George Ratliff (USA)
The title might suggest the latest offering from shockmeister Stephen King, but this riveting documentary explores an entirely different type of horror. For the past 10 years, on each Halloween, the Trinity Christian School in Cedar Hill, Tex., has presented a pageant called Hell House. But rather than providing a spooky sideshow where students deliver thrills and chills, their haunted house is a fire-and-brimstone sermon that sets out to separate the saved from the damned. By luridly dramatizing numerous contentious issues like homosexuality and AIDS, drugs, abortions, and rave culture, Trinity takes direct aim at the Prince of Darkness with the purpose of saving souls. Director George Ratliff is smart and talented enough not to go for easy laughs by ridiculing the zealous fundamentalists who run the school, or their deeply impressionable students. Operating on a shoestring budget, this fascinating and sharply edited piece of cinéma vérité turns us into curious observers to a grimly moralistic world. - K.C.

(Tues., Sept. 11, 6:30 p.m., Cumberland 3; Thurs., Sept. 13, 11:45 a.m., Cumberland 3)