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HELL HOUSE

I expected a goof on fundamentalist Christianity with Hell House; instead, George Ratliff’s excellent feature documentary is an even-handed, even respectful look at the ever-more-famous theatrical extravaganza held each Halloween at the Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, Texas. In elaborate stage settings, graphic melodramas are enacted by Pentecostal teens showing what happens when youth heed the Devil and forget Jesus. One setting is a disco party, where a rave girl becomes a raped girl after taking drugs. Another is a hospital room where a tormented homosexual dies of AIDS and a girl who has chosen an abortion lies screaming, her jeans blood-soaked. The message: REPENT! The drama is right-wing shlock but also, like a zany "B" movie, madly entertaining. And if you’ve yearned to have been there at a mediæval morality play (I have!), you’ll never get closer to that pre-Shakespearean experience than Hell House.

BY GERALD PEARY

Issue Date: May 23 - 30, 2002
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