BLOGTOBER 10/8-9/2023: HELL HOUSE LLC, MONSTER INSIDE: AMERICA'S MOST EXTREME HAUNTED HOUSE
*I'm fudging the dates a bit here just so I can combine movies with like-themes. MONSTER INSIDE wasn't actually out until 10/12, but what can I say, October was a beast and this is the least organized Blogtober has ever been!
Also, I'm kind of fudging my genre constraints. Every year I consider logging one honorary horror movie--something that wasn't intended to horrify but that definitely does, like certain romantic comedies whose ideals are so inhuman that any thinking, feeling person should object to them. So one of these reviews is for a documentary, which I don't really think should be considered a horror film, but it's relevant to my Halloweeny interests, so it stays in the picture.
I don't have very much to say about this movie except that it drives me fucking crazy. On so many levels I really kind of hate it; I hate all the characters, I hate the tired old /scary clown/ thing, I find the story totally predictable, and I just object to having to spend THAT MUCH time with douchebags saying douchey things to one another. But what I hate about HELL HOUSE LLC more than anything else is that I find it really scary! I don't want to have to give it the credit. And I don't think it should be neurologically possible for me to be sighing and cussing and rolling my eyes through most of a movie--and then to be suddenly, uncomfortably frightened through some of the actual scenes of horror. I almost wonder if I should even be admitting how much this scared me, but it's worth surfacing movies that affect you against your better judgment and taste, I think.
That said, I'm also a reasonably sensitive viewer. People who are not interested in horror media (and even some who ARE, unfortunately) have this misconception that the genre is for desensitized assholes, and my response to that is always just to ask: If I didn't react to what I saw in horror movies, then why would I watch them? Wouldn't I gravitate toward something else that I DO react to? Obviously not everyone is like me, but the assumption that the average horror fan doesn't experience appropriate feelings of horror is pretty ridiculous. I often think about when I first saw Lucio Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD; I was huddled under a blanket watching the infamous guts-barfing scene through my fingers, when my super normie yuppie roommate shouted to me, "WHAT IS THAT NOISE?" I cried out "DON'T COME IN HERE!" and she replied, "ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU'RE GONNA SEE SOMEBODY'S HEAD GET CHOPPED OFF AND YOU'RE JUST GONNA LAUGH!" I have no idea what would make her think that that would happen, or that laughter would be my reaction. Honestly I thought she was a pretty desensitized, disturbing sort of person; she was a 24 year old life insurance salesman who scanned the obituaries for funerals where she'd go prey on the bereaved graveside ("It just makes me feel so good to help people!"). But in general, I think I'm more sensitive than the average person, with a bigger imagination for what life can threaten you with. I won't go in a haunted house attraction, actually. I went in one when I was about 11, and I regretted it almost immediately. I mean, when I go to a party, I'm usually afraid I'm going to have to endure the horror of unwanted hugs, so you can imagine how I'd feel if I go to a place where people are pretending they're going to kill me. I enjoy the idea of haunt attractions, I think it's a cool sort of folk art, but I'd rather hear about it than experience it.
So in the name of all that, I really appreciate documentaries about haunts, which allow me to enjoy this art form from the safety of the other side of a screen. There's a really good one from New Zealand called SPOOKERS, which is about a haunt that occupies an old, storied mental institution--so there are some folks who feel like this use of the location is hurtful and exploitative, while at the same time, the haunt itself is a center of gravity for local misfits who have found themselves and their chosen family by working there. It's complicated and moving, and I strongly recommend it. There is also the pretty-good HAUNTERS: THE ART OF THE SCARE, which examines the history of haunted house attractions, including the emerging trend of "haunts" that are more like torture dungeons that continue to stretch the limits of what a person can even consent to legally. If you're up to date on this topic, you may have guessed that Russ McKamey is one of the main subjects of that movie. He has been made more famous, or maybe infamous is the right word, through a recent documentary called MONSTER INSIDE: AMERICA'S MOST EXTREME HAUNTED HOUSE.
