Movie: The Legend of Hell House (1973)
Directed by John Hough
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL
Plot:
A physicist, his wife and two mediums enter the notoriously haunted Belasco House in hopes of understanding and ending the haunting. Hilarity ensues.
Reaction:
The Legend of Hell House is very similar, conceptually, to The Haunting, which we saw a week earlier, so it's only natural to compare the two. And, while Legend is a very good movie, it suffers by comparison.
This movie lacked the subtlety of last week's. A good example is the scene where the ghost has his temper tantrum (which, by the way, appears in the trailer) is exciting and drives the story along. But it doesn't get under your skin the way the implicit menace of the earlier movie does. I also found that I kind of appreciated the whole house-as-spirit thing more than the more-mundane house-haunted-by-a-person's spirit, which was at the heart of Legend.
One peculiar thing about this movie is that there are these title cards fixing the date and time of events. They start on December 20, and work their way up to December 24. SO the whole time I was thinking (and Joe was as well) that this would somehow reach its climax on Christmas. I distinctly recall thinking "Ooh! Christmas movie!" when that first title card appeared. And as Christmas edged closer, my anticipation grew. But nothing ever happened with it, which was distinctly odd. Now, it's possible that it could have been any period. The story could have started on October 20 and ended on October 24, and I wouldn't be giving it another thought. But the choice of December 20-24 seems too deliberate. It's possible that it was just a tease -- but I don't think so. Keith suggested that it may be something that was in the book (Hill House by Richard Matheson) that never quite made it into the movie. If so, that's just sloppy work. Having said all that, I have to admit that it didn;t bother me all that much. I think it annoyed Joe more than me. But that's his issue.
Overall, a very good movie. And I might have rated it higher if we weren't fresh off of seeing a similar-but-better film.
Oh, and not that it's crucial, but I realized that I'm the only one in the class who doesn't have an "E" in his name. Makes me wish Scott were still in the class.
Ratings:
Me: 8
Dave: 9.8
Ethan: 10
Joe: 9.8
Sean: 3 out of 4
Sean: 3 out of 4
"If so, that's just sloppy work. Having said all that, I have to admit that it didn;t bother me all that much. I think it annoyed Joe more than me. But that's his issue."
ReplyDeleteAs a writer myself, that sort of sloppiness really does bother me! Especially coming from the great Richard Matheson, who is "One of the Gods"!
I sure hope this "Red-Herring-When-No-Red-Herring-Was-Needed-To-Carry-Off-The-Plot" owed more toward the film's editing, than to Matheson himself!
Read the book and find out...
DeleteI keep looking for the Cliff Notes version, but no one has it!
ReplyDelete