Thursday, February 17, 2011

Hell House

Hell House, a documentary by George Ratliff, portrays the development of Trinity Church's own haunted hell house. The purpose of the exhibit and the documentary itself is to use scare tactics to persuade and manipulate the viewer and the audience to the exhibit to convert to Christianity and beg to be saved. I feel as though I watched this entire documentary with my shoulders clenched expecting the worse. The warning at the beginning of the film was an interesting tactic. It was odd to me that he was apologizing for the way society was and that he couldn't do anything to change it. Also, after this warning I was expecting an immediate horrid sight yet the organization of the film had the most unsettling images at the very end of the film. Other tactics that surprised me were the interviews with people in front of the bright white light. This was interesting because of the discussion some of the people putting on hell house have during the building session about how they shouldn't have the color white anywhere because it has too much hope. I think that the video wasn't meant to be ironic in any way but it being shown through the life of the single father with four children just didn't fit the overall message. Even the teenager at one point discusses her time in foster care and says that she believes God will forgive you no matter what, yet the point of the Hell House is to show people that their decisions cannot be forgiven unless they beg for forgiveness. Overall, the documentary was presented in an effective way to prove the point they were trying to make.

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