't have a massive budget. He had a creepy basement in Pennsylvania (the Waldorf Estate of Fear) and a bunch of clown dolls that looked like they were plotting a murder. Most people looking for something similar want that specific cocktail: the "documentary crew" framing, the slow-burn dread of a location being renovated, and the feeling that the camera caught something the characters missed in the background.
The Raw Panic of The Houses October Built
If you’re chasing that specific "haunted house attraction gone wrong" high, The Houses October Built (2014) is basically the sibling film to Hell House. It follows a group of friends filming a documentary about "extreme" haunts. They’re looking for the one that goes too far. Honestly, the first half feels like a real travelogue. You see real footage of actual haunt actors, and it creates this uncomfortable layer of reality.
The movie works because it plays on the anonymity of the mask. In Hell House LLC, you’re constantly staring at those clowns in the dining room, waiting for a head to twitch. In The Houses October Built, the threat is a group of people who may or may not be "in character." It’s less supernatural than the Abaddon Hotel, but the psychological toll is identical. It captures that claustrophobic, "we shouldn't be here" energy that makes found footage actually effective. Bobby Roe, the director, actually used a lot of real haunt footage to blur those lines. It’s gritty. It’s mean. It makes you never want to visit a pop-up haunt in the middle of a field ever again.
Why Grave Encounters Is Still the Gold Standard for Location Horror
You can't talk about movies like Hell House LLC without mentioning Grave Encounters (2011). While Hell House focuses on a group of entrepreneurs, Grave Encounters parodies those over-the-top "ghost hunter" reality shows like Ghost Adventures. Sean Rogerson plays Lance Preston, a guy who is clearly faking it for the ratings until the building—Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital—decides to stop pretending.
The architectural horror here is the closest thing you’ll get to the Abaddon Hotel. In both films, the building itself is the antagonist. It shifts. Doors lead to brick walls. Windows open into black voids. Time stops making sense.
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The Vicious Brothers (the directors) used a lot of practical effects mixed with some admittedly dated CGI, but the feeling of being trapped in a labyrinth is perfect. It shares that "behind the scenes" perspective where we see the characters’ arrogance slowly dissolve into whimpering terror. If the "found footage" element of Hell House is what you loved, this is the most logical next step. It’s louder and more chaotic, but the dread is just as heavy.
The Slow Rot of Lake Mungo
Some people love Hell House LLC because of the jumps. Others love it because of the "tapes." If you’re in the latter camp—the people who love the investigative, mockumentary style—you need to watch Lake Mungo (2008).
It is not a traditional horror movie. It’s an Australian faux-documentary about a family grieving their daughter, Alice, who drowned. As they investigate her life, they find videos and photos suggesting she’s haunting them. It is profoundly sad. It’s also one of the most unsettling movies ever made because of one specific scene near the end that I won’t spoil, but it involves a cell phone video.
Lake Mungo treats the "found footage" as evidence rather than a gimmick. It feels like something you’d see on a true-crime special at 2 AM. It lacks the "clown in the corner" scares, but it replaces them with a deep, existential sinking feeling. It proves that you don't need a high body count to be terrifying; you just need a convincing narrative and a grainy image that shouldn't exist.
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum and the Modern Tech Twist
South Korea’s Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018) is essentially the high-tech version of Hell House LLC. Instead of a documentary crew, it’s a group of YouTubers/livestreamers entering one of the most haunted places in Korea. They have GoPros, night-vision setups, and drones.
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The setup is nearly identical to the Abaddon Hotel:
- A notorious location with a dark past.
- A group of people trying to monetize that darkness.
- Spirits that don't appreciate the intrusion.
The scares in Gonjiam are relentless in the final forty minutes. There is a specific scene involving "whispering" that is probably the most effective use of sound design in modern horror. It captures that same feeling of "we are seeing this live and we can't stop it" that made the basement scene in Hell House so iconic. It’s sleek, but it doesn't lose that raw, shaky-cam intensity.
The Borderline Reality of Horror in the High Desert
If you want something that feels "too real," Horror in the High Desert (2021) is a sleeper hit. It’s a mockumentary about a missing hiker in Nevada. For 80% of the movie, it’s just interviews and static photos. It feels like a Wikipedia rabbit hole come to life.
Then, the final ten minutes happen.
The footage recovered from the hiker's camera is some of the most genuinely upsetting "unmasked" horror I’ve seen in years. It shares that Hell House DNA of building a mystery through talking heads and then shattering that safety with a first-person descent into madness. It’s low-budget, but it uses its limitations to its advantage. You spend the whole movie wondering if it’s even a horror film, which makes the payoff hit like a freight train.
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Addressing the "Found Footage" Burnout
Let’s be real: found footage has a bad reputation. After Paranormal Activity exploded, every studio with a camcorder tried to replicate it. Most failed because they forgot that the "found" part is a narrative device, not a way to save money on tripods.
Movies like Hell House LLC succeed because they use the camera as a character. When the camera pans away from a character and catches a figure standing in the doorway, that’s not just a scare—it’s the audience being given information the protagonist doesn't have. It creates a specific type of anxiety. You want to yell at the screen. You’re an unwilling witness.
Hidden Gems You Might Have Missed
- The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014): This starts as a documentary about Alzheimer's and turns into a terrifying possession film. The "medical" framing makes the horror feel grounded and medicalized in a way that’s deeply uncomfortable.
- Noroi: The Curse (2005): A Japanese mockumentary that is incredibly complex. It’s long, and you have to pay attention to a dozen different threads, but the way they weave together is masterful. It feels like a real cursed artifact.
- Butterfly Kisses (2018): This one is meta. It’s a documentary about a guy making a documentary about a found footage tape he found. It deals with the obsession of trying to prove something supernatural is real, much like the crew in Hell House.
How to Get the Most Out of These Movies
The environment matters for these. Don't watch Hell House LLC or Grave Encounters on your phone while on a bus. These movies rely on you squinting at the corners of the frame.
- Turn off all the lights. Found footage is designed to mimic the limited field of vision of a flashlight or a night-vision lens.
- Use headphones. The audio cues—the distant thuds, the breathing, the distorted EVP—are half the experience.
- Commit to the "Reality." The best way to enjoy a mockumentary is to suspend your disbelief entirely. Treat the interviews as real. It makes the eventual breakdown of logic much scarier.
If you’re looking for a direct "haunted house" replacement, start with The Houses October Built. If you want the "stuck in a building" dread, go with Gonjiam or Grave Encounters. If you want to be genuinely disturbed by something that feels like a real police report, watch Lake Mungo.
The Abaddon Hotel might be closed (mostly), but the subgenre of "ambitious people getting wrecked by a location" is thriving. Just keep an eye on the background of the shots. Usually, something is already watching back.
Practical Next Steps for Your Horror Marathon
Start by verifying which streaming services currently host these titles, as found footage films often rotate between platforms like Shudder, Tubi, and AMC+. Tubi is a goldmine for the "low budget but effective" titles like Horror in the High Desert. Once you've selected your lineup, watch them in order of "intensity"—starting with the investigative slow-burn of Lake Mungo and ending with the high-octane chaos of Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum—to build the atmospheric dread properly without burning out on jump scares too early.