The Legend of Hell House

I've always found THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE rather strange . I first saw it round about 1982 when it was broadcast on ITV and discussing it with my school mates the next day we all thought it was rubbish . However it still still stuck out in my mind for some reason and I still watch it when it's broadcast on television and my opinion is that it's still a very disappointing film even though I get the instinct to watch it again The opening is very effective with scientist Barret being paid a massive amount of money ( In those days ) to spend a week in a haunted house . What makes the opening so effective is the way director John Hough shoots the pre title sequence - Moody and atmospheric are very understated adjectives and having one of the characters being collected from a train station does give the movie some credibility . A character hanging around a cold and dreary train station ! Cinema doesn't get more realistic than this . However as soon as the characters arrive at the house things start going awry , not only to the characters but for a critical audience . First of all how many people do you know that are allowed to take their spouse to work ? I can't really get my head around this for some reason . I also couldn't take Florence Tanner seriously either , I mean she's so young I thought she'd need permission from her parents to stay out late never mind spend a week at a haunted house . It also doesn't help that Ms Tanner is known as a " Mental medium " since the word " Mental " means in British slang a violent looney . And isn't there something illogical about " Physical medium " Ben Fisher ? He survived the previous events at Hell House but has no qualms about going back . He must be insanely brave , or insanely greedy for 100 grand , or it could be that he's an obvious literary device used by the screenwriter for exposition purposes That's probably my main gripe with the movie - the screenplay . I do know that writer Richard Matheson is a legend and I have the deepest respect for most of his output but THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE seems underdeveloped . The characters arrive at the house but with the exception of a dinner table scene nothing that can be described as really nasty takes place . This also ties in with internal continuity and logic . Eight people that Ben Fisher was with died previously at the house but apart from the dinner scene previously mentioned the characters never look like they're going to be in mortal peril from the ghostly spectre . It should also be pointed out that if a bunch of people had come to a sticky end in the house they'd be gangs of policemen , forensic scientists , newspaper hounds and ghoulish members of the public swarming all over the location but for plot convenience the house and grounds are completely deserted , too deserted to be taken seriously for a mass murder site So for the most part THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE is slow , dull and full of plot holes . There are a small number of massive positives like the early scenes and Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson's bone chilling muzak ( Ms Derbyshire composed the DOCTOR WHO theme . Enough said ) which do linger in the mind and gives this movie a sublime reputation as a moody spine chiller when memory brings it up . But to be honest it's a disappointing film when re-watched

By far the scariest movie I have EVER seen, bar none; the synthesized "score" just creeps me to the bone every time, VERY effective, much more than a "music" score would have been; totally ahead of its time in 1973. I first saw it around age 15, now at 41 I STILL have to look away from the screen during the "ectoplasm" scene ("leave a sah-mple in the jah, please") -- but over the last quarter century I've worked up to where I can watch the rest of the flick without flinching (too much). Roddy McDowall is brilliant, as is Pamela Franklin. Yeah, the ending is a bit hokey, but everything else more than makes up for it. My opinion, of course. Speaking of sah-mpling, Orbital fans will appreciate Florence's first Sitting ("I don't know you people..."). Skinny Puppy fans, you'll find a few familiar bits as well :-)

In spite of some questionable motivations and a fairly silly ending, this horror drama has become a real favorite. The excellent cast has a field day with the talky script; and director John Hough (best known for "The Avengers) does an imaginative job using fresh, distorted set ups that keep you off center. And The movie looks great. High praise must also go to the score and use of sound effects. If the ending was a little better, this would be a real classic. But for horror fans, it's a nine out of ten. Roddy, you were enjoyed.

