Heller-Nicholas, A. (2019). Found Footage Horror Films: A Cognitive Approach . McFarland.
Pinedo, I. C. (2021). Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing . SUNY Press. Hell House LLC Origins - The Carmichael Manor
Rebuilding the Haunt: Narrative Expansion, Spatial Memory, and the Folk Horror Turn in Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor Heller-Nicholas, A
Stephen Cognetti’s Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor functions as both a prequel and a lateral expansion of the found-footage horror franchise. Diverging from the series’ established Abaddon Hotel setting, the film relocates the supernatural threat to a secluded family estate, introducing a new mythology while retroactively deepening the original lore. This paper analyzes how the film utilizes spatial memory, the uncanny domesticity of the "folk horror" estate, and a refined economy of scares to revitalize a flagging franchise. It argues that Origins succeeds not through gore or jump scares alone, but by reorienting the haunting from a commercial space (the hotel) to an intimate, genealogical one (the manor), thereby transforming the nature of the evil from residual trauma to inherited, predatory consciousness. McFarland
The true horror lies in . The manor “welcomes” guests only to digest them. The repeated image of a dinner table set for four—the original Carmichael family—suggests the house is perpetually waiting to complete its seating arrangement. When Margot and her friends arrive, they are not intruders; they are invited guests to a meal that never ends. This positions Origins closer to films like Kill List or The Wicker Man than to traditional haunted-attraction horror.
