From Omeleto.
A young boy faces his fears.
HECTOR’S HELL HOUSE is used with permission from John Adam Krueger. Learn more at https://johnadamkrueger.com.
Elliott is a young boy, innocent, imaginative and somewhat anxious. He’s often convinced he can hear something in his house, but his police officer father wants him to be brave and conquer his fears. Elliott does his best to be strong and protect the family as well, though his older brother Robby teases Elliott mercilessly.
Elliott’s fears are sharpened when his family organizes an outing to a local haunted house, but despite his reluctance, he goes. What he uncovers is more than zombies and ghouls — something darker and more insidious.
Directed and written by John Adam Krueger, this subversive short horror drama seems like a throwback to the classic suburban spooky films like HALLOWEEN, with its suspenseful, dimly lit story set in an "American everytown" setting, complete with tension-building editing, eerie musical score and the slow-building dread of something lurking just offscreen. The film’s craftsmanship is tight and assured, with its shadowy, dynamic camerawork, and its command of the horror genre should appeal to fans who prize dread and spine-tingling chills over gory spectacle. But beneath the tension, there’s a deeper unease brewing that makes it more than just a classic "haunted house" narrative.
The storytelling immerses us right away in the atmospherics of Halloween with a slant of classic Americana, from the suburban home to the shining badge of the dad’s uniform. But it also pays close attention to the family dynamics. Elliott is surrounded by messages of being brave and tough, though he’s conscious of being more scared than his dad would like. When the family wants to go to a local attraction, Elliott’s deepest anxieties are triggered, and not all of them are assuaged.
As Elliott, young actor Gabriel Storm offers a finely attuned performance that’s emotionally translucent, conveying both the fears of an innocent child and a son who wants to live up to the ideals of his family. Elliott is rarely listened to; instead, he’s often teased or lectured. He’s also extraordinarily sensitive to the emotions and expectations of others, and he takes what he hears seriously. That porousness makes him especially vulnerable when the family enters the haunted house — and makes what happens inside especially unsurprising.
It ends the surprisingly thought-provoking HECTOR’S HELL HOUSE on a note of sobering force, inviting us to truly hear the messages that young boys especially grow up with and process in unpredictable ways. Horror as a genre often examines fears and anxieties at a primal or cultural level, but instead of externalizing them in the form of ghosts and monsters, the film exposes the very real fears and anxieties we live with today. The most dangerous monsters, it seems, are the ones we make ourselves.
