A Tour Through a Hell House

this is mass stupidity.

Christian schadenfreude – If you can’t wait until the next life to enjoy it, run a Hell House now!

It’s truly sad to see the delight they take in the suffering of others. If you can’t make the case that your religion leads to happiness and contentment I guess you are left arguing that others are (and should be) more abject.

I think the scariest part for me are the children being preached at in the end. They look like they are about 12-13 and there is not an adult shown with them. They are being taken advantage of and they are too young to know it.

“This is not a scare tactic…”

hmmmm… yes it is.

Remind me not to be eating next time…

Disgusting. It didn’t really hit until the hospital scene. “This is not a guilt trip” my ass. That man stood there and literally said “No pressure, but if you don’t go through that door, you are damned forever.” How do they even look in the mirror…

Also, hell is full of goths? Only homosexuals die of AIDS? God has a Southern accent? Yuck. Fear-mongering, the whole lot of it.

I was pretty much laughing my ass off (figuratively) the whole way through at just how patently absurd the whole thing is, until they showed that scene with the little kids being coerced into praying for their souls.

Now I wanna strangle them.

This … is disturbing.

I got sucked into going to one of these as a teen ager. It was soo horrible. They had an abortion room filled with fake blood, baby dolls and devils. Then they tried to trick me into accepting jesus christ. Bleck. I said no and left. 😀 Those things are horrible.

Clearest case of projection I’ve ever seen. I wonder how many of these “scenes” are straight out of the lives of the Christians who are promoting this idiocy? Normal people don’t behave in this way. Only in the dark, demented fantasies of Christian nutcases do people behave like this.

This is the shrewdest and most reprehensible form of proselytizing—straight up fear mongering. Join our religion and you will have nothing to fear. You will have eternal life (in a heaven that is made out of tin foil and barn doors, apparently).

There are so many mini-atrocities being committed in this video that one cannot even begin to sort them out.

I’m beginning to think that the biggest harm religious extremism does is not giving people false hope (which is pretty bad), but rather giving people false “explanations” for their plight. Notice how the (fictionalized) rape victim in the video is made to feel that what happened to her is due ENTIRELY to her distance from the Lord Jesus Christ (just reprehensible is the implication there…because, you know, women who attend church regularly and “trust God” are never raped!).

And they’re tax-exempt.

Frankly, I can’t think of anything that should be taxed more than fear-mongering.

Yeah, this most definitely is child psychological abuse. But in the minds of the people producing this trash, they really do mean well–they do believe the ends justify the means. People who wouldn’t allow their kids to be exposed to depictions of these sorts in movies have no problem using the same images to coerce impressionable minds to “join the fold.” If only these adults could take a step back. Good intentions really are not enough, as is illustrated here.

I couldn not personally finish watching this–it took me back to some of my childhood fears when I was a believer. Guess I never realized how much I was scarred by my beliefs.

The statements “This is not a guilt trip/this is not a scare tactic” certainly lends credence to the assertion that everything before “but” is bullshit. It also indicates that on some level, the troglodites producing this garbage really do realize they are indeed scare tactics–but again, the end justifies the means. Of course, if their mythology had anything of substance to offer, they wouldn’t have to rely on the most base of emotions to recruit.

This is the most disgusting video I’ve seen in a long time.

Totally disgusting & a very important bit of video – Clearly a form of hucksterism; the good news is that this is likely to turn off more than it is to turn on. Those who are duped by this are vulnerable to lapse and, as we know, believers are dwindling in number.

Still, it is an obscenity

Brainwashing at its finest.

The most disturbing part for me was the association that only GAY people get AIDS and that, of course, they can’t be devoted believers because they’re gay. Do these people forget Ryan White? A CHILD inflicted with HIV/AIDS because of a “god-given” illness…. so he’s going to hell too?

I have a strong desire to go to one of these things just drunk enough to shut down my inhibitions and then laugh loudly at every scene. A lot of the tension in these things is helped along by everyone around you taking it seriously. Then factcheck on my (non-existent) iPhone and announce my findings in a carrying voice.
And then put on a silly hat and go back tomorrow night 😀

I was 15 when I went with one of my friends to one of these, and they effectively scared me into a very fundamental Assembly of God church. I didn’t leave until years later, and I still occasionally suffer from the brainwashing I received.

Some church in my city does this every year around Halloween, only they charge $20 and bill it as a “haunted house.” Some of my friends were seriously ticked off when they realized they’d spent twenty dollars for an elaborate Love-Jesus-or-Burn sermon.

I haven’t been to this so-called haunted house, since I have better things to do with $20, but the Feminists for Progress at my university protested outside its doors because of its unrealistic and cruel portrayal of abortion.

The one in this film seems particularly disgusting. I almost cried at the part where the demon is taunting the girl who was raped–like it was *her* fault!!!

Is there not a commandment about lying? Take their tax exempt status and see how many churches survive.

This is disgusting. I couldn’t watch more than 3-4 minutes of it. It baffles me how anyone can take seriously a belief system which resorts to such ludicrous antics.

And just to repeat the obvious, how in the name of the FSM is that not scare tactics?

This is awfully close to the Poe horizon. Are you sure it’s real?

Yep it’s real. Lots of coverage on it if you google. Has a very hoaxy feel to it indeed.

Because it really isn’t that good.

