The Legend Of Hell House Review (1973)

I’ve never really gotten off on haunted house movies or the whole haunted house conversation in general. It’s just not something I care for or put much faith in. Sure, I went to a few of those so-called haunted attractions back in the day, but getting touched, chased, or screamed at by strangers in the dark isn’t my idea of fun. As for the real deal, most of the “haunted” spots I’ve been to were more about old rituals, animal sacrifices, and leftover occult vibes than any kind of ghost story — and that’s not the kind of energy I want to hang around.

But then there’s The Legend of Hell House - a film that doesn’t just play haunted house, it bleeds haunted house. This one gets under your skin. It’s not about cheap scares or creaky floors; it’s about madness, decay, and spiritual rot. It drags you inside and seals the door shut behind you. And with Roddy McDowall leading the charge, you know you’re in for something a little more twisted than the usual séance séance-and-scream routine. This thing is a gothic nightmare soaked in madness. The walls are alive, the air is diseased, and by the time it’s over, you feel like the house has stripped you of your sanity.

The plot’s simple on paper: a team of investigators is sent into the notorious Belasco House to determine if life after death exists. But calling it a “house” doesn’t cut it, this is a tomb that forgot to die. Built by a perverse millionaire named Emeric Belasco, a sadistic freak who threw orgies, tortured his guests, and supposedly vanished into his own nightmare, it’s earned its nickname fair and square: Hell House.



From the moment the team steps inside, you can tell the place hates them. It’s all cold stone, stale air, and something slithering behind the walls. Every inch of the place feels wrong, like the whole house is possessed by the collective filth of everyone who ever sinned inside of it.

And right at the center of this descent is Roddy McDowall, my guy, one of my absolute favorite actors. Nobody plays haunted like McDowall. Nobody. He’s a psychic who’s been inside Hell House before and barely made it out. You can see the trauma dripping off him, those darting eyes, the shaking hands, that brittle voice trying to sound brave when you know he’s just holding himself together with willpower, caffeine and booze. He gives the movie its pulse. Every time he’s on screen, you can feel his fear, but also that spark of defiance that says, “I’ve been through Hell once, let’s see if I can stare it down again.”

Pamela Franklin’s character, the spiritual medium, gets eaten alive by the energy of the place, literally and emotionally. She’s sensitive in the worst way, tuned right into the heart of all that corruption, and it starts tearing her apart. The whole cast sells the hell out of it, but McDowall’s slow burn unraveling is acting from another dimension.

The visuals in this film are pure decay. You can smell the mildew through the screen. Every shot feels damp, cold, and dangerous. It’s not flashy, it’s oppressive. The lighting’s sickly, the fog never stops, and even the quiet scenes hum with tension like the house is breathing right behind you.

And when the supernatural stuff hits, it hits. Furniture moves, invisible forces slap people around, the house moans like it’s alive. But what really gets under your skin is the psychological rot, how the house feeds off the human weakness inside its walls. Pride, lust, guilt, fear… all of it gets chewed up and spat back out.

By the time the ending rolls around, you’re not sure who’s winning anymore, the people, the ghosts, or the house itself. It’s got that early-’70s British grit - grim, cerebral, and cold as hell. There’s nothing comforting here, no warm light at the end of the tunnel. Just darkness and the lingering echo of a place that should’ve been burned to the ground centuries ago.

The Legend of Hell House is one of the crown jewels of haunted Horror. It’s mean, it’s brilliant, and it doesn’t pull any punches. Forget polite hauntings, this one screams in your face and leaves claw marks on your soul.

McDowall is the glue holding it all together, the terrified survivor who’s too broken to quit. One of the finest performances in Horror history, period. The man could read the phone book and make it sound haunted, but here, he’s transcendent and that’s what makes it worth it for me. If you haven’t watched this one, have a quick look, you might recognize McDowall as he went on to portray Peter Vincent, The FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLER in the classic 80’s Vampire films – Fright Night 1 & 2.