The Legend of Hell House (1973) on Netflix
Rudolph Deutsch sends physicist Lionel Barrett to test survival after death at the Belasco House. Barrett brings his wife Ann, medium Florence Tanner and Fischer, survivor of an earlier visit.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.6/1015,381 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes62%
Trailer
Plot summary
Four people agree to spend a week at the Belasco House, the former home of Emeric Belasco, a sadistic millionaire known as the Roaring Giant, to establish whether anything survives death. They arrive in the week before Christmas: Lionel Barrett, a physicist, with a machine built to drain energy from the house; his wife Ann; Florence Tanner, a mental medium who expects to find spirits; and Benjamin Franklin Fischer, a physical medium and the only survivor of an investigation carried out twenty years earlier. Fischer holds his mind closed and intends only to collect the payment promised by Rudolph Deutsch, the ailing publisher who set the whole inquiry in motion.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Legend of Hell House (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film was the first of only two productions by Academy Pictures Corporation, the company James H. Nicholson set up after leaving American International Pictures, which he had run with Samuel Z. Arkoff since 1954. Nicholson died of brain cancer on 10 December 1972, before the film reached cinemas.
- Richard Matheson adapted his own novel Hell House and censored himself in the process, cutting back the book's graphic sexuality and BDSM. He also moved the haunted house from rural Maine to England.
- Gayle Hunnicutt was not the first choice for Ann Barrett, the physicist's wife. Barbara Parkins had been cast in the part and was replaced before a single day of filming.
- For a film about paranormal researchers, the production hired a real one: Thomas Corbett, a clairvoyant who worked as a psychic consultant to European royalty, served as the picture's technical advisor.
- One of the novel's set pieces was shot and then thrown away. A scene in which Lionel Barrett is attacked by a rotting apparition in a steam room was filmed, but cut from the finished picture.
