“Hell House” heads to Hollywood

(RNS) “Hell House,” a controversial production that a Denver-area church has presented each Halloween, is being converted to a Hollywood production by a secular humanist group.

The professional production of “Hollywood Hell House” will spoof the original and feature such celebrities as comedians Bill Maher as Satan and Andy Richter as Jesus. It will run Saturdays through Halloween at the Steve Allen Theater on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.

“It will be a parody of itself,” producer Maggie Rowe told the Rocky Mountain News, a Denver newspaper. “It will be very funny. We’re having a hoot.”

Rowe is a representative of the Center for Inquiry-West, a group whose mission is “to promote and defend reason, science and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor.”

She admits to stretching the truth when she bought a $200 “Hell House” kit from its creator, Keenan Roberts. She told him that she wanted the kit for her youth group. The production company is called “The Youth Group.”

“People have been trying to damage this message since they crucified the founder of the movement,” said Roberts, who plans to attend the opening night performance.