aesgaard41
I've watched this movie five times since I got it on DVD, and I still don't know what it's about. Now, you'd think a horror movie called "The Haunting of Hell House" would center on a haunted house, but this movie doesn't focus on any one person or location like a good haunted house movie would. Based on a story by playwright Henry James, the movie stars actor Andrew Bowen as New England college student James Farrow whose wife, maybe girlfriend, dies due to a botched abortion, and he begins to see her in dreams and hallucinations. He is soon drawn to the empty house they once explored in their youth, but now, it turns out that it belongs to a Professor Ambrose, played by the talented Michael York from the British stage. Farrow pursues York's help to rid himself of the ghost he believes is haunting him and scratching him up, but whether it's in his mind or just his guilt is never explained. Meanwhile, Ambrose is similarly being haunted by the ghost of his dead wife who refuses to let him sell the house. Neither man believes the ghost of the other one exists. Meanwhile, Farrow is being hunted by the police for his dead girlfriend found in his apartment. He escapes to Ambrose for protection, but the old man is dying and can't help him. Farrow flees to the house to ask for forgiveness from his girlfriend's ghost, but discovers Ambrose's ghost isn't real after all. It turns out he's being systemically poisoned by his angry daughter and Farrow drinks the poisoned wine from her for her father to be with his bride. In the end, Farrow dies in jail next to the phony doctor who botched his girlfriend's abortion. Is this a good movie? Uh, no. It's long, it drags on, it's confusing and the name of the movie is misleading. This is not a haunted house movie. This isn't even a horror movie, and trying to make it look like one may be its worse trait. However, it does have some beautiful scenery for what I speculate is supposed to be Turn-of-the-Century New England. Overall, it's not exactly a movie that can live up to the hype of its name.
gavin6942
A mysterious, morbid professor (Michael York) who has suffered a number of horrid events in his life tries to help a young troubled man (Andrew Bowen), whose girl friend was killed during an illegal abortion.I had some issues with this, particularly that the age looks all wrong, despite the costumes and mustaches. The time period is unclear, but it strikes me as 1990s people dressed up as people fro ma century ago. An that just takes the magic out of it, makes it more like a theater production. That would not be bad in itself, but I am sure this was not the intent.The film was directed by Mitch Marcus and based on "The Ghostly Rental" by Henry James. I have not read the James story (unfortunately -- I should) and this was Marcus' first time out as director, so he can be excused. Just such a shame that producer Roger Corman had Michael York to work with (who does excellently) and pairs him with a cast and crew that is not on his level.
rixrex
Roger Corman produced, but not really typical of Corman, yet there's a bit of the style of the old Corman/Poe/Vincent Price series from the 60s here. I'd say that the title would be about the only thing "Cormanesque" about this in regards to making it interesting commercially, to kind of cash in on the same-time remakes of "Haunting" and "House on Haunted Hill". Other than that, it's a nice, yet small, psychological thriller, with some plot elements influenced by The Tell-Tale Heart. York gives a nice and slightly hammy performance as the tortured old professor, and the others are more than adequate. It will keep the interest of those who don't mind a gradual build and don't care for the lack of real terror and/or gruesome displays of killing. There's some violence and slight gore, but nothing gratuitous. Nothing here ever gets beyond being just a grade more than mediocre, say about B-, EXCEPT the really nice use of the Irish countryside as a substitute for old New England, which is an A grade. Nothing grand, but better than average.
Robert J. Maxwell
I expected more from a story by the author of "Turn of the Screw," but didn't get it here. Unrelieved by any humor whatever the narrative unrolls at a lugubrious pace with interspersed quick cuts of blood dripping from tables, walls, portraits, wherever -- and even more blood rolling in rippling overly crimson waves down a hallway (thank you, Stanley Kubrick). Peter York is okay, given his character, a tormented professor who does everything but shriek, "True, I am very very nervous, but why WILL you call me mad!" The other actors do what they can. The most depressing aspect of the film is in many ways its overall eidos -- the material artifacts and the natural backdrop against which the action takes place. Few movies have so many bare blackish twisted tree limbs dripping with cold rain, so many pale bodies wrapped uncomfortably in wet woolen capes and unbecoming gowns that seem to have been built around internal struts made of wire coat hangers. The interiors are just about as dreary, dim candles and fireplaces that seem to throw little heat or light. Given all of this, I still didn't find the movie so bad as to be unwatchable. It's just that it left me so gloomy, like watching the evening news on a particularly bad day.
AD
