Directed by John Hough
Starring Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill and Gayle Hunnicutt
The horror genre has many different flavors. There are movies that actively try to creep you out. There are movies that are all about throwing the most out there gore and syrupy makeup at the camera as possible. There are movies that are almost bad on purpose. And then...there is 1970s horror, something that deserves an entire row in the great Neapolitan taste profile of cinema. Simply put, '70s horror is DARK, man. A lot of them were about demons and devils, still more of them were mystery-killer flicks with out-there endings a la Dario Argento and Mario Bava, and quite a bit of them ended with some hint of the idea that evil had, in fact, won. This was still a relatively fresh concept in horror at this time, and the shock of seeing a lot of this stuff as it unfolded must have been as startling as anything Platinum Dunes can throw at the screen with loud noise stingers. '70s BRITISH horror amps up that darkness even more, and The Legend of Hell House fits this motif like a glove.
This flick really is a prime slice of what British horror is all about. It's one of the rare ones that I've seen that isn't produced by either Hammer or Amicus; instead, it was distributed here in the States by 20th Century Fox and boasted what had to be an impressive budget for 1973 horror standards. More than anything, though, it's got that unmistakable British horror glow (if it's accurate to use that word about this sort of thing). There's lots of creepy atmosphere, lots of fog, soul-destroying synthy music, and plenty of sexy chicks parading around on the screen. This film has one of Lick Ness Monster's personal favorites in Pamela Franklin, the sex kitten who first wowed audiences in 1969's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and later went on to appear in a small host of horror films. Nonetheless, seeing her name in the credits gave this movie a +1 from the jump, and then the movie hits you with its story.
Hey, kids, you want to know why horror is the best genre? Because, most of the time, there is absolutely no time for bullshit, unlike my reviews. LIKE a lot of the movies I review, this one follows the "keep it simple, stupid" edict with getting a story together. There's a rich guy who wants to learn about life after death. There's a creepy old castle that is reputed to be the most haunted house in the world (actually said in the film). And rich guy wants to hire a group of paranormal researchers to venture to the house and see if they can attain proof of the ghost world. With that, it's off to the film's omnipresent Belasco House, named after family patriarch and supposed head-ghost-in-charge Emeric Belasco, where all of the movie's seances, happenings, and other assorted chicanery unfolds.
First things first - the atmosphere in this movie is fantastic. The Belasco House is made up to the hilt, with director John Hough and his production team decorating the place with enough menacing colors and shadows that this set could have easily been used in a Gothic period piece film. +52 additional Fonzie cool points to the movie in this regard. But where the movie starts to fall short in a few areas is its surrounding characters.
Make no mistake, The Legend of Hell House has a fantastic group of ACTORS at its disposal. In addition to Franklin, you've got Roddy McDowall up on the screen doing his thing. Weirdly enough, I'd never seen this guy in anything until the last couple of years, but now he seems to be popping up in everything that I'm watching. A first-season Columbo episode, the pilot movie of Night Gallery...yeah, while the rest of the world cares about zombies and Game of Thrones, I'm all about '70s horror TV, baby. Clive Revill and Gayle Hunnicutt are also good actors all things considered. But with the exception of Franklin, it's the characters that they play that let the material down.
So...Revill plays the leader of the group, a scientist named Lionel Barrett who quickly establishes himself as the unabashed and slightly annoying skeptic in this story. He's accompanied by his lovely wife Ann (Hunnicutt), a character who is essentially just along for the ride and to provide some sexual tension later. Oh yeah, spoiler alert. But Barrett's aces are the other two - the pair of mediums, one a spiritualist (Franlin) and the other a physical manifester (McDowall, and yes, I know that "manifester" isn't even a word - deal with it). The early goings of the film have Barrett and his mediums attempting to contact the spirits of the house and get their holy proof, an early sequence granting the audience an earth-shattering long glimpse of Pamela Franklin in her medium...um..."costume." And it's glorious.
This movie is all about the slow build. Fortunately, the middle portions pick up after introducing us to this group of mostly milquetoast characters as the movie becomes all about Florence Tanner, the younger medium played by Franklin. See, Tanner is convinced that the house is haunted by many ghosts, including family members and victims of the notoriously cruel Emeric Belasco. There's a fascinating little saga involving Tanner attempting to release an entity that she believes to be Belasco's son from his prison in the house. The relationship takes on the air of a tragic romance at points, at one point even evolving to the point of Tanner stripping down to nothing and inviting the ghost into her bed to share some ghostly action with. Much like the medium costume scene, it's a cinematic masterpiece. While all of this is going on, McDowall is in the background, simply watching the proceedings. His character was involved in a similar operation years ago that ended with everyone besides himself dead, so surely you can understand his apprehension.
If I haven't spelled it out enough already, there's a heavy undercurrent of sex to this film. There's a curious subplot involving Revill's wife Ann consisting of scenes where the prim and proper scientist's wife, who may or may not be acting under the influence of the ghosts in the house, throws herself at McDowall and feverishly describes what she wants to do to him. For his part, McDowall always throws her away, although this does cause tension with Revill. Since I'm a moron, I'm unable to gleam any of the metaphor that the film-makers were going for here, so suffice to say, we've got lots more near nudity to play around with. Trumpets from the heavens. Supposedly, the sex was actually toned down quite a bit from the book that this movie was based on. Said novel was also written by Richard Matheson, a guy who created, among other things, the awesome TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which everyone should add to their Netflix list RIGHT NOW.
I realize that I haven't reviewed much of the plot of this movie, but really, it's not at all about plot. It's all about the build, and that's a good thing, because the final trimester kind of flies off the rails. We get a couple of quick character deaths followed by a wholly unsatisfying climax that involves lots of one particular actor doing a lot of shouting. I won't reveal which actor this is...but really, it's a lot of shouting. Figure it out.
For all the things that this movie DOESN'T do well, it succeeds marvelously in crafting that sense of dread, something sorely lacking in most modern horror films. That atmosphere is Richard Matheson's calling card; he wrote the script for this movie, adapting his own novel, and everything that I've seen with his name attached to it has that signature dark, foggy quality that looks like it could be appearing in the days of Jack the Ripper. That dread makes up for the faults in The Legend of Hell House, along with the sheer conviction of its great cast. British horror films from this time period are always a pretty safe bet to have great acting, because when you have David Warner, Peter Cushing, Pamela Franklin and Roddy McDowall at your disposal, you've got no excuse. Yeah, it falls a little flat emotionally due to its weaksauce characters. But I can guarantee that you'll remember this movie when it's over. That's enough to get an endorsement from me.
*** out of ****. Not an all-time classic or anything, but definitely worth a watch. And hey...it's on Netflix instant as we speak. Check it out.
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