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Click above to purchase "The Legend Of Hell House" at
amazon.com
The Legend Of Hell House
review by Ren C.
Rated PG
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Running Time: 95 minutes
Starring Roddy McDowall, Pamela Franklin, Clive
Revill, Gayle Hunnicutt
Written by Richard Matheson, based upon his novel
"Hell House"
Directed by John Hough
Retail Price: $19.98
Features: Theatrical Trailers
Specs: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen, English Dolby
Digital 4.0, English Dolby Digital Mono, French Dolby
Digital Mono, English Closed Captions, English Subtitles,
Spanish Subtitles, Chapter Search (20 Chapters)
Released: September 4th, 2001
"The Legend of Hell House" is a movie that puts its best
foot forward, but ultimately fails to accomplish its
mission. The plot of the movie is one that has been used a
hundred times before, and I'm sure shows up in a
write-your-own-hit-movie book. Eccentric millionaire hires
team of sophisticated scientists and psychics to investigate
a haunted house, and, in this case, find out what happens to
people after they die.
Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill), a parapsychologist who is
convinced that nothing is going on in the house heads the
team. He is accompanied by two mediums, Ben Fischer (Roddy
McDowall), a physical medium and Florence Tanner (Pamela
Franklin), a spiritual medium. Rounding out those daring to
enter Hell House is Lionel's wife Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt), who
is determined to accompany her husband to the house because
in her logic, nothing has happened to him before and she is
certain nothing will this time.
Hell House itself is supposedly inhabited by the ghost of
the eccentric Emeric Belasco, whose character faults are
gone into in some detail. With this information in mind, the
team heads into Hell House with the promise that if they can
determine what is going on within Hell House they will each
be rewarded with $100,000 pounds. At first, the team seems
to find nothing out of the ordinary, aside from a musty old
house with a great deal of atmosphere. However, when
Florence has a sitting to attempt to contact whatever is
living in the house, things start flying about the room,
leading the team to think something is amiss. This point is
driven home even further when Florence has another encounter
with the spirit, and becomes convinced that Belasco's son
Daniel inhabits the house. Soon after this, the rest of the
team starts to have bizarre incidents, including Ann, who is
found sleepwalking and talking of an orgy by Ben. The
question quickly becomes, can they find out the secret of
Hell House, and can they do it before the "Mt. Everest of
haunted houses" claims them as it has so many before?
Like I stated, this is a very well intentioned movie, but
after having seen so many derivations of it in movies like
"House on Haunted Hill", it tends to lose something. I will
give the movie credit; however, as there are a couple of
moments within the movie that are fairly tense for today's
jaded movie viewer. Also, as something to look for, if
you've seen the previews for "Scary Movie 2", and remember
the cat scene, the original is here, and by watching this,
the nod is definitely a fitting one. As a whole though, the
movie doesn't really come through-the characters are
one-dimensional, and never for a second did I buy that Hell
House was the "Mt. Everest of haunted houses." This is one
of those movies that you look at almost as a historical
curiosity, and to wonder what would happen if this movie
were made today.
For a movie that is nearly thirty years old, this looked
better than I expected it to do, with a nice anamorphic
transfer. Having said that, though, there were some places
that the colors looked slightly washed out, showing some of
the movie's age. In addition, there was grain and scratches
at various intervals throughout the movie with one in
particular toward the end of the movie being quite
distracting. There was also an odd shimmering effect in
several scenes, including one of the first outdoor scenes
that were distracting.
A Dolby 4.0 track is provided here, and is surprisingly
effective. This is a very dialogue driven movie, and the
speakers were spread out in such a way that made it feel
like they were on opposite sides of the room, table, or what
have you. The ambient sounds within the movie were just
that, present, but never overwhelming. I also have to note
that the "spirit voice" is done in such a way to make it
seem almost overpowering, which is quite impressive.
For a title like this, I wasn't really expecting a
special edition, and I wasn't disappointed in that regard.
The theatrical trailer is provided essentially telling the
entire movie in about two minutes and definitely showing its
age. I think someone at Fox was enjoying themselves when
they picked the bonus trailers that were provided as we get
trailers for "Batman: The Movie", "Bedazzled", "Big Trouble
in Little China" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Movie".
Cute.
Like I said, I think that this movie is of value only for
historical interest or if you're a Roddy McDowall
completist. The video and audio are nothing stellar, and the
features are of interest only if you love trailers. However,
Fox has been nice enough to price this reasonably, so if you
are interested in the old-style horror movies, give this one
a rent first and decide from there.
 (2/5 - NOT included in
final score)
 (3.5/5)
(3.5/5)
 (.5/5)
 (2.5/5, NOT an average)
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