The Legend of Hell House (1973)
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close  The Legend of Hell House (1973)
Rated:  PG 
Starring: Roddy McDowall, Pamela Franklin, Gayle Hunnicutt, Clive Revill.
Director: John Hough
Genre: Horror | Mystery
DVD Release Date: 09/04/2001

Tagline: Leave your sanity on the doorstep!

It sits here, shrouded in mist and mystery, a nesting place for living evil and terror from the dead. It's Hell House. Roddy McDowall heads the cast of this exciting chiller about four psychic investigators and the dark, brooding mansion they themselves call "the Mt. Everest of haunted houses." It's already destroyed one team of researchers. Now this brave quartet ventures in for another try at unraveling its secret. But before they succeed, they must suffer through madness, murder and everything else the spirits that dwell here have in store for them. Yet learning the truth just might drive them all insane. An ingeniously-devised ghost story, The Legend Of Hell House will thrill and delight veteran horror fans from the first creaking door to the very last slithering shadow.
Fantastically Scary Haunted House Chiller

A group of experts on paranormal activity are paid to prove that evil spirits haunt the Belasco mansion (affectionately known as "Hell House"). At one point, a character says that 'Hell House' is the Mount Everest of haunted houses, and I think this film is the Mount Everest of haunted house movies. In terms of suspense and hair-raising horrors, the film kicks the ghostly butts of films like "The Haunting" and "The Others." It's probably the scariest movie that I've seen where the chills are achieved without showing much. There is hardly any blood, violence, or gore, and the horrors are mostly implied, but just try to get this movie out of your head. You just can't! It is funny how this film uses every haunted house cliché and still comes across as one of the best films of the genre. Richard Matheson's screenplay is so tight that if you sneeze, you will miss something really important. His script is a model of economy, wasting absolutely no time, and grabbing the viewer by the throat. I would have liked to see a bit more character development, but the actors are great in suggesting things that the script does not have time to explore. Roddy McDowal's reluctant medium is the highlight of the film, but Pamela Franklin is also superb as a young psychic. The setting is claustrophobic (just a few rooms), but the excellent ensemble cast does wonders with the limitations imposed by the sets. Director Hough creates an almost unbearable tense atmosphere, and he makes the house a very important character. The ending is a beauty and a real surprise.

Storyline: A team consisting of a physicist, his wife, a young female psychic and the only survivor of the previous visit are sent to the notorious Hell House to prove/disprove survival after death. Previous visitors have either been killed or gone mad, and it is up to the team to survive a full week in isolation, and solve the mystery of the Hell House. Written by Niz

Editor's Note: Four people enter the Belasco Mansion, the so-called "Everest of haunted houses," hired by a dying millionaire to investigate the possibility of life after death. Physicist Clive Revill leads the quartet, which includes his wife Gayle Hunnicut and two mediums. Pamela Franklin, young and impulsive, immediately makes contact with what she perceives as a tortured spirit, while Roddy McDowall, the only survivor from the previous investigation 20 years ago, closes himself off completely, deathly afraid of the malevolent forces that crushed his former comrades in body and spirit. Science fiction and horror legend Richard Matheson, responsible for penning such horror classics as The Devil Rides Out and Roger Corman's The Pit and the Pendulum, brings a literate sensibility and a refreshing seriousness to the haunted-house genre with this adaptation of his novel Hell House. Director John Hough follows Matheson's lead with a moody but sober approach, balancing the physical threats of objects lethally leaping to life with the slow, subtle possession of the characters by a truly evil spirit. Parts of the script feel like so much scientific mumbo jumbo, with characters discussing the finer points of supernatural manifestation and ectoplasmic activity, but Hough's deliberate direction gives it the necessary solemnity to take it all seriously. --Sean Axmaker
Cast Notes: Pamela Franklin (Florence Tanner), Roddy McDowall (Benjamin Franklin Fischer), Clive Revill (Mr. [Lionel] Barrett), Gayle Hunnicutt (Ann Barrett), Roland Culver (Mr. [Rudolph] Deutsch), Peter Bowles (Hanley).

IMDb Rating (03/14/15): 6.9/10 from 8,065 users
IMDb Rating (07/24/07): 7.1/10 from 1,944 users

Additional information
Copyright:  1973,  20th Century Fox
Features:  • Interactive Menus
• Scene Selection
• Theatrical Trailer
Subtitles:  English, Spanish
Video:  Widescreen 1.85:1 Color
Audio:  ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 4.0 [CC]
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Mono [CC]
FRENCH: Dolby Digital Mono
Time:  1:35
DVD:  # Discs: 1 -- # Shows: 1
UPC:  024543013853
D-Box:  No
Other:  Producers: Albert Fennell, rman T Herman; Directors: John Hough; Writers: Richard Matheson; running time of 95 minutes; Packaging: Keep Case; Chapters: 30; [CC].
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