The Legend of Hell House (1973)

 

 

 

 

We have a classic one on hand today.  Richard Matheson is one of my favorite horror writers and not only did he write the original story this is based on but he also wrote the screenplay.  The original story Hell House was published in 1971 and this came out hot on it's heels in 1973.  Matheson changed the site of the house from Maine in the U.S. to England and he toned down a good amount of the sexual aspects of the story.  John Hough (Twins of Evil and The Watcher in the Woods) supplied the direction for this one.  The story concerns a house that is the "Mount Everest of haunted houses" and the people that go to investigate the haunting.

      

 

 

 

 

They are not the the first group to go in to investigate it however.  The previous group all died under mysterious circumstances while they were there.  All that is except for one person who made it out alive but was supposedly destroyed mentally from the experience.  The investigators are made up of physicist Dr. Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill from Bunny Lake is Missing and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes) and his wife Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt from The Wild Angels and Scorpion).  With them is Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin from And Soon the Darkness and The Innocents) a spiritual minister and Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowell from Planet of the Apes and Fright Night) a psychic medium and the only survivor from the previous investigation.    

 

 

 

This film is just creepy.  The atmosphere both inside and outside is the stuff of nightmares and I mean that in the best way possible.  It just makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  Yes, I know this is similar to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House but one can like both stories and both films and not feel guilty about it.  While I like the book more than the film (I mean really how many times have you seen a film based on a book and thought the film was better than the book?  I'm guessing the number is low.)  The sets are terrific, the acting is on point, and the directing is more than sufficient.  I give this classic four strands of ectoplasm out of five.  So far the high water mark of the month!