[Interview] Stephen Cognetti for HELL HOUSE LLC ORIGINS: THE CARMICHAEL MANOR

In HELL HOUSE LLC ORIGINS: THE CARMICHAEL MANOR, it’s 2021 and a group of internet sleuths travel to the remote Carmichael Manor. Located deep in the woods of Rockland County, New York, the estate is the site of the infamous 1989 Carmichael family murders that have gone unsolved to this day. What they discover are secrets that have been hidden away for decades and a terror that has been lurking in the shadows long before Hell House.

For the release of HELL HOUSE LLC ORIGINS: THE CARMICHAEL MANOR, Nightmarish Conjurings’ Shannon McGrew spoke with writer/director Stephen Cognetti. During the interview, they discussed everything from what inspired this latest addition to the franchise, what the process was like in finding the perfect location for Carmichael Manor, and why Cognetti is so focused on clowns.

Thank you so much for speaking with me today, Stephen! As a huge fan of the Hell House LLC franchise, I’m thrilled that we have a new story that’s an offshoot of the original. That being said, what inspired this story? 

Stephen Cognetti: I had been in post-production for two years on another film that I shot in 2021 unrelated to Hell House LLC and, in those two years, I got antsy and wanted to make another film but I didn’t really know what it was going to be. Then the idea came to me to make an original film within the Hell House LLC world and not have it be a direct sequel. I was done with the sequel games; I didn’t want to do that but instead, have it be its own story that lives alone while still having ties to the original but not being dependent on it. I thought it would be a fun project to undertake. I started writing it and the story just kind of came from there. It was a lot of fun to put together.

The Carmichael Manor is stunning and is a character in and of itself. What was the process like in finding the right place to set this story in? 

Stephen Cognetti: It was an anxiety-filled process because timing was of the essence. I knew if I had to get this film out by October… we shot last April so the turnaround had to be quick on production and postproduction. I finished the script around December and then that’s when I started casting and looking for locations. I really only had 4 months to do all of that. I knew the title was Carmichael Manor, so I painted myself into that corner where I had to find a manor. I started looking in January but didn’t have my house yet. I was kind of like, I might have to backtrack and be like surprise everyone, it’s the Carmichael Cottage [Laughs]. Thankfully I didn’t have to do that. I found this spot near where I am in Scranton, Pennsylvania which was perfect. It was also perfect because I didn’t have to sleep there like the other saps who had to sleep in there with the clowns hanging out in the hallways late at night [Laughs].

[Interview] Stephen Cognetti for HELL HOUSE LLC ORIGINS: THE CARMICHAEL MANOR

I’ve come to learn that people have this perception that found-footage films are easy to create when i reality they can be some of the most difficult. What were some of the challenges you faced in making this film? 

Stephen Cognetti: No filmmaking, even short films, is easy. Filmmaking is a very tough, arduous, tedious, long process that’s very stressful. There are advantages and disadvantages to found footage. The advantage is that you do have the one single camera set up for each scene. It saves a lot of production time which I love because our budgets aren’t big. We don’t have 30 days to shoot a film so we have to keep our schedules tight.

The disadvantage for me is on the creative side when you don’t have coverage of a scene. I really like exploring different camera angles and ways to shoot things, which I don’t get to do in found footage. How do we justify the camera here? We have to do that in a way that we don’t have to justify it in shooting a traditional narrative where you can put a camera anywhere and that’s where the camera is. It doesn’t matter, I don’t have to explain it we’re seeing this as a 3rd person fly-on-the-wall perspective of this scene.

But in found footage, you have to say the camera’s here because X, and from there you have to make it unique and scary because you are just from that single perspective. How do you make sure that perspective is really capturing the terror that you wanted to, the horror that you wanted to? Sometimes, that’s easy because I think the realness of that camera actually adds a lot to the terror that you wouldn’t normally get from different styles of filmmaking.

One of the strongest aspects of the film is the “less is more” approach. How do you balance what you’re trying to show on screen versus letting the audience imagine what they’re seeing?

Stephen Cognetti: I remember on the set of the original years back that was my motto around set all the time: less is more, subtlety is everything. Not just with scares but with the story as well by putting in little bits of story pieces on the back story here and there and letting people theorize why that is. Why would this have happened? Why did Patrick’s arm suddenly stop being a problem for him? There’s a reason for it but we only pepper in info for you to theorize. In terms of scares, it’s the same thing. I subscribe to that theory: less is more. There are so many things you could do with those scares. One of those clowns could be chasing you down the hallway, running after you with an ax or something and that’s not less [Laughs]. It would be fun for the moment for the thrill of the second of getting that quick thrill out of it, but long term that’s not a good way to approach any kind of scare.

Okay, I have to ask, why clowns? Why did you have to choose clowns for all these movies? 

Stephen Cognetti: That’s a good question. I love the idea of a scary clown; I love carnival culture. Up until that point, I thought that clowns had been tried a lot in movies and never really successfully. They’re too much and it’s the same thing as less is more. That’s how I approached the clowns; it had to be very minimalistic and that was what would be scary about it. It’s a face that doesn’t have a shiny big nose or curly crazy hair. It’s got to be stripped down to something very minimalist. That bare face with just a few markings on it is scary. It was my take, and I always thought a clown would be very scary in that way and I wanted to give it a try. It also lends itself to a haunted house story anyway, you can make a house about props moving in a haunted house and one of them should be a clown.

Lastly, with this new story centered around Carmichael Manor, do you plan to continue the story or is this one and done?

Stephen Cognetti: I don’t exactly know what I’m going to be filming next, but I have a few projects I’m working on. I definitely would like to make a follow-up to this story. I know what I want to do with it. I just don’t know if it’s going to be the next film. There’s definitely a story in my head right now that I just haven’t written yet, but I’m gonna start on it soon, about what happens post this and in Rockland County, in this town, now that we know that the clowns are alive and well.

HELL HOUSE LLC ORIGINS: THE CARMICHAEL MANOR is now available to stream on Shudder. For more on the film, check out our review.

Shannon McGrew
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