The Legend of Hell House (1973)
What's It About?
In 1927 an insane millionaire named Emeric Belasco disapperead leaving behind a stately mansion full of debauchery and dead bodies. The Belasco home, now dubbed "Hell House" is considered to be the Mount Everest of haunted houses. Two expeditions have been mounted to investigate the secrets behind Hell House and both have ended in insanity and death.
Now noted physicist Lionel Barrett and his wife Ann, psychic Florence Tanner, and sole sane survivor of the last expedition Ben Fischer have been hired to prove the existence of life after death, Barrett even has a plan to remove Hell House of its ghosts for good, but Hell House does not welcome guests.
Is It Any Good?
Remember when I said that horror fiction before the 80s was garbage? Well there were a few exceptions to that role and none bigger than Richard Matheson. Matheson was a prolific writer of not just horror but fantasy, westerns, and war stories. He's a clear influence on the works of Stephen King and many of his books and short stories have been adapted into movies of widely varying fidelity and quality including The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, I Am Legend, Stir of Echoes, Duel, Trilogy of Terror, The Incredible Shrinking Man, What Dreams May Come, The Box, and Real Steel.
The Legend of Hell House is a fairly faithful adaptation of Matheson's novel Hell House, largely because Matheson himself wrote the screenplay. The movie and the book are a throwback to old dark house stories and films of years earlier, Matheson's novel was a bit of a tribute to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House which was itself adapted into the 1963 film The Haunting.
It's a good movie based on a good book, changing what wouldn't translate well and leaving the rest largely untouched. All four of our leads are strong but Roddy McDowell certainly stands out as Ben, the grizzled survivor of the last attempt at uncovering the secrets of Hell House.
I do not consider this to be a bad thing but I must warn those uninitiated, this is not a flashy haunted house movie. While things do get thrown around and there's a fair amount of blood and violence there's no real physical manifestation of the ghosts and the film largely just builds atmosphere through a lot of talky scenes. This is a movie about dread, not terror and those expecting the latter may be upset to find only the former.
Watch, Toss, or Buy?
While I think there's a sizeable contingent that would find this movie and its' lack of overt scares boring, I do emphatically love this movie. Buy it.