I first saw this movie when I was a teenager and I remembered it all those years until I recently rented it on DVD. It was everything I remembered. The plot is a fascinating twist on the stock haunted house movie that was so prevalent in the 60s and 70s. The basic plot is 4 people trying to determine the reality behind Hell House, a nickname for a mansion once owned by Emeric Belasco who disappeared in 1929 leaving 27 dead and mutilated bodies in the mansion to be discovered. The group consists of a physicist, his wife and 2 mediums including the only sane survivor of a previous attempt at the house 20 years before. The suspense is built up slowly and in my opinion effectively. The first half of the movie follows the usual plot lines fairly closely and is marked by above averge acting on the part of all concerned but especially Franklin. The second half is where the twist occurs. The physicist has a theory that a massive electromagnetic field exists and can be countered by an artificially generated one resulting in a dissipation of any residual "ghost" activity. Of course he sees the "ghosts" as simply mindless energy given form by the minds of the living that interact with the field. The field is impressed on locations by the people living in them and dying in them. SPOILERS AHEAD Right before he uses the equipment to clear the house Franklin's character is killed by the haunting. The field is then generated leaving the house apparently clear of any spirit activity. Everything looks good for a few minutes but then the activity starts up and immediately kills the physicist in an interesting manner. As the survivors, McDowell and Hunnicut decide what to do McDowell takes on Belasco's spirit in the chapel where it seems to be centered. Based on the manner of the deaths of the other two combined with information from the previous deaths 20 years before McDowell figures out that Belasco was tormented while alive by being a relative dwarf along with being an illegitimate bastard. After a confrontation scene they discover a hidden room in the chapel containing Belasco's preserved body, ably played by Michael Gough. McDowell then reveals that Belasco had had his legs cut off and used artificial legs to give himself height, apparently he was well under 5 feet tall originally. I found this interesting in that it indicated the extreme ego and, to be honest, will power of Belasco. That explained a lot of what had happened and why his spirit was still around. Another twist was that the hidden room was lined with lead, which meant that Belasco had predicted the energy theory and field generator used to destroy the energy in the house. It also explains why the generator didn't work. The ending of course is McDowell and Hunnicutt leaving the house after turning the machine on with the door open to the hidden room thereby ending Belasco's spirit forever. All in all and interesting movie and well worth watching.

If you haven't yet read Marky Waters' review, it would serve you well to do so. He has outlined the problems with movies bearing similar titles and was rather hard on remakes. I read his review and I was amazed at how close his opinions are to mine. "The Legend of Hell House" is a dorky movie that unfortunately attached itself to "The Haunting" based on Shirley Jackson's novel, "Haunting of Hill House". To me, "The Haunting" was and still is, the best ghost movie made. There is nothing more frightening than the unseen. Anyway, "The Legend of Hell House" is worth an evening's viewing. Not particularly scary but it's entertaining in a dated way. However...if you have not had the pleasure of seeing "The Haunting", do yourself a favor. Find it and savor it with the lights out.

Under-rated, unduly over-shadowed, and quite rightly the most notoriously scary and deadly place (billed by American author, Richard Matheson, as "The Mt. Everest of all Haunted Houses" in his novel on which this British interpretation is based). The Author, in his attempt to write the be-all and get-all of all Gothic adventures, threw everything conceivable into the mix; cannibalism, sexual deviance, drug induced homicidal and suicidal tendencies, and a walloping ending which explains the mystery of this heretofore unsolved monster of a puzzle. Even in Hough's film, with a serviceable Matheson script, the basic formula remains intact; the smug para-psychologist, the traumatised evangelist, the cautionary medium and 'smug's' sexually frustrated wife, all come to the doorstep of Belasco House, and enter at their own risk. If you read the novel first, then the film will come to mean much more, and is better appreciated.

Now that it's spooky time again, one should plug this in at night and watch during windy weather, eventho' the timeline of the story unwinds around Christmas. Was this intentional? Imagine spending the holidays in this place! Yes, the highlight is the possessed stuffed black cat but the real big scene that will leave you breathless is the haunted sequence at the dinner table, with the table itself going nuts and the dishes slamming about, the chair tipping backwards, the fireplace burping out a huge fireball, etc. I always look forward to that moment everytime I re-view this, since it is a great movie to watch again. Probably Mcdowall's best role, until he camped it up in Fright Night. And Pamela Franlkin? Well, she's just ducky. ... wait until that ghost machine explodes. Dynamite stuff.

