Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #222983 in DVD
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Danish, Norwegian, English, Swedish, Finnish
• Dubbed in: German
• Running time: 95 minutes

Amazon.com
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

Customer Reviews

Very scary!
"The Legend of Hell House" freaked me out as a child. I could barely go to sleep after the first time I saw it on TV. Yet thereafter, everytime it came on, despite the fact that I was scared to death of this movie, I always tried to watch it (under a blanket cover, of course). It is probably one of the most frightening movies, haunted house or not, ever made. It relies on the bare minimal of special effects but rather gets its chills from the eerie cinematography and sound and the uniformly solid performances from the actors. The film has a deadly serious tone to it, which makes it all the more scary, unlike such modern junk like the new "Haunting" or the "Scream" series. In fact, I would consider this film the equal of the original "Haunting" and "The Changeling" in terms of haunted house movies.

The plot is this: a small group of people is hired by an eccentric millionaire to determine if there is indeed life after death. The millionaire assigns them to investigate a notoriously haunted house in order to provide him with an answer within the week. The group consists of a scientist and his wife and two mediums; one guess whether they are all alive by the end of the film. By the way, this is not a slasher movie at all. It is almost a psychological film, which is probably why it may give you nightmares after you see it. But definitely see it, especially if you are in the mood for an honest scare.

On the Short List of Best Haunted House Movies!
I'm very gratified, having read the other reviews of this film on Amazon.com, to see THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE getting its due. This is truly one of the best haunted house movies there is. Everyone is "right on" to place this with Robert Wise's THE HAUNTING and Clayton's THE INNOCENTS. Oddly, THE UNINVITED now tends to seem a bit dated while these other three films hold their impact well. For the modern jaded youth, HELL HOUSE has the added "advantage" of being a color film, though in style both INNOCENTS and HAUNTING are visually superior. HELL HOUSE may suffer by virtue of its budget, but not in much else. Richard Matheson's story (the novel IS very good) is mysterious and fascinating and perhaps more fully formed in some ways than that of THE HAUNTING.

The premises of HELL HOUSE and THE HAUNTING are similar enough to make one wonder about cross-pollenation, but the truth is that the stories and their handling are quite different. All 3 films deal in some form with repressed sexuality. Pamela Franklin was a child actor when she (coincidentally) turned in her exceptional performance in THE INNOCENTS. Now as a young woman medium in HELL HOUSE it is her sexuality which plays a key role in the unravelling of the Belasco mystery.

HELL HOUSE has flaws pertaining mainly to a tinge of melodrama in its execution, but overall it sits very comfortably in company with THE HAUNTING (NOT the new version) and THE INNOCENTS, and if these reviews serve any purpose I assume that the overwhelming recommendation of this film will encourage new viewers to see this movie and enjoy what it has to offer.

A truly frightening movie. Puts most modern horror to shame.
One of those rare horror flicks that will actually scare the pants off you. I read the book years ago, and it somehow escaped me that this movie even existed. I bought it immediately when I saw that Matheson himself wrote the screenplay, and let me tell you, it all works. The actors really stepped up to the plate on this one and delivered a real bone-chilling performance. I find this doubly impressive given the low budget and economical use of special effects. bravo.