The Legend of Hell House (DVD)

In the early 70s a clutch of young directors and talent threatened to pump new life and indeed blood into the British horror film. Peter Sasdy, Peter Sykes, Alan Gibson and John Hough appeared the most promising and the ones most likely to wrestle the reins from elder statesmen such as Terence Fisher and Freddie Francis. As gothic horror faltered at the box office, studios opened up to the idea of younger imaginations as they sought to recapture ...
...television, and who had directed the spirited if typically flawed Hammer outing 'Twins of Evil'. Armed with a talky but atmospheric script, Richard Matheson adapted his own novel 'Hell House' , the film was already on solid ground. Add faces like Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill and Pamela Franklin to the mix. Alan Hume was employed to light and shoot the picture, while Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop were contracted ... more

In the early 70s a clutch of young directors and talent threatened to pump new life and indeed blood into the British horror film. Peter Sasdy, Peter Sykes, Alan Gibson and John Hough appeared the most promising and the ones most likely to wrestle the reins from elder statesmen such as Terence Fisher and Freddie Francis. As gothic horror faltered at the box office, studios opened up to the idea of younger imaginations as they sought to recapture the youth market.

'The Legend of Hell House' was helmed by John Hough who had already cut his teeth in television, and who had directed the spirited if typically flawed Hammer outing 'Twins of Evil'. Armed with a talky but atmospheric script, Richard Matheson adapted his own novel 'Hell House' , the film was already on solid ground. Add faces like Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill and Pamela Franklin to the mix. Alan Hume was employed to light and shoot the picture, while Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop were contracted to supply the soundtrack and score. Bert Batt, fresh from Hammer where he always seemed a little wasted, took up the assistant director's mantle and the film got under way.

Unfortunately for all involved, across the Atlantic, another horror movie was in production, one that would change the face of horror forever and drive a final nail into the coffin of British gothic cinema. For all of their combined efforts, 'Hell House' was not a film to rival 'The Exorcist'.

'Hell House' is aptly named. A sprawling mansion, decorated to gothic excess, it's windows all bricked in. Whether that was to keep the sunlight out, or the horror within is waiting to be discovered. A history of hauntings, physic attacks, and the very real atrocities commited by Emeric Belasco have left the house a troubled place. Empty for many decades, it now has a new buyer, one eager to purge it of it's murderous intentions. He employs a team of supernatural investigators, and one cynic from the world of pure science, to cleanse the house once and for all. The only trouble being, apart from the fact the house does not want to be cleansed, is that one of the team has been inside Hell House before. He nearly died, and he has taken a long time to recover from the experience. He is clearly a shattered man, and there are many that consider him to be the weak link. Especially when the house is roused from it's slumber.

The clearly evident low budget, and Hough's reliance on quirky angles best suited to television only go to help 'Hell House'. Benefitting from a suffocatingly claustrophobic atmosphere, no doubt helped by Hume's photography, 'Hell House' makes for uncomfortable viewing. The score is chilling, despite being entirely created from electronic effects. The sets seem to grow smaller by the second, lurching in on all sides, making 'Hell House' seems as if it were itself alive, bricks, mortar and all. That the house IS alive with physic activity only adds to the chills. This is an impressive haunted house outing, and succeeds in setting ones nerves on edge.

A small cast all work their socks off with a script that veers from intelligent to cliched in the passing of a sentence. McDowall stands out as the man returning to the mansion that killed his colleagues in a former visit. Franklin also convinces as the member of the team most in tune with the house. Her experiences are harrowing and frightening, and it is to Hough's credit that he maintains the chills with suggestion and shadow rather than the out and out pyrotechnics of Friedkin's 'The Exorcist'.

When Hough lets rip, the budget usually hampers him, but the film rises above such inconveniences. Thoroughly watchable, and only ruined by a damp squib of an ending, it throws surprise after surprise at you, and maintains the ability to chill 30 years on.

Sadly 'that' film about demonic possession changed the course of horror film making, and combined with financial instability in the UK, and market saturation, the British horror film faded away. With it too went the careers of many a young film maker, and the elders sought retirement or unflattering work abroad.

'The Legend of Hell House' was shunted out by Columbia on a budget DVD release. The menus are okay, as is the package design. Extras, unsurprisingly are non-existent. The picture and sound quality are really rather good for a film of this vintage and quality, and for £5.99 its a bargain any way you look at it. Extras would have been welcomed, but now, much like in 1973, 'Hell House' is an appreciated but rather neglected picture. Seldom on television, it deserves a larger audience, and at the very least this budget release affords it that. 

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