Rating: 
Summary: eerie, moody, haunting- a very good movie!
Review: you begin to feel the evil permeating the atmosphere almost at once. Found myself afraid for them and angry at their naivety- the psychic/healer innocently thinking her modest ability able to thwart the evil literally embedded in the house. And the scarred, older, wiser, former gifted child medium that should have known better than to return to Hell House, having barely survived the trip the first time around.The book better details the debauchery the former guests of the house engaged in creating the basis for the evil that cannot be purged from the house.Sexual abandon is encouraged and so is the digression into paticipation in any and every taboo act conceivable-of course, this is somewhat glossed over in the movie, (ok,I was a little disappointed,...just joking if you're reading this, Mom)but it's more than made up for with the creepy outside shots of the house, the top-notch performances of Roddy McDowell and Pamela Harriman and the very welcome "not your usual all's well that ends well" outcome. Disturbing and unforgettable- my favorite kind of movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Scary Christmas
Review: Skeptical parapsychologist Clive Revill is hired by a dying eccentric millionaire to determine whether there is life after death, at "the one place where the afterlife has yet to be refuted": Belasco House ("Hell House"), an isolated and boarded-up Maine mansion built and owned by long-dead Evil Emeric Belasco, the host of every perversion known to man (and perhaps a few that aren't). Along for the week-long holiday in hell (the trip ironically occurs over Christmas season) is Revill's supportive wife Gayle Hunnicut, and two mediums. Physical medium Roddy McDowall is the only survivor of a failed scientific study at Belasco House twenty years ago, who intends to sit on his duff, collect his money, and get the hell out. Mental medium Pamela Franklin is a gullible and naive evangelist, who deludes herself into believing she can exorcize the evil from the house. Before their week in Hell House is out, more than one of the ill-fated party will have passed over, themselves...This is a wonderful little low-budgeter, brilliantly understated, richly colorful, dark and atmospheric. Like the more famous predecessor The Haunting, most of the chills and scares are suggestive as opposed to outright, though Hell House manifests itself more physically in hostile poltergeist activity and there is a great deal more spillage of blood. Richard Matheson adapted his own excellent novel with admirable restraint and sensibilities, maintaining the psychological horror at a high degree of intensity while streamlining the violence for more general audiences. The cinematography and soundtrack are very moody and atmospheric. The only flaw is a slight overdirection of the actors, which at times serves less to heighten the melodrama (though it usually does) than to create inadvertent comical moments in the midst of it. But what really sells this great thriller is the cast. They're all stellar, carrying off material that in less capable hands would never work. McDowall and Pamela Franklin are superior. Famous character actor Michael Gough even has a terrific cameo as Evil Emeric. This is a great cuddle-up-by-the-fire movie for Halloween or the holidays. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, good movie
Review: Ever read the novel "Hell house" by Richard Matheson? You should if you have any interest in the paranormal. Great, creepy stuff inspired by the excesses of Alistair Crowley. Personally, I read it in one go. The movie is chilling and claustrophobic and does no injustice to the story. (well, Matheson did write the screenplay...) The acting is intense and very "British". The actors speak their lines at full pitch with a kind of theatrical relish. Take the scene where Roddy McDowall "opens up" to the house: Genuinely disturbing. Like one of those "scream-therapy" sessions you've seen on TV. The Belasco mansion itself is a brilliant set, huge and shadowy with nooks and crannies you wouldn't want to explore unaccompanied. You can almost smell the dread and gloom in the air. You just know some of those actors aren't going to get out of the house once they've entered it! I wonder if this little gem isn't ripe for a remake..How about it, Wes Craven?
Rating: 
Summary: no classic movie!
Review: Sorry but to me this is absolutely no classic movie at all, just plain horror movie exactly like "the lady in black" which is an awful movie as well and will prevent you from sleeping.
Now if you're really looking for a classic all time horror or spooky movie then go for "the haunting" or "the house on the haunted hill" (first versions of course!!!!!) and forget this one which is not worth buying at all.
Rating: 
Summary: THIS IS A CENSORED VERSION!
Review: I was extremely disappointed with this DVD. While the picture and sound quality are very good (though why it wasn't processed into 5.1 is another area of disappointment), there are two and possibly 3 scenes which have been cut. All versions (VHS, Laser Disc, & DVD) share the same cuts. They are: (1) When Pamela Franklin is being raped by the spirit she assumes is Belasco's son, she actually opens her eyes and we catch a brief glimpse of the decomposed corpse; (2) As Pamela Franklin is dying after being crushed by the cross, there are close up shots of her cutting her wrists open so she can leave her bloody clue as to the true name of the spirit responsible for the hauntings; and (3) The worst of all is when the scientist realizes his machine has not cleared the house, there is a long and riveting scene of him being dragged through the house into the alter, all the while being cut, punctured and crushed with various items until his final demise then the chandelier kills him. I saw this movie's theatrical release and distinctly remember these scenes. Why 20th Century Fox (who was NOT the original releasing company) has cut these scenes is as baffling as it is infuriating. If anyone has any info on how to obtain the COMPLETE unedtited version of this movie, I would love to find out. Till then, caveat emptor!
