Hell is Other People / Parallel Hell

2011, 90 minutes

It was a home like yours or mine, but a few ordinary people turned it into their very own Hell – a ‘bring your own sin’ psychological drama that reworks the blood-soaked haunted house.

Hell is Other People / Parallel Hell An original story and screenplay by Martin John Solloway Synopsis It is a 90-minute psychological, haunted house movie. The story unfolds around a strong female character, but it is an ensemble piece with storylines that explore lust, anger, sloth and gluttony against a background of rising curiosity for the observed paranormal activity in an ordinary suburban house. Seen from the viewpoint of an estate agent, a pair of squatters, a young house-hunting couple and a grieving widower, the bangs in the attic, knives moving by themselves and drawers expelling their contents grow from explainable natural phenomena, to possible pranks and, finally, to gothic horror. The mundane actions of one person may contribute to the gory death of another, as the storylines interact in a plausible and thrilling overlap of lives. Beginning with the giggle of an innocent young girl and the slamming of a door, the story builds interest in the characters through realistic dialogue and the authentic way they react to the increasingly unsettling happenings in the house. When they die or are driven to kill, it isn’t a body-count of anonymous victims, but a painful descent into fear and madness by good people about whom we care. Slowly and artfully revealed plot is followed by fast paced heroism, treachery and delusional savagery. Passages, which at first seem ripe with humour or playful sensuality, repeat with unexpected twists and repercussions. Everyday flaws of ordinary people swell, sprout and take on frightening dimensions under the malign influence in the house. It doesn’t take place in an exotic far away place. It happens in the safest and most ordinary of places – it could be our home – it could be about us. The people who enter the house do so with every intention of continuing their dreams and plans. When it becomes the worst and last day of their lives, we share that, too. The evil that engulfs all but one of the characters is of their own creation. It grows and feeds on their interaction, releasing the potential to do terrible things. Who among us is free of such flaws? Perhaps we see ourselves in the best and worst of what unfolds. Cooking dinner or cleaning a bath may never seem quite the same again after seeing how it can appear to others, through the darkened mirror of ghostly behaviour, and the potentially seductive nature of the refrigerator may seem less harmless when it is seen to lead to cannibalism. HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE, taken from the Jean-Paul Satre quote, lives up to its title. It is a horror movie that takes a safe, domestic setting and a group of ordinary people and follows them into the Hell of their own making, from which only the truly innocent or the very bravest and most honest can hope to escape.

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