The Legend of Hell House *** (1973, Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill, Gayle Hunnicutt) – Classic Movie Review 3,096

The sinister 1973 British horror movie The Legend of Hell House stars Clive Revill, Gayle Hunnicutt, Pamela Franklin and Roddy McDowall as a quartet who agree to spend the week in Hell House to see if it holds the key to life after death. 

Director John Hough’s sinister 1973 British horror movie The Legend of Hell House stars Clive Revill, Gayle Hunnicutt, Pamela Franklin and Roddy McDowall as a physicist, his wife and a pair of mediums who agree to spend the week in Hell House to see if it holds the key to life after death.

Psychic Benjamin Franklin Fischer (McDowall) is the only survivor of a previous visit to the notorious Hell House. Roland Culver plays the rich old patriarch who organises and bankrolls their visit. Peter Bowles and Michael Gough also appear.

Richard Matheson’s creepy, scary and suspenseful tale, based on his own 1971 novel Hell House, has a premise that owes a little something to Agatha Christie’s And Then Were None (or Ten Little Indians), but remains its own thing. The plot also has several details in common with Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House (and 1963 movie The Haunting). His screenplay cuts the graphic sexuality of the novel and moves the location from rural Maine to England.

The Legend of Hell House is decently crafted, well acted by a dedicated, interesting cast, and directed with an eye to an eerie atmosphere by Hough.

The score and electronic sound effects are by Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson.

The Legend of Hell House features Pamela Franklin as Florence Tanner, Roddy McDowall as Benjamin Franklin Fischer, Clive Revill as Dr Lionel Barrett, Gayle Hunnicutt as Ann Barrett, Roland Culver as Rudolph Deutsch, Peter Bowles as Hanley, and Michael Gough as Emeric Belasco.

An uncredited Michael Gough’s role is a couple of recorded lines and an appearance as an embalmed corpse seated upright in a chair.

Production began on 23 October 1972 and it was released on 15 June 1973.

It is one of only two productions by James H Nicholson after leaving American International Pictures. He died of a brain tumour on 10 December 1972. His company Academy Pictures Corporation released Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry on 17 May 1974.

Exteriors were filmed at Wykehurst Park, West Sussex, with other filming at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire.

American film, TV and stage actress Gayle Hunnicutt (Lady Jenkins) died on 31 August 2023, aged 80. She appeared in more than 30 films, including Marlowe (1969), Fragment of Fear (1970), Voices (1973) and The Legend of Hell House (1973). Hunnicutt married David Hemmings on 16 November 1968 and divorced in 1975, and married journalist Simon Jenkins in 1978 and divorced in 2009.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3,096

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