Hell House

by Richard Matheson, Ray Porter (narrator)

book data

961 ratings, 3.68 average rating, 138 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		22%
4		36%
3		29%
2		9%
1		2%

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published

June 1st 2009 by Blackstone Audiobooks, Inc. (first published 1971)

details

Audio CD, 8 pages

isbn

1433251736 (isbn13: 9781433251733)

description

Belasco House is the Mt. Everest of haunted houses. All previous attempts to probe its mysteries have ended in murder, suicide, or insanity. But now, …more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1,528)

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Nov 04, 2008

Maranda rated it:

(review of isbn 0312868855)

bookshelves: 2007-reads, manna-to-colleen-recommendations

“Welcome to my house, I’m delighted you could come. I am certain you will find your stay here most illuminating. It is regrettable I cannot be with you, but I had to leave before your arrival. Do not let my physical absence disturb you, however. Think of me as your unseen host and believe that, during your stay here, I shall be with you in spirit.” ~ Emeric Belasco

Belasco House…Hell House…within these dark passages and cavernous rooms resides the residue of pure, unadultera...more “Welcome to my house, I’m delighted you could come. I am certain you will find your stay here most illuminating. It is regrettable I cannot be with you, but I had to leave before your arrival. Do not let my physical absence disturb you, however. Think of me as your unseen host and believe that, during your stay here, I shall be with you in spirit.” ~ Emeric Belasco

Belasco House…Hell House…within these dark passages and cavernous rooms resides the residue of pure, unadulterated evil.

This book begins with the new owner of Belasco House assembling a crew to determine what, if anything, haunts this tomb-like mansion. The crew consists of Dr. Lionel Barrett (a scientist), his wife Edith, Benjamin Franklin Fischer (a physical medium whom had experienced the house previously), and Florence Tanner (a mental medium with a profound religious faith). We accompany the group on the third attempt to discover the source of ghostly disturbances within the house. The first two attempts resulted in the murder, suicide, or mental deterioration of the investigators involved…all those except Fischer that is.

Our introduction to the House is through brief glimpses as the thick, eerie fog surrounding the mansion and Bastard Bog clears. The tour through the house leaves us chilled to the bone. As we walk room to room, corridor to corridor, the foreboding feelings steadily increase. These walls have witnessed all manner of unspeakable events.

The House is dark and angry and soon begins its attack on its unwelcome guests. The House exploits the weaknesses that reside deep within one’s soul and employs those weaknesses to devour and utterly destroy the host of such vulnerabilities. Can anyone truly survive the horrors of Hell House?

Matheson is a true literary genius. He swiftly seizes the reader and propels you into a sinister world of appalling sexual exploitations, atrocious physical cruelties, and sickening mental molestations.

Hell House is one of the greatest haunted house stories I have encountered. This book is an older book, with its first publication in 1971. However, its age does not diminish its content or reduce its affect on those who face the challenge of Hell House itself.

Though the book draws you in and confronts you head on, do not look to the movie, The Legend of Hell House, to give you the same frightful sensations. The film was released in 19-seventy…something…and was not produced for the zombie-movie generation.

Hell House is not a book for you of weak character. Read it only if your soul is stout and sturdy enough to withstand the atrocities which dwell between these eerie covers.

“All your needs have been provided for, nothing has been overlooked. Go where you will, and do what you will – these are the cardinal precepts of my home. Feel free to function as you choose. There are no responsibilities, no rules. ‘Each to his own device’ shall be the only standard here. May you find the answer that you seek. It is here, I promise you. And now..,auf Wiedersehen.” ~ Emeric Belasco.

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Jun 23, 2008

Kristen rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

bookshelves: classics, horror

Read in June, 2008

In order to fully appreciate and enjoy this book, you should really try to read it prior to watching any of the movies made about it. Unfortunately I had seen “The Legend of Hell House” back many years ago, so I was familiar with what would happen. Although the book and the movie were different in parts, the truth behind the haunting was the same, which took some of the shock out of it for me.

Short Synopsis: An eccentric dying millionaire commissions a study to prove that there...more In order to fully appreciate and enjoy this book, you should really try to read it prior to watching any of the movies made about it. Unfortunately I had seen “The Legend of Hell House” back many years ago, so I was familiar with what would happen. Although the book and the movie were different in parts, the truth behind the haunting was the same, which took some of the shock out of it for me.

