The Legend of Hell House

To this day, Robert Wise's "The Haunting" reigns supreme as the definitive haunted house movie. It has paved the way for such memorable classics as "The Innocents," "Burnt Offerings," and "The Others." However, not many people seem to remember a 1973 flick that came out months before "The Exorcist," a film called "The Legend of Hell House."

Dr. Lionel Barrett is a physicist who is hired by an old man named Rudolph Deutsch to find the answer to one question: Is there life after death? This isn't particularly his job, but since he is getting paid 100,000 bucks, he is glad to take it. But he isn't all for the choice of area in which he'll be studying the subject assigned to him: the Belasco House, aka Hell House.

Known to many as the "Mount Everest of haunted houses," Barrett takes the job, and brings with him three people: Ann, his wife, Florence Tanner, a mental medium, and Benjamin Fischer, the one and only survivor of the previous experiments in Hell House. The owner of the house, Emeric Belasco, was a madman, a sadist obsessed with everything shockingly violent, ranging from cannibalism to murderous alcoholism. So, if any house in England is truly haunted, it's quite obvious that this would be it. And once the team is inside the house, the supernatural occurrences start right away. Lionel, Ann, Florence, and Ben will find out that the Belasco mansion is truly a Hell House.

"The Legend of Hell House" was scripted by Richard Matheson, who wrote the novel that inspired the film as well as "I Am Legend," "Duel," and "The Box." I have read "Hell House" and while the movie follows the book very closely, it is not nearly as graphic or disturbing as the novel. That is totally understandable. If Matheson included everything from the novel, the film would have been X-rated.

While the movie doesn't include all of the sexuality and the violence of the book, it manages to be a very effective ghost story. Like "The Haunting," "Hell House" chooses to abandon most special effects and terrify the viewer through the imagination. No ghosts are seen here, but there's plenty of activity. Matheson has weaved a story that lets your imagination go wild, and I personally think it is his best novel.

The thing that is most fascinating about this haunted house is that one way it haunts the occupants is by digging into what gets to them most. Lionel's wife, Ann, is sexually repressed, and when she expects love from her husband, he turns away, and Ann exhibits her activeness in one of the creepiest sleepwalking scenes ever filmed.

When we first enter the Belasco House, we know instantly that we should turn away and never come back. But our mind tells us not to and to go in to find the answers to the supernatural phenomena that occurred there.

The cast is well-chosen. Clive Revill is good as the non-believing Lionel, as well as Gayle Hunnicutt as Ann. But Pamela Franklin(of "The Innocents," and "And Soon the Darkness") and Roddy McDowall("Fright Night," and "Planet of the Apes") give the best performances here as Florence and Benjamin, who firmly believe that the house is haunted.

Direction went to John Hough, who had directed "Escape to Witch Mountain" and several episodes of "The Avengers." Hough knows that what you don't see is scarier than what you do see, and proves himself worthy as a horror film director.

The ending is sort of a letdown, but the rest of the movie remains flawless. It's not as great as "The Haunting," but it is a worthy follow-up that is atmospheric, eerie, and shocking, and pushes the boundaries beyond what we think a haunted house movie really is. Never does it come off as campy, and if "The Legend of Hell House" doesn't give you the creeps, than you don't know what horror is.