Human Hell House

Posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago at 12:07 am. 4 comments

I am currently watching my way through the top 25 documentaries, one of which is a film called Hell House.

I already knew what this documentary was about because I had seen something on a TV show where one of the presenters went to go and see it. What I understood from that TV show was that Hell House is a show put on by a Christian group in America to try to convert people. It is basically a house you walk through and in each room something is realistically dramatised like a school shooting, or an abortion, or a rape and suicide. Towards the end you find whether those who died went to Heaven or Hell and why. Then you are given a chance to become a Christian.

It sounds horrendous, twisted and manipulative. And it is.

But the people aren’t.

I had put off watching the documentary because I thought I’d just get wound up with the hypocrisy and condemnation of the Hell House. But the film is put together so well. It is not judgemental or one-sided. It simply documents the preparations and opening night for the 10th year of the Hell House.

One of the people involved particularly touched me. It was a man with 4 kids. You first meet him one morning in his house as he is making breakfast for his children and getting them ready for school. After calling to his teenage daughter to hurry up, he walks into the kitchen to find his youngest having a fit. He calls out to everyone that “We’ve got a fit, yes a real one.” and carries his son into his bedroom and lies him on his bed so he can fit safely. As he phones 911 he says a quick prayer for his son who immediately relaxes his muscles and begins looking around, still in shock and recovering, but no longer fitting. The man tells the 911 operator that his son is OK now but an ambulance crew turn up anyway to check his son out. His son has multiple sclerosis which causes the fits. Later on we find out that his wife had left after an affair leaving him with their children.

Throughout this scene, I saw the gentleness of this man, his unassuming nature and his devotion and love for his children. It was wonderful and touched me deeply.

The film later shows his teenage daughter auditioning for the role of the abortion girl which moves him to tears. During the opening night of Hell House he escorts a group through the Hell House and during the domestic abuse scene where the wife is caught having an afai and is then killed, he looks very awkward. During the last room when a man asks people to become christians, he looks very uncomfortable and actually goes into the ministry room with the people who want to become christians. The film then shows him explaining that he feels he still hasn’t forgiven his wife and her other man, then he gets some prayer.

There are many scenes in the film which made me feel very uncomfortable. There are scenes where people are speaking in tongues, singing Christian songs and laying hands on each other in prayer. I’ve been to plenty of meetings like these in my past, but to see it on screen, especially this side of Amy dying, was unnerving.

The man I’ve mentioned above isn’t the only person the film focusses on, but the documentary shows how human the people who put on Hell House are. I was taken aback at how undisgusted I was after finishing the film.

They are clearly right-wing, evangelical christians and part of the Assemblies Of God Church. Hell House is obviously a gross presentation of Christianity. It assumes that the purpose of being a Christian is to get into Heaven rather than Hell when you die. I disagree. Surely Jesus’ message was more about bringing Heaven to earth, to those around you, particularly the poor and marginalised. Hell House also attempts to scare people into a relationship with Jesus, something Jesus himself never did!

At the end of the film, it says that 15,000 people have committed themselves to Jesus through Hell House over the 10 previous years. I truly wonder how many of those 15,000 are still following Jesus. I’m sure many are still going to Church most Sunday’s because many churches make it easy to be apathetic to one’s walk with Jesus yet still a member of the Church. But a relationship based on the fear of Hell can’t last because that fear will fade, there are too many distractions in the world. You might accidently stumble across Jesus through that fear, but it must be rare.

Sure, they have a twisted understanding of Jesus’s message and a horrible way of showing it to people. But for me, the film showed the humanity of the cast and production team and for that, it was beautiful.