Hell House LLC Creator Finishes Filming New Feature, A Body in the Woods

Stephen Cognetti has just finished filming his next feature, A Body in the Woods, and the film is already heading to buyers. Variety reported the news on 11 November 2026.

Cognetti is best known as the writer and director of the found-footage Hell House LLC series. Found footage is a style where the story is told through what appears to be recovered video. He wrote and directed all five chapters of that franchise. The new film is a different story, with a different setting.

Emma Roberts stars as Alice Lincoln, a woman living at the turn of the twentieth century in a remote cabin. The woods around her might be haunted by a witch. Cognetti wrote the screenplay straight after the fourth Hell House LLC film, according to Variety.

Sales of the film will start at the American Film Market, known as the AFM, which runs this week in Santa Monica, California. Manifest Pictures is handling international sales. At the market, sellers show films to distributors from other countries, who decide which territories will carry them. Manifest Pictures is launching those sales now, as the film is still new.

The Hell House LLC series has ended on a deliberate cliffhanger, and Cognetti has said that was intended. Asked about a sixth instalment, he said there is no Hell House movie on the horizon yet. He added that he would never say never to another one. He also said the final chapter of that story could come in another form, such as a novel or a graphic novel.

For fans of the series, the news is that Cognetti is working again and the new film has moved from the set to the sales market. Nothing has been announced about a release date or distributor in the territories covered so far. For now, the next step is the buyers' answer at the AFM.