Director Stephen Cognetti was clearly going for a bigger, more traditional story that connects all the threads from the previous films with Lineage, but unfortunately the execution didn’t land for me.
Lineage focuses heavily on the lore of the franchise, digging into the mythology of the Abaddon Hotel and all the strange, supernatural events surrounding it, and while on paper, that sounds cool. here, it feels like the film is too focused on explaining things rather than creating any tension.
The best parts of the earlier movies were always the mystery - the half-glimpsed shapes, the strange noises, the little moments that made your imagination fill in the blanks - but Lineage spells too much out, and it loses that sense of unease.
Now obviously I get it's the final entry and it wants to fill in the gaps for fans of the franchise, but I felt it was all a bit too neat and tidy.
I also don’t want to make it sound like the whole thing is a wash, because it’s not, and I actually thought the film looked great with the lighting, the set design, and the overall mood.
The Carmichael Manor setting still has that unsettling emptiness that the series is known for, and the production design feels consistent with the previous entries, while the cinematography feels more polished this time around, which works in some ways but takes away from that gritty, you are there feel that the found footage format gave us.
And performance wise, everyone does what’s needed, and no one stands out in a bad way, but no one really stands out at all. either.
That’s part of the issue here, as the characters don’t feel as lived-in as they did in the previous films, as those films, even brief moments of dialogue helped you understand who these people were and why they mattered.
In Lineage, the focus shifts so much toward connecting lore that the characters themselves feel secondary, as they’re there just to explain things, not to experience them.
The clowns, of course, make their return, and I was hoping they’d bring back that quiet dread that made them so memorable, but this time they’re handled in a way that strips them of their mystery, and the main clown is no longer a still, haunting figure but more of an active villain running around and attacking people.
I’m certainly not against changing things up, but part of what made those clowns scary before was how little they did, as they just stood there, expressionless, and your mind did the rest, and turning them into something more physical and aggressive made them feel like just another rope.
But I don’t think Cognetti made these choices out of laziness or lack of care, as if anything, I think he was trying to give the series a proper ending, something that ties it all together and gives longtime fans closure.
The problem is that in doing so, he sacrificed what made the movies fun in the first place, and the film becomes a kind of narrative clean-up job, as while it explains everything, connects every dot, and leaves little room for imagination, it feels like you are watching a recap rather than a story.
You can feel Cognetti’s affection for these characters and this world, even if the storytelling doesn’t always work. and as a final chapter, Lineage feels both brave and clumsy - brave because it takes big swings, and clumsy because those swings don’t quite connect.
I wouldn’t say I hated the film though. I didn’t even dislike it entirely, and for fans of the franchise like myself, will find things to like and appreciate, but I was just a bit underwhelmed, plus I missed the unpredictability that the earlier films had, as here, everything feels a bit too controlled.
But it’s a movie clearly made by someone who clearly cares about his creation and wanted to see it through to the end, and I can respect that., but I just wish it packed the same sense of dread that some of the previous entries managed so effortlessly.
Hell House LLC: Lineage is serviceable at best, but if you’ve followed the series from the start, it’s worth checking out just to see how everything ties together.