Last night I screened this documentary at Media Lab for the artsy crowd.A "Hell House" is the exact opposite of a Haunted House at Halloween. It invites local teens, church families and church tour groups to come walk through the various ways one can enter Hell for eternity: having an abortion, having sex with a relative or out of wedlock, murder ... all these will land you in Hell if you don't repent in time. Suicide in particular is a favorite 'scene'. In each of the rooms you pass through, there is a ghoulish "Death Monitor" who narrates the evil import of the protagonists unthinking actions, and who is also interacting with the 'sinner', who hears their demon quite clearly though no one else in the scene can.
At the very end of the Hell House Tour, each group is led into a room where a stern preacher talks about the dangers of falling pray to Satan, and offers them 10 seconds to decide whether they will enter a further door, and pray for their souls with a team of Pentecostals. It's either Heaven, or the Highway to Hell. No in betweens.
There was much snickering in the audience at first, but as the expostulations of the Hell House participants became more intense, a sort of awed hush filled the room. I think most of those there didn't know any Fundamentalists personally or had ever interacted with them. But the filmmaker did a great job of really allowing each Pentecostal Player really explain their motivations, and I think the jaded Cambridge audience was finally taking them seriously by the end of the film.
George Ratliff made this film, and he takes no position whatsoever on the subject matter. He also does not employ "Voice of God" narration, since he feels even that becomes a commentary. He shows us these congregants of the Trinity Pentecostal Church in Texas as both decent and caring people, and as ... well ... folks who speak in tongues.
From what I heard, the screening for the church folks before release went very well, and they liked how it came out. They even laughed at themselves occasionally, which is encouraging. I'd recommend it to any Comparative Media Studies program.
2 comments:
I have read about this whole movement for a while, and had friends who would go to these and try and be all ironic and laugh about it. But that just made me sad. I'll have to keep an eye open on IFC for this one.
Have you seen the documentary "The Bridge"? Very unsettling, some serious ethical issues involved, but I thought it was compelling as hell.
There was some discussion of that film at this screening, matter of fact. I haven't seen it.
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