Exclusively on Shudder April 4th, 2025
A family moves to a small town after a tragedy, only to find themselves in the sights of a vengeful ghost in the new film from Hell House, LLC creator Stephen Cognetti.
The four Hell House, LLC films have become banner films for the (nearly) all-horror streaming platform Shudder. Look at any Reddit or Facebook thread stating “I just got Shudder, what should I check out?” and invariably a large percentage of the responses are “Hell House, LLC!” I’ll admit, I’m usually one of said responders.
Frankly, the landmark series is a handful of the best found footage and/or haunted house films out there, highly worthy of the praise they’ve received.
With 825 Forest Road, Stephen Cognetti, the writer-director of those films, returns to Shudder and the haunted house subgenre. However, this time in a standard narrative rather than the found-footage. Overall, Cognetti transfers the skill admirably, although he loses some of the oomph and tension of Hell House, LLC in favor of something more familiar. But even when playing in a well-used sandbox, Cognetti creates a worthy film for Shudder viewers.
Ashland Falls is a town with a curse. It’s an open secret among residents that Helen Foster (no relation) is among them. Too bad she died eighty years ago. She’s their very own Woman in Black; haunting the area since the loss of a child generations ago, terrorizing the residents, sending them fleeing if she nears; leaving a feeling of loss among the citizens, unsure what to do in her strange infection. Occasionally she even hurts or kills those circling too close to her legend (allowing Cognetti to lean into lore; a strong point of his previous films). Ironic, as those would be the very ones who could lift her encompassing supernaturally heightened grief.
But that’s how grief can be. It can blind us, control us, and cloud our thoughts and actions. In some ways, those grieving don’t want to move past; they want to stay within for various reasons. For the new residents of Ashland Falls, college student Isabelle, her formerly estranged brother Chuck, and his wife Maria are all working through their grief and other issues. Perhaps this is why Helen Foster attaches herself to them, driving the film.
Moving from found footage to conventional narrative brings both positives and negatives for 825 Forest Road. Firstly, Cognetti shows he can use what he’s learned in the specific, narrow setups of essentially first-person filmmaking to create effective sequences with wider-view, multi-angle cinematography (shot by David Gordon). Cognetti makes full use of the space, now using pans and cuts to craft scares. As expected, most of the horror is how Helen Foster chooses to do the Woman In Black routine, and she’s used very well; never feeling too overused or repetitive. Cognetti creates a simmering horror of everything always just being a little off. The audience is left off kilter, looking in the negative space for our haunt, with most of the action taking place in the daytime so that Cognetti doesn’t lean on “what’s in the shadows?” as a tactic.
On the other hand, the wider scope of the story between these moments is standard. We’ve seen this sort of story too often; we’re waiting for it to move where we know it’s heading, while hoping the convention is broken. Compared to narration of thoughts or talking heads that drive found-footage, the more conversational script is often trite, to-the-point, and repetitive. Fortunately, one seemingly obvious take isn’t taken the way one thinks, but how it’s presented does lead to questions.
Cognetti doesn’t totally yield to standard narrative devices, even in telling a standard story. He opts to break the film into chapters, each following one of the leads. This approach allows a compelling story building, leaving out enticing “what was that abouts?” to be filled in later, and focuses each character to truly know them. While none are particularly deep, but serve well enough with each actor, Kathryn Miller, Joe Falcone, and Elizabeth Vermilyea as the main three, solidly performing. With each perspective returning to a few repeated moments, it’s fascinating to go a little further with every go around. With one of the vantage points using video blogs, Cognetti is given license to return to the found footage style presentation for a few sequences. It’s worth noting these moments are the most effective, showing his skill lies most in this format; even if relying on old tricks such as a creepy mannequin, you’re just waiting to move. But it does work, so that’s good, I guess? A downside to this method is that supporting characters for the chapter vanish from the narrative after the story leaves the character world-building poofing out after exposition.
While often familiar in story beats, Stephen Cognetti works 825 Forest Road with enough skill to push past and create a scary-enough tale. Weaker than the Hell House, LLC series, 825 Forest Road is still worthy of horror-lover’s time even if they’ve seen much of it before.
