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The Legend of Hell House (1973)

Director: John Hough

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Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Richard Matheson's disappointing adaptation of his own rather disappointing novel, a haunted-house tale in which a dying multi-millionaire (Culver) offers a physicist (Revill) £100,000 to investigate a mansion in which several psychic investigators have been killed, and to provide an answer to the perennial question about survival after death. Trivialising the theme, saddled with some terrible dialogue, needlessly tricked out with a lot of countdown-style dates, it founders into innocuous routine. Pamela Franklin, however, gives a convincing performance as the 'mental medium'.

Author: DP

Time Out Film Guide

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David Fowler said...

Posted on Sep 22 2007 14:31 I must challenge the silly and misguided "official" review by "DP". Anyone who found Richard Matheson's excellent novel "Hell House" disappointing would of course be unable to appreciate his own screen adaptation. It is, however, truly great, and also one of the finest book to film translations I've ever seen. The four principal performances are excellent, especially those of McDowall and Franklin. The usually negligible John Hough provides masterful direction here. One of the greatest of it's genre....a film to mention in the same breath with "The Uninvited", "The Changeling", and Wise's original version of "The Haunting".

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