The real racket is the freak show scientologists put up, with holocaust pictures and all. John Sweeney famously lost it after having seen that stuff.

And they charge more too.

What is wrong with people????

Awful, the whole production was ridiculous and the end where they force prayer had my blood boiling. That scene with the poor girl that had been raped was disgraceful, talk about blaming the victim!
These people ought to be ashamed of themselves! And they are the ones that decry violence and sexual imagery to kids. I guess it’s ok if scares them to follow christ I guess….
SICK!

I want to fucking vomit.

Just thinking of how this sort of thing twists the minds of children makes me want to become violent.

My reaction to this is very mixed. If one believes that eternal hell is a real danger, this sort of tactic makes a lot more sense.

On the other hand, the Orwellian doublethink here is amazing. I’m particularly shocked by the section with “Jessica” around 5 minutes in, where it really does seem like they have a perfectly good argument against the existence of a loving deity; the section about her father raping her seems like that’s just there only to make the theodicy situation more problematic. Is the lesson something like “Yeah, existence of evil and suffering of innocents is a real problem. So if you think about it, you’ll go to hell?”

I feel very sorry for the kids who are being subject to this. It seems to border on child abuse.

“Not a scare tactic”? Pfft, yeah, right. If you say so.

Also, was that kid who committed suicide in the first skit named Jeremy? Looks like someone’s a fan of Pearl Jam.

This is so wrong on so many levels, I couldn’t even watch it halfway through. It really sickens me.

I was just thinking that.

Perhaps a Flying Spaghetti Monster House. kids would wear eyepatches and stick hands in wet noodles. We could tell them that they can use the unpatched eye or patched eye to decide what they are touching. And everyone would be allowed to rave, not just actors. Oh, and a beer volcano… and hookers…

On second thought, forget the whole house.

Hell House is about ninety minutes, and does a fairly decent job not as an opinion piece, but simply describing the lives of a community.

In the closing statements of the film, one girl stated that the world is worse than ever, that “it is an ugly and evil place.”

It certainly seems that way when living in a bubble. The world is actually better than it’s ever been, and I don’t think it unreasonable to describe the present as a new Renassance of sorts.

Oh no, a GOTH!! That’s some scary shit. The guy at the end reminds me of the hardline time-share guy who comes in at the end to try to get you to close the deal. Shameful on so many levels.

Funny, my old Community Church holds pretty similiar views, but they also do a haunted house, and dammit I feel a wave of respect for them. Their’s was at least legit. It was for the fun of the Halloween season, with undead, murderers, an abandoned school bus, chains, mutilations…. some kids would wear strange clothing and run through woods, following groups from a distance. Other volunteers would join groups and then get dragged away in the middle of the ride.

If I could, I would volunteer again in a heartbeat. Considering I’ve criticized them pretty harshly in the past, I figure they’d give me more than my money’s worth to boot. =D

This is disturbing.

really this is all bullshit… and who they hell do they think that they can convert when they have such shitty actors?
i nearly puked on my screen from the idiotic nature of this

I read this site daily but this is my first comment.

I was practically in tears watching this because I was one of the young teens who was manipulated by these tactics (I grew up in a Southern Baptist church). I don’t think much now about how I felt when I was religious, but I do remember many of the religious “experiences” I felt when I was younger, and looking back I realize that every one of them was caused by group pressure and manipulation.

There was a time not too long ago when I believed with my whole heart. It saddens and physically sickens me to remember this.

I have been to that Hell House. I found it hilarious, but the mind fucking with kids is disgusting.

if I ever found out someone put my kid through something like that; their would be real blood on those walls.

Fucking sick bastards

Maybe it’s just me but I actually found the end of that video kind of encouraging in that when the guy asked people to go through the door to pray a lot of people decided not to. Especially I noticed those going in were older adults and those that did not seemed the younger crowd. Given the peer pressure in that kind of situation that that is kind of impressive actually.

So what I saw was an awful lot of Visqueen, (all that black plastic sheeting) this stuff is very flammable and sticks to anything when it is burning/melting. This has to be a clear fire code violation. Cedar Hills must have fire codes and fire marshals. this hell house should have been shut down for safety violations. If there is a hell house in your town why not take a trip down there with an eye for public safety issues, fire code violations, etc. observe, document and report the violations to the proper county authorities, they will have no choice but to shut them down. Helpful hint… all theatrical draperies are required to have a fire proofing tag with a date of treatment, (they must be sent out and may not be done “in house”) also plastic sheeting like the stuff in this video is never allowed as it can not be fireproofed. Don’t just complain and act offended, do something proactive and shut ’em down or at least increase the cost for these monsters to have their little shows.
Oh yeah and tax the churches and the businesses owned by the churches.

This is sickening. I sat through the entire “Hell House” movie and it is amazing that these people would subject these lies to people and then make them feel guilt for not going into the room where they are forced to pray. It sickens me that they are allowed to spread their hatred and misinforming ignorant propaganda.

Adriana, these children have been brainwashed/indoctrinated to the point where they are scared by such things. That’s the sad part. Obviously, an emotionally healthy adult atheist (or teenager) would not be frightened by the blatant lies and fearmongering, but children from sheltered, religious environments are susceptible to falling for these kinds of scare tactics. The manipulation is utterly despicable.

well the reason yall r scared is because yall r ahteist i workm hell house yall r the ones that need this

we r not forcing u we ask u before u go in u need to listin more