The Legend of Hell House
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Movie Reviews of The Legend of Hell House
Movie Review: How Horror Should Be
Summary: 5 Stars
I think this movie is a great horror film. There are no special effects as we have today but they created some of the creepiest sceens without digital enhancement. They are British actors who sometimes have a tendency to over act but asll the parts are played very well. Eluding you to a true evil haunted house. I also love Roddy McDowall, he has always been one of my favorite actors.Movie Review: A great 70's haunted house movie
Summary: 5 Stars
Saw this for the first time in the 70's when I was about 13 - my mom dropped off my little sister and me at the theater. Very scary to us then. Not so scary now, but just so damn cool to watch. Roddy McDowall did an excellent job playing the psychic Fischer. Very cool background music and synthesizer. Some great shots too. And look at that wrought iron gate when the movie title comes on screen. That gate itself is pure evil! The acting can be a little cheesy at times, but I think the movie is very enjoyable to watch. The scene where Pamela Franklin's character Miss Tanner gets attacked in her room by a cat! Priceless! Yes by the way she is FINE too. I know I'm not a sophisticated guy, but I sure do like watching this movie over and over (to my wife's annoyance)Movie Review: Great Film!!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you ever happen to get your hands on this gem, please by all means..watch it!, You won't be sorry!. I love this film, it has OK acting, a decent story line and atmosphere that a lot of today's horror films are missing today..a great ghost story film. Recommended!!!Movie Review: Haunted house movies sure are hard to make...as convincing horror movies that is.
Summary: 2 Stars
Haunted house movies are some of the hardest movies to make in the horror genre. As I have said before many times, the movie does not have to be realistic per se, but it does have to be convincing in its depiction of a haunted house story. While this can be accomplished, it is very difficult to do, and most of these movies do not quite reach the threshold of being a convincing yet effective horror movie. Such is the case with "The Legend of Hell House" starring Roddy McDowell.
"The Legend of Hell House" starts off rather nicely sporting a nice spooky soundtrack/score and with a serious treatment of the subject matter involved. Basically, this movie is about an old man who wants to know if there is life after death. He contacts three individuals, a scientist, a mental medium, and a physical medium who was the only one to survive unscathed from the last human experience in Hell House. Somewhat reminiscent to "The Haunting" in its plot setup, "The Legend of Hell House" has that undeniable 70s feel to it served up with a thick atmosphere that, along with the chilling score, is somewhat effective at producing horror in the audience.
The main problem with "The Legend of Hell House" is that it is inconsistent in its ability to produce horror. This is due in fact to the lack of creativity on the part of the makers of this film. In particular, I just felt that the makers of this film could have done more than they did with this film. To the film's credit, it does not attempt to give us any ridiculous manifestations of the spirits within Hell House, but most of the scenes are rather benign in appearance. Perhaps the most interesting scenes in the movie are the seance and possession scenes where this movie is effective at producing some level of scares, although not to the level that I would like. Still, this was not enough to produce horror on a consistent basis throughout the film.
At times, "The Legend of Hell House" seemed to bog down in supernatural jargon and philosophical discussion between the parties about the existence of paranormal phenomena. This seemed to weigh the film down with all of this technical jargon, and I also came away laughing at how silly some of it sounded. This unintentional silliness and consequent comic relief could not have a worse effect on the viewer for a film like this. This is also reminiscent of "The Haunting" which most people love, but I have criticized for reasons made clear in my review, much to the chagrin of its devoted fans.
Another point of interest is the script itself for this movie. In short, I think that the script could have been more creative and much better in "The Legend of Hell House". In fact, a more detailed and interesting history of the house itself would have been more effective at setting up a good scary movie with the actual fright scenes thereby having more effect. The acting is actually pretty good in this movie, especially Roddy McDowell as Mr. Fischer. The execution of the plot was adequate in whole but largely ritualistic in practice, lacking in creativity, detail and style.
Overall, I just felt like this movie had more potential, but once again, these movies are so hard to execute and still be effectively scary at the same time. Certainly, the best haunted house movies that come to my mind are "The Changeling", "Burnt Offerings" and the original "The Amityville Horror", and all of those movies suffered at least to some extent at keeping the ball rolling so to speak. Of course, while technically not a haunted house story, the best haunting movie ever in my opinion would be Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" which involves the haunting of the Overlook Hotel. "The Shining" serves as a brilliant demonstration of how a haunting/ghost story can be absolutely terrifying. "The Shining" contains other horror elements to it as well that make it a multi-layered horror masterpiece of epic proportions. Please see my review for a detailed analysis of "The Shining".
Depite its shortcomings, "The Legend of Hell House" has some entertainment value, and while it came close to actually being a potentially scary movie, it did not quite get there, at least not on a consistent basis. I would say that parts of this movie are creepy enough, and "The Legend of Hell House" does maintain an eerie atmosphere.
That being said, the overwhelming feeling regarding this film is that of unrealized potential, mostly due to the natural pitfalls associated with making a movie like this. Again, this movie had its moments, but just not consistent enough to be scary. Also, I feel compelled to mention that the ending of this movie left a lot to be desired. In fact, the ending actually comes off as laughable when you think about it in comparison to the rest of the movie. "The Legend of Hell House" tries too hard to tidy things up by the movie's conclusion, and this should never be the goal of a haunted house movie in my opinion. After all, it is the mystery of the unknown and the paranormal that fascinates us to begin with, and any haunted house movie should prey on the imagination of the viewer and work to develop the mystery of the unknown, darkness, the paranormal and evil rather than to try and make a science of it, which is absolutely completely ridiculous of course. From that standpoint, "The Legend of Hell House" is very unconvincing.
I really wanted to like this movie, and I certainly would not call it a complete failure. It starts out well, had some up and down moments in the middle, but ended in a thud for the most part. Notwithstanding its shortcomings, "The Legend of Hell House" has some entertainment value. It has some creepy moments and, at times, demonstrates an ability to produce some degree of horror in the viewer, but it is inconsistent (this is the key word with this film) in its attempt to do this. The creators of this movie should have kept it simple and developed the themes of mystery, the unknown, the macabre and the evil of the paranormal world. It is unfortunate that "The Legend of Hell House" suffers from some unnecessary silliness and drowns itself in its own absurd ideas and conclusions about the paranormal, including the whole idea behind that ridiculous looking energy vacuum machine or whatever it is.
I would recommend "The Legend of Hell House" only to die-hard fans of haunted house and ghost story films, and even fans of those types of movies should know what they are getting into, an ultimately unsatisfactory treatment of the subject matter.
Movie Review: Legend of Hell House
Summary: 5 Stars
Original horror, mystery, and suspense about a very old haunted mansion. It is filmed mostly in different degrees of dark greys and black which adds to the drama of the movie, and in the end; it's truly amazing to find the original owner still residing in the house-though he's dead.