Short Synopsis: An eccentric dying millionaire commissions a study to prove that there is life after death. Offering On hundred thousand dollars to three people to go and stay the week at “Hell House” and report back to him whether or not there is an afterlife. The three people who go include a psychic medium, a physicist, and the lone survivor of the previous expedition into the house. The four of them go to the house (they fourth being the Physicists wife) and are scheduled to stay there for a week; right away the chills begin crawling up your spine as you learn the depraved history of the house. The windows are bricked up, fog and mist surrounds the house, and the tales of what when on inside are sick and evil.

As I stated before, I wish that I had read this book before having seen the movie, because I believe that having seen the movie detracted from my enjoyment. Still this book is very well written, and was groundbreaking for the time. The problem is that this book was written in the 1970’s and has been ripped off or blatantly copied in so many books and movies since then, that when you read it.. it’s not shocking anymore. I imagine that this book was quite chilling for it’s time. Though I was never terrified, I was interested from beginning to end. And the ghosty in this book is smart… that is probably why this book was so frightening to so many… the battle versus the house was both physical and mental. Certainly we can all duck a few flying dishes… but how do you combat madness? How do you fight an enemy that can see into your very soul, and twist your memories, desires, and hopes into weapons against you?

This could have very easily been a 5 star book, however I found the writing to be very sparse and the characters to be somewhat unsympathetic. At times you almost feel as if you are reading a TV script, the blocking and dialogue are there, but the emotion hasn’t shown up yet. In the opening of the book this is at its worst, to the point of my not even being able to distinguish between the two men even by name for much longer into the book than it should have taken. About halfway into the book, Matheson seems to hit his stride and goes from telling to showing the reader what is going on. The second half of this book is 5 star material, without a doubt. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good haunted house tale.
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Apr 26, 2008

Dan rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

bookshelves: matheson

Read in September, 2008

I've been a Richard Matheson fan for a few years now and he rarely disappoints. Hell House is no different. A dying millionaire offers a physicist and two psychics a hundred thousand dollars apiece to spend a week in a haunted house to prove or disprove the existence of an afterlife. Sounds simple enough, right?

Tensions run high between the investigators. Barrett thinks Florence's beliefs are crap and his scientific explanation is the only one. Fischer doesn't seem to be doing m...more

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Aug 31, 2007

Dale rated it:

(review of isbn 0312868855)

Read in August, 2007

Book ten of the commute. This book is yet another "product of its times", and once again the times in question are the seventies (see also "Still Life With Woodpecker"). This book, if some of the blurbs on the back cover are to be believed, is a classic of American horror, and I'm a big fan of horror (especially Stephen King, who is in fact the praising voice of one of the back-cover blurbs) so I decided to check it out. Like a lot of good horror, the book combines fantast...more

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Dec 04, 2009

Marvin rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

bookshelves: horror, kindle

Read in December, 2009

It probably did not help my assessment of this novel having read both The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and I am Legend by Matheson in this year. Hell House is an inferior book to both of the previously mentioned classics. Yet it does have plenty of scares and terror. Matheson knows how to write tense moments and if the ending seems a little forced, it is a thrilling ride getting there. As far as haunted house tales goes, it still sits easily in the top ten.

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Aug 09, 2007

Bree rated it:

(review of isbn 0312868855)

bookshelves: favorites, owned

Read in December, 2007

Once again I learned how much of an influence Richard Matheson was on Stephen King.

Yet Matheson has his own brand of the macabre. His characters, while compelling, aren't as well-drawn or emotionally involving as King's (at least in this book). And his horror has a slower build and then explodes all over the page - kind of like Poe.

And talk about mixing disturbing horror with sexuality. That's a place where both King and Matheson hold crowns. Deeply disturbing - and yet...more

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Feb 23, 2010

Josh rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

bookshelves: dont-own-but-have-read

Welcome to Hell House. The most haunted house on earth.

The legendary genre-spanning Richard Matheson gives us his take on the haunted house tale, and it’s a hell of a tale indeed.

A group of four people is sent to investigate the Belasco House, a place that is infamous among parapsychologists and spiritualists for being the “Mount Everest of haunted houses”. A place where orgies, cannibalism and necrophilia took place as the former inhabitants of the house effectivel...more Welcome to Hell House. The most haunted house on earth.