Rating:
Summary: Classic horror
Review: One of the great classic horror movies. These don't always have the greatest acting, but the mood and tension is great. It even had my husband jerking his leg. Don't miss it, if you want to enjoy classic horror at its best.
Rating:
Summary: A great creeper adapted from a brilliant book!
Review: Richard Matheson's novel HELL HOUSE is an extremely well-crafted haunted house story.This film version seems inferior in contrast.However,movies need to be seen in their own light,independant fom the source novel.I mean an hour and a half can't cover the scope of a great book,so...Anyway,the movie is finely done,a gothic and spooky haunted house movie.Great atmosphere,locations,performances,and weird music!
Rating:
Summary: The best horror movie ever.
Review: I have to say that this is the best haunted house movie I've ever seen. Stuffed with chills, thrills and a real mystery to top it all off. You just can't go wrong with this one on Halloween night.
Rating:
Summary: Legend of Hell House Review
Review: Though I have not seen this DVD yet so I can't rate it in that respect. I can tell anyone considering this title that you are in for a real treat. I can't even begin to express how glad I am that it is finally coming to DVD. It is one of that best horror films I've ever seen. The story line is creepy. The Music is great and the tension builds and just doesn't quit right up to the end. A most see for all Horror fans, and a DVD that YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTLY OWN SOON.
Rating:
Summary: Low-key horror has mood to spare
Review: "The Legend of Hell House" (1973) is an odd film in many ways. Scripted by Richard Matheson from his novel 'Hell House', and produced at a time when Hammer's influence on the horror genre was about to be challenged by the new breed of horror emerging from the US and mainland Europe (spearheaded, of course, by "The Exorcist" [1973] and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" [1974]), John Hough's film employs the familiar trappings of a Gothic thriller - it's set mostly in a fog-shrouded country mansion, the "Mt. Everest of haunted houses" - but it adopts a very modern, scientific approach to its subject. Four people - two psychics (Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall), a scientist (Clive Revill) and his wife (Gayle Hunnicutt) - are hired by a wealthy invalid (Roland Culver) to spend time in the legendary Belasco Mansion looking for evidence of life after death, and their subsequent investigation sets them at odds with one another, while the house itself threatens to destroy them with increasingly violent supernatural manifestations. Long a staple of late night TV, where it frightened generations of kids who refused to sleep with the lights off for days afterward (!), the film's potency has been somewhat diluted by the passage of time. Individual scenes are terrific: The first 'sitting', in which Franklin (deliberately cast as a nod to her appearance in "The Innocents" [1961]) becomes possessed by a former occupant of the house; the all-out supernatural assault on Revill as he sits at the dining-room table; and the unforgettable moment when Franklin pulls the covers from a writhing figure on her bed to reveal...well, I'll leave first time viewers to find out for themselves, and to wonder (as we've all done): "How'd they DO that?!!" But the film is ultimately restricted by its own good intentions: The investigation and the various ghostly phenomena are all scrupulously authentic in scientific terms, but the moody, low-key approach allows few opportunities for crowd-pleasing set-pieces. As such, there's no real plot, just a succession of incidents which seem to propel the narrative forward by accident rather than design, and the climactic pay-off is very feeble indeed. However, these same weaknesses may be perceived as strengths by those who appreciate subtlety over bombast, and while "The Legend of Hell House" may not scale the heights of genuine horror, it captures a mood which gets under your skin and refuses to budge for the duration. For all my reservations, I'd recommend it to anyone, even moreso than its overrated forerunners, "The Haunting" (1963) and the aforementioned "The Innocents". 20th Century Fox's region 1 DVD runs 93m 46s and marks the film's first widescreen outing on home video, a finely detailed anamorphic (1.85:1) transfer taken from a slightly dated-looking print. The remastered 4.0 soundtrack adds a little dimension to the electronic music score (an unsettling, tuneless dirge), but little else. Sadly, the original 2.0 mono track suffers from a distracting level of hiss and crackle and, worse still, is slightly out-of-sync during the movie's first third (check out the 'sitting' in chapter 6, especially the close-up of Franklin framed against the fire at 19:00) - the 4.0 track doesn't appear to be affected this way. The anamorphic trailer gives away a little too many of the set-pieces, but it's still a welcome addition to the package, and the disc contains English captions.
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