The Legend of Hell House (1973)

So long as you're interested in the journey, no matter how unsatisfying the destination proves to be, the majority of The Legend of Hell House makes for an enjoyably quirky haunted house flick from a time when science (or at least semi-respectable pseudoscience) was considered compatible with the supernatural. To put that another way, this is the kind of thing Ghostbusters was parodying, a world where psychic phenomenon is considered commonplace and spiritual questions can be studied scientifically and associated problems potentially addressed with technology.

That's one of several elements that make this entertaining, if not good. Likewise, the story (adapted by the legendary Richard Matheson from his own novel), populates the cast entirely with characters who are professionals in their field. This means the characters reacting (or through the first half of the movie mostly not reacting) to what's occurring around them have incentives to see this play out and unravel the mystery. No one's trapped, the spirits won't follow them to a hotel, or anything of the sort. At any point, they could walk out the front door, and their ordeal would end.

If you're thinking that makes the movie less scary... well, yes, quite a bit. Though, for what it's worth John Hough's (some of my generation will be familiar with his bonkers 1980 Disney film, The Watcher in the Woods) direction succeeds in ratcheting up the dread a bit by the end. It tops out around "mildly creepy," but given most of the first half was closer to "unintentionally funny," I suppose that's laudable.

The unintentionally funny stuff is pretty good, too. I'm not entirely sure the qualifier belongs there, actually: the filmmakers may have been in on the joke, at least some of the time. The whole thing is shot with closeups, Dutch angles, and atmospheric backdrops. The exterior of the titular house is perpetually covered in mist, and the movie cuts to it constantly when establishing date and time with text (which is useful, because the timestamps don't remotely match the time of day those exterior shots were filmed). Whether it was meant to or not, it enhances the rather silly nature of the premise.

Speaking of date and time....

Let's talk about how Christmas fits into this, since the narrative is set between December 17th and December 24th. And, to be clear, it really doesn't have to be. In fact, I believe the script only references days (i.e.: the "24th"), without specifying the month, which is established by the aforementioned text.

The setting is a throwback to English Christmas ghost stories. Both parts of the movie's setting are, in fact: the book was originally set in Maine, but it was moved to Britain, where the film was made. The production was jointly financed by producers in the U.S. and Britain, and the release strategy was somewhat telling. In American, this came out in the summer, while it was released to theaters in Britain in November. From a production standpoint, this wasn't a Christmas movie in America, but it was absolutely intended to be one overseas, where the genre and holiday remained connected.

While the setting is intended as a throwback, the movie as a whole needs to be understood as an attempt to modernize the concept, which brings us back to pseudoscience, parapsychology, and psychics. The idea here is to take a classic ghost story premise and update it with cutting-edge science, or the closest approximation since the real-world professionals this stuff was based on were con artists, delusional, or - at best - just wrong.

Is that take still controversial? It really shouldn't be. No matter what you believe in, it should be pretty clear that attempts to study supposed paranormal phenomenon using the scientific method did not pan out the way many hoped. There are still plenty of people who believe in psychics (and even more who believe in ghosts), but those communities have largely shifted paradigms to either believe science is incapable of studying these phenomenon or scientists are for some inexplicable reason covering them up. I don't think very many people view physics as a path to learning about the supernatural world anymore.

In the 1970s, however, there was a window between proponents of paranormal science gaining popularity and exposure and said exposure leading to their ideas being refuted, exposed, and eventually replicated by comedy magicians. And, if you want to understand this movie, you need to put yourself in the mindset of that period of time. Alternatively you could just laugh your ass off when the stern, British scientist becomes slightly irate because the psychic medium in a trance didn't place a sample of the ectoplasm she materialized in a jar the first time he asked. This movie can be appreciated on multiple levels, is what I'm saying.

But if you want to look at this within its original context, you need to understand it as a modernized ghost story attempting to take the material seriously and present it within what was considered a scientific framework. It's a movie that started out as a sort of realistic approach to a haunted house that's aged into what amounts to retro-fantasy futurism. That's not necessarily a step down, however, as the latter can be a lot of fun. I certainly enjoyed it, albeit on a more tongue-in-cheek level than was probably intended.

There's not an awful lot to the movie beyond premise of a small group of people who actually have some business being in a haunted house being hired to investigate the most haunted house in the country. You can probably guess half the details: the house was originally owned by a hedonistic madman and was subsequently the site of numerous deaths, injuries, and people being driven mad (including a larger group of paranormal investigators a few decades earlier). Now an aging industrialist sees it as an opportunity to get an answer as to whether life after death actually exists, so he hires England's top physicist/paranormal investigator, the best medium, and the sole person to emerge from the aforementioned previous expedition relatively intact. Oh, and the physicist brings his wife.

The plot is relatively scattershot, as the various characters interact with the house and each other. The physicist is a skeptic, which in this case means he completely accepts the existence of psychic phenomenon but doesn't believe in ghosts. Instead, he explains the strange phenomena they experience as the house having absorbed the psychic energy of its original owner and the psychics unwittingly releasing it to disastrous effect. He of course butts heads with the two psychics, who think one or more spirits are to blame.

I suppose the A-plot is technically centered around the mystery of what's actually going on: how many ghosts are we talking about, why haven't they crossed over, what motivates them, and so on. But really the movie's more interested in the disagreements between its leads. The physicist thinks the survivor isn't helping and the medium is putting herself in danger, the medium thinks the physicist is failing to recognize the reality of what they're up against, and the survivor thinks the other two don't realize the danger they're in by challenging the house.

Things come to a head on Christmas Eve (not that it's referenced as anything other than the 24th) when the physicist gets ready to use a machine supposedly capable to draining the psychic energy from the house. The medium freaks out, thinking he's going to banish a (relatively) innocent spirit to some kind of hell and runs off, only to be killed by a falling crucifix. The physicist's machine seems to work at first, only for them to realize that energy remains present. That energy then kills the physicist, leaving just his wife and the survivor.

Said survivor finally finds his courage and solves the riddle, realizing... sigh... there's only one ghost, and his motivation was mostly that he was insecure about being short.

Astonishing, it's even less satisfying in context. I'm sure Matheson was trying to say something about the insecurity of authoritarians or something, but it just comes off as an underwhelming climax to a fun movie. Also, before dying the occultist lined the walls with lead to protect himself in case anyone developed a device like the one the physicist employed. So it turns out the psychic-energy draining machine does work; it just can't get through lead walls.

Look, I warned you at the outset the ending wasn't the movie's strong suit. There's a lot of fun to be had in the buildup, however, thanks to stylish visuals and a strong cast including Roddy McDowall, Pamela Franklin, Gayle Hunnicutt, and Clive Revill (you'll recognize some voices even if you don't recognize their faces: this ensemble went on to do a lot of voice acting). In addition, there are a couple impressive effects. The movie refrains from big spectacles and relies on understated effects, which are no easier to pull off and hold up a lot better. This no longer reads as scientifically plausible as the intro text claims, but - setting aside its lackluster finale - it's more entertaining than it has any right to be.