Hell House is a movie full of contradictions. It's a documentary about a church that creates a haunted house every Halloween to teach visitors the perils of modern life.

Being the English nerd that I am here's a little literature lesson: Throughout British history, there were books that would detail the lives of the saints. Often times, the saints were reformed sinners. Ostensibly the tracts would be about redemption, but in reality the tracts were like soft porn or horror (he was a sinner because he took the woman's breast in his hand slowly, etc. etc.) It was publicly acceptable to read them because they were "religious". End literature lesson.

That's what Hell House seems like to me. It's a way for the very suppressed religious right to act out in an environment that seems religious. It's a way for them to participate in raves, shoot people and pretend to have sex.

The documentary starts with the preplanning and audition stages of Hell House. Amazingly, many of the actors (all parishioners in the Pentecostal church that puts on Hell House every year) are extremely talented and are worthy of some kind of public forum. This devotion extends to the actual Halloween production as well, where many of the scenes are honestly chilling and well produced.

In this sense Hell House does a service. It covers things like school shootings, suicide, drunk driving and rape. No one can argue with speaking out against these things, no matter if the intent is religious or not.

There's also the glaring irresponsibility that Hell House presents as well. Hell House suggests that only gays get AIDS and all gays will eventually get AIDs. That abortions always equal death for the mother. And funniest of all, reading Harry Potter or playing Magic the Gathering, will lead to the service of Satan. How little Harry goes about tempting you to kill your parents, I'm not really sure. Oh, and one more irresponsible thing: Apparently Satan looks like a wimpy Goth kid. Ooh, you're really scary there Satan. Got any Cure CDs that I borrow?