This movie is a masterpiece! The strange music, the wonderful setting, the superb photography...The actors are great, too, I especially love Pamela Franklin and Gayle Hunnicutt. When she acts sex-driven it is one of the best scenes of the movie. But, is she really possessed or does she just act this way so she can satisfy her sexual needs with everybody thinking she is just possessed by a ghost..? Also this odd, quit atmosphere the movie has I've never experienced in another movie. John Hough is one of the best directors! But when is this masterpiece released on DVD?

Four psychic investigators (Roddy McDowall, Pamela Franklin, Clive Revill, Gayle Hunnicutt) are to spend a week in the Mount Everest of haunted houses to see if life does exist after death. They are given only a week and, in that time, have all the ghosts attack full force. Next to the 1962 version of "The Haunting" this is the best haunted house flick ever made. It starts up and never stops. There's no humor and it's beautifully atmospheric. Also creepy sound effects and eerie music help keep up the mood and director John Hough shoots the film from weird angles keeping you off balance. Good performances help especially by Franklin and there's one harrowing sequence in which she "offers" herself to the spirits of the house. Not for the blood and guts crowd (this is PG rated). A very scary movie. The book is much better and a LOT more graphic but there was no way they could have shot the book faithfully--it would have had an X rating! For instance when Franklin has sex with a ghost--in the movie she looks into the camera and screams. In the book she finds a rotting corpse forcing itself on her! This seems to have disappeared off the radar--even the 2003 DVD release is pretty bad. The colors are faded, there's only a trailer as an extra and there was no big publicity campaign for it. Still you should seek it out if you haven't seen in--it's worth it. I give it a rare 10!

This eerie movie starts when a multi-millionaire enlists a team of subjects formed by a medium (Pamela Franklyn) and parapsychologist scientists (Clive Revill , his wife Gayle Hunnicutt and Roddy McDowall) to stay for a study and resolve weird deeds into his newly acquired house . It seems which the eerie mansion has been the place of several killing deaths . 'Although the story of this film is fictitious , the events depicted involving psychic phenomenon are not only very much within the bounds of possibility but could well be true' , as explain on film prologue a clairvoyant and psychic consultant to European Royalty named Corbett . This is a chilling adaptation from Richard Matheson's novel based on an assortment of ghouls and ghosts . Innovation theme about possession posteriorly taken by ¨The Exorcist¨ . Middling budget makes for big scary scream-feast and frights . Splendid Pamela Franklyn as a fragile youth who results to have unexpected ties to creepy ghost . Furthermore , it appears briefly Michael Gough . Magnificent cinematography by Alan Hume accompanied by an electronic and rare musical score . Writer Richard Matheson toned down the graphic violence and more intense sexual scenes of his novel to give the screenplay for the film a more brooding atmosphere . The original novel was set in New England, with an American team of psychic investigators . The storyline was changed, to fit the movie's production in England, with British actors playing the investigators . While the film was released in the US with a P.G. rating, in the UK it curiously received an X rating at first. The picture was very well directed by John Hough . He often uses visual and sound recourses , echos , zooms and imaginative camera movements . He's a craftsman with eclectic and long directing career . Beginning in television series (Avengers, Protectors) , making Hammer films (Twins of Evil) , Adventures (Island treasure, Black arrow) , wholesome Disney fare (Return and escape to witch mountain) , regency romantic drama (Duel of hearts , Ghost in Montecarlo , Hazard of hearts , The lady and the highwayman) and Horror movies (Howling , American Gothic , Bad karma) and his best film , Legend of Hell House . Other movies about ¨haunted mansions¨ genre are the followings : The innocents (Jack Clayton , 1961), ¨Haunting¨ (Robert Wise , 1963) , ¨Amytiville Horror¨ (Stuart Rosemberg,1979), Changeling(Peter Medak,180), ¨House¨ (Steve Miner).. among others .