The title makes it sound like a run of the mill unscripted TV special, but MONSTER INSIDE is an examination of Russ McKamey's questionably legal, escalatingly sadistic haunt--which, as many have pointed out, isn't really a haunted house attraction, but something called an "immersive horror experience". McKamey used to run something more like a proper haunt, but even in its earlier days McKamey Manor was the most outrageous available version of the haunt experience; in HAUNTERS we see patrons begging for their freedom, some of whom are visibly bleeding, a few of whom are forced to eat their own vomit, and one of whom experiences a psychotic break and grabs an axe from one of her tormentors to try to escape. Since that time, it seems that things have only gotten worse, with literal waterboarding as part of its standard operation. MONSTER INSIDE features a set of interviewees who have been through one of McKamey's "tours", and who feel the need to speak out about what they were put through. Each of them experienced a sort of grooming process during which McKamey made them feel as if they had been specially selected from among the tens of thousands of prospective victims on a waiting list; he buddies up to them, pumps them full of ego-inflating talk about how they could be the one to put on "the best show ever" for his ever-present video camera, and gets them to sign a waiver agreeing not to press charges if they incur a whole encyclopedia of mental and physical injuries, including many things that an individual doesn't really have the legal ability to consent to. They are then tortured--there is really no other way to put it--for up to 12 hours on McKamey's property. They are not released until he is satisfied with a humiliated admission of total defeat; even in its earlier incarnations, McKamey Manor has prided itself on having no safe word. And, with some customers so traumatized that they can't remember things like where they are or who was the first United States president, retaining a safe word seems to be out of the question anyway.
One might ask, why would anyone subject themselves to this? MONSTER INSIDE does its best to address this mystery. The question of why anyone likes to be scared is always at the heart of the horror conversation, and common answers range from the catharsis screen scares can provide, to more intellectual motivations for exploring darkness. This line of inquiry may extend to why we enjoy Ouija boards despite (or perhaps because of) the popular warnings about how easily they can be misused, and why we agree to crowd into a darkened bathroom and chant the name of an evil spirit who will supposedly spring out of the mirror with murderous intent. Early in the found footage movie WE'RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD'S FAIR, the naive young protagonist explains her participation in a cursed internet game reputed to have all sorts of terrifying effects, saying, "I love horror movies, and I thought it might be cool to try actually living in one." This may not be a truly satisfying reason for sacrificing one's connection to reality, but it is an honest one; Those of us who chase scares do it for personal, emotional reasons that may not translate into entirely rational statements. Still, the survivors of McKamey Manor make an effort: One horror fan is trying to launch her acting career, and knows that Russ's streamed footage of her ordeal could make her famous. One is a war veteran whose PTSD pushes him toward extreme sadomasochistic experiences. Many express a desire to prove something to themselves by facing their worst fears, of which McKamey collects a detailed list. And while scrutiny always seems to land on the victim who "must be crazy", one shouldn't forget the $20,000 reward offered to anyone who survives one of these indefinite "tours". No one was ever won this prize, though not for lack of trying; MONSTER INSIDE shows footage from the end of a session with an unyielding customer who McKamey belittles and berates despite his obvious win.
MONSTER INSIDE: AMERICA'S MOST EXTREME HAUNTED HOUSE is a fascinating, and continuously frustrating experience. It's a worthy project just to expose the true effects of McKamey's possibly illegal business, although it is also clear that exposure is what he wants more than anything. Early in the documentary he happily declares, "I probably wouldn't do the haunt if I wasn't able to film it, because I want the world to see what I'm doing." He does not appear to be making a fortune from this business, despite his legions of cultish fans who are happy to stalk and harass people who speak out about his abusive practices; at one time (and perhaps still?) a few cans of dog food were the cost of admission. Watching McKamey's antics are a good reminder that much of what we commonly think of as psychopathic behavior is really rooted in a desperate, insecure need for attention. Especially-men who identify with fantasies of merciless machismo, who insist on having everything their way and who do not take No for an answer, are really revealing a kind of extreme fragility. Despite their fantasies about being the alpha wolf, in their intolerance for anything that isn't exactly to their liking, they demonstrate a morbid lack of hardiness. If you can't take rejection, you're weak. If you can't handle even meaningless insults or negligence from people you don't even respect, you're weak. If you cannot ever be alone, if you need attention so badly that you're willing to hurt and disgust people to get it, after failing to genuinely impress or endear yourself to anyone, you're weak. You're infantile. Darwinism would weed you right the fuck out. You are not an apex predator, you are not the epitome of masculinity, if you are nothing without attention. I've known men like this, unfortunately, and when I see a guy like Russ McKamey in the midst of this power-mad hysteria, I see a wilting orchid who wouldn't last a second outside of his self-created greenhouse, and I wish I could tell him that.
But maybe no one has to. Maybe he already knows. In HAUNTERS, his wife laughs affectionately about McKamey's extraordinary wussiness; she tries to list his various fears, and doesn't seem to know where to start, but the documentary helps us out with footage of someone chasing him up and down the block with a snail. Russ is begging for mercy and appears to be in genuine distress, which is enormously satisfying, all things considered. I wonder if he would take $20,000 to let the reasonably angry survivors of McKamey Manor indulge in a little mollusk-flavored revenge.
