Zombos Says: This movie and The Haunting (1963) are required viewing for any horror fan.
I first watched The Legend of Hell House at a drive-in in 1973. Unfortunately, the fog started rolling in, obscuring the screen, just when it was getting good and nasty. It took some years to finally watch it again, to the end, and fully appreciate the depth of both the screenplay and the camera work. The onscreen timestamp, counting down the one week given for the investigation conducted by physicist Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill), spiritual medium Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin), and the sole survivor of a previous but failed investigation, Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowall), adds a documentary tone around the growing tension, both psychological and supernatural.
A dying rich guy needs to know if there’s life after death. Perhaps he hopes to take it all with him? Perhaps he’s afraid of judgement? He sends them to the best place on earth to find out: Belasco House, aka Hell House. Previous investigations have led to numerous, horrible deaths. The opening credits overlay Barrett and his wife (Gayle Hunnicutt) picking up the others, one by one, as a moody and troubling electronic score, composed by Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson (they worked on Doctor Who), sounds like a straining heart.
Richard Matheson’s screenplay follows his novel but not all the way. It leaves out the more explicit sexual deviancies and language, removes the wanting relationship between Barrett and his wife, moves the house from Maine to England (Wykehurst Park for the building exterior), and the fuller background provided for Fischer and Tanner is excised to trim the running time. While a few important events in the novel also do not appear onscreen, director John Hough (Twins of Evil, The Watcher in the Woods, The Incubus) and director of photography Alan Hume (The Kiss of the Vampire, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors) devote a Hammer Studios and Amicus-style mood with subdued colors, brooding and over-stuffed sets of Edwardian decor (I love that wallpaper), and shadows, and low wide-angle shots, odd angles and reflections, tight close-ups, split diopter styled deep focus (yeah, I looked it up), and fish-eye views that move us through the creepy dark mansion and their unraveling emotions. The electronic score, like in Forbidden Planet, elevates us in these somewhat familiar but still intentionally alien environs.
I recommend watching The Legend of Hell House along with The Haunting (the original one, not the later versions which pale in comparison) because there are important elements that are similar to both and some that are not. I’m not saying Matheson copied from The Haunting, he didn’t. He did take some structure and the personalities and shook them up in his science versus supernatural mystery. In both movies you have a team of investigators led by a person investigating the unknown: Dr. Barrett, the physicist, with parapsychological interests, given the opportunity to test his theory in Belasco House; Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson), the anthropologist, investigating paranormal situations in Hill House, though not quite fully sold on their cause. There’s also the vulnerable team member that the haunting activity centers around: Florence Tanner, the spiritual medium; Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris), who is not a medium, but experienced poltergeist activity in her childhood and longs to free up her stagnated life. Hill House takes a special interest in her, just as the evil in Hell House takes a special interest in Tanner.
Let’s not forget the houses themselves: deserted, sprawling mansions, once dominated by a morally corrupt person who now seems to be driving the haunting; Hell House’s Emeric Belasco , whose sordid and depraved parties for his guests eventually lead to 27 people dead and him missing; Hill House’s Hugh Crain, whose wives kept dying, living in a house he built with walls at odd angles so doors don’t stay closed, with his suppressed and reclusive daughter living and dying in the nursery, the cold heart of the place.
Eschewing the subtlety of The Haunting‘s ghostly phenomena, Matheson is more direct in his screenplay. A battle of wills forms between Tanner and Barrett; Barrett, the rational scientist, is firm in his belief that Hell House only needs a blast of energy from his equipment to clear the bad mojo in the house. Tanner, the religious medium, believes the haunting is caused by Belasco’s son — although there is no record of him having one — who visits her.
She becomes the focal point of the house’s malevolent activity as it lashes out against Barrett and seeks to control her. Even his wife is defenseless against the house’s influence, the reason of which is better provided in the novel than the movie. As events escalate toward the eventual delivery of the black box ghost atomizer (what I call it), designed by Barrett, Fischer tries to mediate between the scientist and the medium, warning them they both may be wrong.
The source of the haunting in both movies is a pivotal factor in their endings. For Hill House, the structure itself comes alive with an evil presence all its own. In Hell House, the structure is creepy and ooky and sinister, but not a player in the haunting except for where it is happening. The way both exteriors are filmed is similar, albeit the black and white of Hill House lends it a more dreary, alienating touch. Matheson also pays homage to the earlier movie by creating a similar scene in Hell House: the one where Eleanor wanders in the hallways of Hill House, dressed in a nightgown, seemingly overwhelmed by the will of a sinister force, no longer in control of her reason or reality. In Hell House, it is Tanner now lost wandering the hallways, dressed in a nightgown, and no longer in control of her reason or reality. A similar visual disorientation in both movies shows us how badly they have succumbed to the unrelenting psychological attacks.
I’ve seen some writing deriding the reason for the evil intent shown in The Legend of Hell House. A mystery that Fischer eventually solves, admittedly a little too quickly toward the end. The novel provides more insight into why that reason is not so silly as it appears. I would say that when malevolent egos and wronged souls are involved, especially those surviving death as often happens in horror movies, hauntings stemming from cameras, old wells, musty closets, weird boxes, vintage cars and heavy machinery, dogs, hotel rooms, assorted cursed objects, dolls, and whatever the hell else you can think of, is not so farfetched.
Martin Scorsese in a Guardian article from 2013 named The Haunting in his 11 scariest films of all time. I’m not sure what he would say about The Legend of Hell House, but you should binge both movies and make up your own mind.
Please be aware that AI was used for research in writing this article, but not the actual writing. For that you can blame me. As such, it drew from many sources. If you would like to know more about those sources, use the following prompts “tell me about The Legend of Hell House” (or The Haunting); “tell me about the screenplay for the movie The Haunting 1963;” “contrast this screenplay with that of The Legend of Hell House 1973 movie and outline the similarities and differences;” “tell me more about the cinematography and production of The Legend of Hell House.” I have watched both movies numerous times and have read both novels, which I heartily recommend you do too.