While I’m not always the biggest found footage fan, it’s a genre that has really been done to death because everyone thinks they can do it, I quickly became a fan of Stephen Cognetti’s Hell House LLC series. He’s written and directed all the films so far, which makes The Carmicheal Manor the fourth in the series, though it’s a bit of a lateral move as it takes us out of the destroyed Abbadon but ties in with it to layer out its history even more.

This time out we join ghosthunter Margot (Bridget Rose Perrota), her girlfriend, Rebecca (Destiny Leilani Brown) and Margot’s troubled brother, Chase (James Lidell) as they investigate The Carmicheal Manor, the site of a horrific murder and whose whom contains some very familiar and frightening things from the Abaddon.

The found footage tale this time sees the investigators digging into a murder cold case from the 80s, which we learn has direct ties not only to the Abaddon but Margot’s own past a traumatic incident that occurred to her as a child.

The filming lasted four nights, after which the characters were never heard from again!

There are some creepy moments and scares, including one featuring Rebecca having a zoom meeting with her employer that gets very unnerving very quick.

While not as layered with character interactions as the first film this one provides a lot of creep and shows that you don’t need a lot of gore to really get under your audience’s skin. It’s just spooky, and when those clown figures start showing up in places they shouldn’t be, everything gets frightening real quick.

Cognetti seems to know the restrictions that found footage films put on productions and works really well within those confines. He makes use of his location (which is gorgeous) and plays into some very familiar fears as things peek around corners, things move that shouldn’t and the possibility that there is something very close to you that you can’t see (which also saves on the budget).

There’s not quite as much conflict between characters as we’ve seen in other installments, there’s some relationship problems for the ladies, and Chase seems to have a drinking problem and perhaps a mental issue or two, but not a lot of that plays out on camera, it’s only sketched out occasionally as our characters find themselves deeper and deeper in a situation beyond their control.

I think the only thing that held the film back was that viewers are so used to the clown mannequins eventually moving that it’s a mix of anticipation and almost anticlimactic when it does happen because you know it has to. There’s a great line from Rebecca that isn’t followed up by any of the other characters, they say there are two clowns in the room, Rebecca says there are three. Gah.

These films also tend to race by, their runtimes are never much more than an hour and a half, so they never overstay their welcome, and honestly, it would make for an easy rewatch, as I’m thinking of watching all four films back to back to find all the connections.

Let’s see if Cognetti continues expanding the Hell House LLC universe or does something else next…