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Customer Reviews of The Legend of Hell House

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I remember sitting in the theatre back in '73, watching this frightening flick! I was 11yo, popcorn in hand, and pleasantly scared to death! I just watched it again last night, and while I didn't jump this time, I still had a blast. HELL HOUSE is a spooky old place, full of strange artifacts and imposing architecture. It's legendary owner, Mr. Belasco, was a ghoulish sadist w/ sickening habits and extremely twisted hobbies. Long dead, he now haunts the place, waiting for anyone foolish enough to enter it. Four investigators are offered 100,000 pounds to check into the Belasco house for a week in order to reveal it's darkest secrets. Fischer (Roddy MacDowell) is a physical medium, as well as the lone survivor of the last group that stayed in Hell House back in 1953. Pamela Franklin is a mental medium, well able to tune into the house's wicked wavelengths. Dr. Barret and his wife Ann are the scientists, looking to prove that Hell House's reputation can be explained by electricity and residual radiation. Of course, Mr. Belasco has some surprises in store for believers and skeptics alike! LOHH has loads of dread and evil stuff. The plot is both ghost story / haunted house tale and mystery. The final payoff is unexpected and original. Belongs right next to THE HAUNTING, THE CHANGELING, THE SHINING, SESSION 9, and AMITYVILLE HORROR on your spook-shelf...

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Memorable haunted house thriller
Any haunted house thriller owes a huge debt to Shirley Jackson's THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and Robert Wise's different but equally evocative film "The Haunting". "The Legend of Hell House" based on Richard Matheson's bestselling novel (and a homage to Jackson)is turned into a no nonsense thriller by director John Hough. Featuring distorted camera angles, strong performances and (thankfully)a complete absence of CGI effects, "House" is still highly atmospheric and effective 32 years later. Those that are looking for gore and a lack of subtly and intelligence are instructed to purchase/rent the latest version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" instead. <
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>Dr. Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill)a physicist who has been studying the paranormal is given a plum assignment; prove to the new owner of the Belasco House that there is life after death by documenting the supernatural occurances there within a week and receive 100,000 pounds. He'll also get the funds to complete his new device designed to measure psychic activity scientifically prior to embarking on his mission to "Hell House". Barrett is saddled with Benjamin Fischer (Roddy McDowall) a psychic who was the only survivor of the last attempt to study Hell House and Florence Tanner a young medium. Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt)Lionel's wife insists on accompanying him on this difficult and dangerous investigation. What they discover defies explanation and what they discover about the house and Belasco himself is frightening and surprising. <
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>Hough's stylish direction makes up for the slim budget of the film and the strong performances by veterans of British screen and stage add a grim sense of reality to the events. Interestingly, Pamela Franklin who plays Tanner also appears in another well regarded suspense thriller about ghosts--she plays the little girl in "The Innocents". The screenplay by Matheson is lean and effective adding to the eerie direction of Hough and the believable performances. <
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>The transfer here is solid if unremarkable. I had hoped that Fox might spent a bit more on this cult classic to spiff it up for DVD release. There's some minor dirt and debris but the film itself looks petty good overall. There's nothing remarkable about the extras however--we get the film's original trailer as is typical of Fox for releases like this trailers for other Fox thrillers. It's that Hough wasn't asked to do a commentary track as he did a terrific one for his B-movie classic "Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry" (where, by the way, McDowall makes a cameo). If licensed out to Anchor Bay I'm sure we would have gotten a featurette or interviews but Fox doesn't do anything special for fans of the film here. <
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>Still, I'm happy that this minor classic is available on DVD even if it isn't given quite the respect it deserves by Fox. Although the last third of the film doesn't quite hold up as well as the first 2/3rds, this is still a terrific movie that suspense thriller fans (I'd say horror movie but that implies a different audience today) will enjoy. <
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Relentless (non-CGI) chiller
Old, decrepit and yet showing sinister signs of life - the foregoing seems to describe both the haunted house at the heart of the movie and the movie itself. Obviously dated, and showing no breakthrough effects, "The Legend of Hell House" easily matches the CGI-scarefests of today. Not an outright shocker, "Hell House" excels with gallons of unleaded chill. The plot is similar to that for "The Haunting of Hill House" - scientists experimenting on the beyond decide to chance a stay at a bona-fide haunted house. In this flick, it's the mansion of the mysterious Emeric Belasco - an appropriately grim British manor owned by man known for an "awful visage". In Belasco's lifetime the house played host to an entire catalog of human depravity. Belasco himself disappeared by the time an expedition to the house uncovered the grisly remains of his many guests. Decades later, and in true movie-science tradition, Lionel Barrett believes that there's an exotic-yet-natural explanation for the phenomenon that has made Belasco-house the "Mount Everest of haunted houses". Roddy Macdowell plays Fischer, one of the two mediums on this trip - and also the sole survivor of a similar effort from 1953. Fischer's past experience makes him an expert - though it soon emerges that his survival owed to his unwillingness to open his mind to the horrors of the house. Pamela Franklin (the preternaturally mature student from "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie") is Tanner, the other medium. If Fischer is reticent to angry spirits of the house, Tanner opens herself entirely to it/them. Then there's Barrett's wife... <
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>Well, I don't want to spoil things too much. "Hell House" delivers its shocks on a thin conceit - but it does its job well. Very much laying groundwork for "Blair Witch", "Hell House" leads by relying less on special visual effects than on a careful combination of harsh sound effects and the expressions of the main characters - if it's scary enough for Roddy Macdowall, it's probably scary enough for the rest of us. Instead of a score, there's some jarring sounds which are quite reminiscent of "Blair Witch", and the flick even brazenly, yet effectively relies on date/time captions, as if it were a documentary. What saves "Hell House" from camp (and unfortunately, there's plenty of evidence that it was a close save) is the earnestness that the cast brings to its way-out story - with Franklin who'll do anything to liberate the trapped souls of the house; Clive Revill as the scientist who wants to save humanity from its fear of things that go slash in the night; and Macdowall as the surprising hero who may hold the key to everything. A perfect flick to remind you of the gray days before computer animated pseudo-chills.