"The Legend of Hell House" - review

A titillating thriller with class

Author Richard Matheson penned many stories over in his long career that were turned into films, and one of the best adaptations is the 1973 version of Matheson’s novel “Hell House.”  With a screenplay by Matheson and direction by Hammer Film’s John Hough, “The Legend of Hell House” rubs ghostly shoulders with Robert Wise’s “The Haunting” and Lewis Allen’s “The Uninvited” as one of the best of all haunted house movies.  While the two earlier films are more subtle in their supernatural shenanigans, all three share an excellent emphasis on the building of dramatic tension.

While “The Legend of Hell House” is a more recent horror film and thus able to be increasingly explicit, thankfully both Matheson and Hough appreciate the value of restraint.  The movie is not cheapened by pointless bloody set pieces, and Matheson also understood that certain sexual aspects of his novel would not pass muster with the movie censors.  There are many lurid elements, but the story never becomes vulgar.  Like its predecessors, this film is suggestive but still remains sophisticated.

As the brooding physicist Dr. Barret, Clive Revill is unswerving in his belief that the spiritual forces in the Belasco mansion can be expunged scientifically with his newly minted machine.  His wife Ann, played by the mature yet sensual Gayle Hunnicutt, is more open to the dark influence of the moldy mansion, yet she never becomes a one-dimensional victim.  Roddy McDowell steadfastly forecasts doom as the weary parapsychologist Benjamin Fischer, the sole survivor of a previous attempt to investigate the Belasco mansion.  Pamela Franklin as young medium Florence Tanner brings a youthful optimism and pride that her skills alone will reveal ancient secrets and bring healing to the phantom palace.

The production design is superb, and the camera placement consistently frames each scene to capture all the gothic details and the devils that may lie within.  The eyes are drawn to every dark corner, hideous sculpture, and loathsome painting, waiting for something to leap from the shadows.  Despite repeated attempts to "clean" the sepulchral space, the malignant mayhem in the mansion only increases in ferocity.  The finale is terrific because it not only makes sense, but it also aligns with everything that has been alluded to previously.  Though the horror is over, uncertainty hangs in the air, insinuating that spectral memories may linger long after the last rites.