Every Halloween Uncle Jack (Brian Gallagher, YOU'LL KNOW MY NAME) opens up his "Hotel of Horror" - a rundown hotel that used to be a funeral home that used to be an asylum that was once a mansion built over some gateway to hell (I guess) - to scare (sometimes literally) paying customers shitless. This year, TV paranormal investigator Erik (Kyle Patrick Brennan, DEAD.TV) and his video crew will be investigating the hotel so Uncle Jack borrows a collection of occult objects from cash-strapped medium Mary (Susan Moses, THE JERSEY DEVIL) despite her misgivings about placing those objects in such a supernaturally-volatile environment (especially with a paranormal investigation team, wandering psychics, actors running around with real chainsaws and machetes, and a roaming demon).

6 DEGREES OF HELL does eventually get to characters running around trying to warn paying customers that the gore is real and they are going to really be killed, but not before an hour-long non-linear slog tracing several individual story threads (the six degrees) as investigated by paranormal researcher Kyle Brenner (Corey Feldman, THE LOST BOYS) - likely on-set for a single day in one room sitting at a table smoking one of those douchey electronic cigarettes (I imagine this is intentional due to the emphatic close-up) - questioning Deputy Hendricks (Brian Anthony Wilson, the film's best actor) whose position allowed him to witness incidents involving Metcalf County's Chief Hanson (Faust Checho, THE FIELDS) throwing his weight around, the investigation into the violent death of Erik's sister, the antics of spoiled Kellan (producer/director Joe Raffa) - who likes to sleep with minors - his best friend Chris (David J. Bonner, FLIGHT OF THE CARDINAL), still mourning the mysterious death of girlfriend Kelly (Ashley Sumner) following a reading by current "basket case" girlfriend June (Nicole Cinaglia, HALLOW'S EVE), as well as the demonic possession of murder suspect Jeff (Alexander Mandell). The shifting storyline and Corey Feldman footage seems less like an attempt to tie in a production either hampered by an overlong script or funding problems than an intentional device to play with structure (as well as a way to accommodate a large cast whose CV's have overlapped in other recent genre productions); however, the results are more frustrating than mentally stimulating as if the only real concept the writer had was "six degrees of separation" (a possessed character's address to the camera about hypocritical humans living their lives in fear at first seems to be an attempt at a philosophical statement, but then turns the entire film into a feature-length advertisement for the titular "Hotel of Horror", a real tourist attraction in Pennsylvania). Despite spending a lot of screentime with various characters who are supposed to figure into the climax, we actually get to know very little any of the characters (including the killer "characters" in the hotel since some thought went into their design). An inordinate amount of "character development" devoted to the thoroughly unlikable Kellan and wishy-washy friend Chris that should have been used to develop the individual characters of June and Erik (as well as their chemistry). We also learn nothing about the chief or Erik's crew who hang out in the periphery of early scenes and then are dropped into the climax as additional victims. The gore effects are a bit of a letdown (and some convincing ultra-gore really might have made this more entertaining) but other technical aspects are slick enough to make one curious about what Raffa and company can do with a better script.