I renounced my faith in god when I entered college many moons ago, as I'm sure many young people do. As a man of science, I demand cold, hard proof, and I'm less concerned with what I believe than with what is fact. Of course I have no problem with people of faith in general, as long as they're reasonable about it. I absolutely abhor any extreme religious groups, however, as their ignorant views and gross misinterpretation of religious texts makes them the furthest thing from "good people". Seeing Hell House at this years' Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival reminded me of all this, while informing me of just how twisted and disfigured some religious groups can become.

Hell House is a poignant documentary that explores the Dallas Trinity Assembly of God Church and the annual haunted house they sponsor. They call this Halloween spectacle Hell House, which offers up religious-themed scares to over 12,000 people per year. Hell House is quite an elaborate operation, spanning three months of planning and development, consuming the entire community in the process. Scripts are written and re-written, sets are constructed from scratch and tryouts are held to find the most talented children to act out the whims of the church. The house consists of a multitude of scenes that depict a host of sins, all acted out with painful ineptitude by the men, women and children of Trinity church. Despite the best efforts of everyone involved, the production values on the haunted house are actually pretty lousy, and the whole thing ends up looking cheesy and pathetic. Perhaps that's not the point, but I expected to see Tom Savini-esque gore effects and elaborate pyrotechnics for the scenes depicting Hell, based on the amount of hype that Hell House receives. Oh well, maybe at Hell House XI: Judgement Day.

While the congregation of Trinity looks like your average run-of-the-mill Texas white trash, this tight-knit community is one of the saddest and sickest I've ever witnessed. Much of the information portrayed in the various "scenes" of the haunted house is factually inaccurate and heavily influenced by the very obvious agenda of the church itself. The ills of the day are paraded for an under-educated public to digest, from old staples like abortion and homosexuality to more subtle sins, like school shootings or the drugged-up date-rape gang-bang I-hate-you-Jesus suicides that currently plague the nations' youth. Nevermind that you don't actually die from AIDS (it's the pneumonia that gets you), or that girls are more likely to overdose on pills than slit their wrists. Each scene ends with a life-or-death choice, in which the focal actor either accepts Jesus to enter heaven or renounces him and suffers in hell. So much for subtlety. The most grievous offense comes at the very end of the haunted house tour, as groups are led into a small room and forced to listen to a mini-sermon, and are eventually given a choice to pray with church members in the next room or leave without repenting. It sounds pretty stupid, but I was shocked at how many people were peer-pressured into prayer.

The ignorance of this community is absolutely staggering, and is exposed with unintentional humor throughout the documentary. One church member denounces a "date rape drug" that he heard was distributed at raves, but he doesn't know what it's called or how it works or even what it looks like. Another vents his frustration on the card game Magic and other role-playing games, claiming they are gateways to the occult. And let's not forget the man who attempts to spray paint a pentagram, but instead ends up drawing a Star of David. What's equally disturbing is the fervor with which this event is treated by not just the adults, but the kids as well. Children try out for parts (like "date-rape guy" or "abortion girl") and react to their selection as if they just made the little league baseball team or cheerleading squad. I don't mind that much if these kids grow up to be religious nutcases, but seeing their parents spoonfeed them skewed moral values and views that conflict with reality is almost criminal. I felt genuine pity for these children, especially the little boy who was attacked by a seizure at one point.

Hell House is certainly an eye-opening experience and is an extremely worthwhile endeavor. While people of faith are pretty on-the-ball in general, it's the extremist mentalities of communities like Dallas Trinity that give faithful folks a bad name. The film isn't a complete tragedy though, as a moment of reason is revealed when a church member, confronted by some angry teens, tries to feed them the same old "Jesus says so" bullplop and they staunchly confront him with some open-minded discussion. It's a good thing I don't believe in hell, because I wouldn't want to end up there with the members of this jerk-water church. Go to hell, Hell House. All I know is that "Jesus is coming back... and he's coming for his bride." (That's an actual quote from a girl in the film, by the way. I dunno, your guess is as good as mine.)

Thumbs up.