Watch The Legend of Hell House For Free

Thanks for the memories!

One of my all time favorites.

Just perfect...

Absolutely the worst movie.

This was everything I could have wanted in a 1970's haunted house movie. Firstly, the movie jumps IMMEDIATELY into Barrett (played by Clive Revill) being asked to investigate the house — the backstory is all explained after they've arrived. The atmosphere throughout the entire movie is just SO good. The thick fog when they arrive at the house, the music, the use of light and shadows, the deliciousness of 70's era film, even the house itself… all perfect. This movie doesn't rely on special effects or even gore to make itself known, which I think is impressive since it definitely delivers. The ghostly shadow in the shower comes to mind right away, as well as Florence's (played by Pamela Franklin) first sitting when she channels a desperately violent spirit who bellows "GET OUT OR I'LL KILL YOU ALL". Shuddering just thinking about it.Ultimately I'm always a huge fan of the whole science vs. paranormal debate and this movie is 100% centered around that. Barrett is dismissive and skeptical of any thought of spirits or hauntings, despite the evidence being all around him, and is convinced that he can rid the energy of the house with his devices… but the look of genuine fear, superbly acted, when he realizes he has failed, and says "I do not accept this!" is just awesome to behold.But the real star, in my opinion, is Ben (played by Roddy McDowall), the physical medium and the sole survivor of a previous stay at the house. He is just fantastic the whole way through, but his battle with Belasco at the end is amazing — he is wild and desperate and taunting and the energy around the whole scene is crazy.Solid movie all around — a classic for a reason!

If you see this after you see "The Haunting" (1963), you'll recognize this to be a somewhat flaky adaptation of the original brilliant work. While the photography is stunning, everything else falls short. Character development is deplorable, the plot is at times overdressed and at others simplified to the point of stupidity, and the scares are by modern AND classic standards, not that scary.Dr. Barrett and Ann Barrett, the two lead investigators are uninteresting characters, offering little to no wisdom or insight and deliver dull insipid performances much like their supposed sex life in the movie. By the end I sympathized with Tanner for throwing that paranormal tantrum at Dr. Barrett, and Tanner, well she's a whole new class of two-dimensional. She remains entrenched in her own convictions while making one stupid decision after another, to the point where you actually want to believe she's on to something to allow the movie more depth than it actually has. Fischer is the only interesting one of the bunch, and that's because he remains aloof and observant throughout the movie. By the end he does deliver a commendable performance, but the plot by then has devolved into something absurd. Still he makes the best of what he is left to work with.There are no explanations to the REAL questions. Who is the corpse tied in the dungeon, what bearing does Bolesco's colorful crimes have on the story, what in Tanner's history enables her to fall in love with a spirit, why was Dr Barrett attacked in the living room when all spirit influence had been removed from there, and why does the knowledge of Bolesco's height complex allow them to find him?IF you want to experience the REAL horrors of Hell House, watch the Haunting.

It's always interesting to watch older movies. This movie probably predates the majority of IMDb users including myself.Hell House, as it's dubbed, is a mansion haunted by the spirit of Emeric Belasco. Four people have gone there to draw out this spirit and solve the mystery of Hell House.The movie is more of an erotic horror. The spirit seems absorbed with cohabitating with the medium, Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin), and causing Mrs. Barrett to philander with the male medium, Ben Fisher (Roddy McDowall). When Belasco's spirit isn't behind some sexually charged event he is trying to hurt people. Some real S&M stuff. And this from a man that was born in 1879 England; you'd think he'd be more enlightened and sophisticated.For a 1973 movie it provided a few scares--mostly in the jump scare form. The movie was more mysterious than scary. I see how it paved the way for a very similar movie titled "The Entity" which came out in the early 80's. The Legend of Hell House wasn't that legendary after all.

. . . for scads of very cheap-looking, low-budget horror flicks (many would say, "bad movies") which continue to plague us to this day. THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE people only paid six actors, two of which have on-screen cameos at the beginning of the film lasting mere seconds. The script writer substitutes pseudo-scientific Mumbo Jumbo for special effects, and the director tries to foist off "quick cuts" to black cats as real scares. The "thinking" behind THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE is that you can "eat up" about half the audience's expectation of a 90-minute film running time by inserting on-screen "time stamps" lasting five seconds each EVERY THREE MINUTES of your movie's brief duration, and couple that time-wasting device with the clumsy exposition of a constantly changing and internally inconsistent "back story." All the violence here happens off-screen, so your "horror" budget is out the cost of a bottle of Catsup for "special" effects. One of the two HELL HOUSE actresses gets naked, but the lighting is so poor that the producers probably escaped paying her the standard "nudity premium." That's the REAL horror of HELL HOUSE.