The legendary genre-spanning Richard Matheson gives us his take on the haunted house tale, and it’s a hell of a tale indeed.

A group of four people is sent to investigate the Belasco House, a place that is infamous among parapsychologists and spiritualists for being the “Mount Everest of haunted houses”. A place where orgies, cannibalism and necrophilia took place as the former inhabitants of the house effectively cut themselves off from their society and made one of their own. The four characters exploring Belasco House now, in 1970, are being paid an exorbitant amount of money by an aging rich man who has come to terms with the fact that he is dying and wants some solid answers as to what lies beyond. But what they find there is anything but simple.

The idea is simple though, and indeed similar to other stories of this type that have come before and after. Where this novel shines is in the telling. Here Matheson is in fine and polished form. He juggles each of the four character’s disparate personalities and measures them against the psychic weight of the house, making for some very interesting results. We have Dr. Lionel Barrett, a single-minded physicist set out to prove that all such phenomena have a logical, scientific explanation. Florence Tanner, an ardently religious spiritualist, who is also a mental medium. Benjamin Franklin Fischer, a world-renowned medium, the only sane survivor of the last expedition into the house thirty years before. Edith Barrett, Dr. Barrett’s wife, who has no particular psychic gift or bent.

With everyone introduced and in the house, things quickly get unusual. One of the things this novel has going for it is the impeccable pacing. Events unfold slowly, a sense of dread lurking just beneath the surface. Every single word counts. No superfluous purple prose here. There are a few expositional paragraphs describing the house’s past early on in the novel that are more than enough to have you on edge for the remainder. As the characters get to know the house’s history, the reader gets to know the characters. By the time sympathy is had for all of them, the tension is tar-thick, the suspense nearly unbearable. Matheson understands well that there is a fine line between too much and too little. A lot of the haunted house novels I’ve read have been either over-the-top bloodbaths or irritatingly ambiguous. Not this one. This is one of those books where your hair’s standing on end the entire time. When the gory and sexual scenes do come (there are a few), they are expertly placed and written. It’s the contrast from the rest of the book that makes these scenes so powerful. I’ve heard people say they’ve been put off by the “excessive violence” here, but if you’re more than the most casual of horror readers you’ve likely read far more graphic and gratuitous fare. In this day and age, senseless sex and violence are everywhere. But here, amidst the novel’s slow-moving creepiness, Matheson throws them at us when we’re not expecting them at all, making them surprisingly powerful and raising the shock value to breaking point. So much so that by the time the final act was approaching I found myself fearing for what would happen next, and to who, and looking around to make sure there wasn’t some dark figure trailing me (I was reading this mainly on a city bus on a bright, sunny day, so that’s saying something).

I have to mention the characters again. Each of them being so different, each struggling to deal with the house in their own way, before long they lapse into delusion and paranoia. It’s interesting to have such opposing personalities effectively stuck with each other in such an imposing setting. It really makes the pages come alive, gives you different angles and ways of looking at the house and at paranormal phenomenon in general. Matheson is known for researching his work exhaustively, and here it certainly shows.

I’ve read several of his books before this, but none of them gave me reason to think that one day he would scare me at all, let alone like this. If for nothing else, then for that I must absolutely recommend paying a visit to Hell House. (less)

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Oct 12, 2009

Anton Borst rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

This is the guy who wrote "I am Legend," upon which the Will Smith movie of the same name was based. A fun, creepy read with an interesting if not entirely original take on hauntings as manifestations of sexual and other forms of psychological repression (in this case working in conjunction with little understood workings of "energy" and other physical laws). Especially in this respect, the characters are flawed and interesting, dealing with their own internal issues as the...more

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May 26, 2009

Myranda rated it:

(review of isbn 0312868855)

bookshelves: books-i-borrowed-from-the-library

Read in May, 2009

I discovered Richard Matheson a little over a year ago when I picked up I Am Legend in Barnes & Noble on a book-buying spree. I had always been a fan of the supernatural/horror genre, but I always kept my choices limited to Stephen King novels. Since reading and absolutely loving I Am Legend, I read a few of Matheson's short stories and discovered that he was responsible for some of my favorite images and movies - What Dreams May Come, Stir of Echoes, Terror at 20,000 Feet - and I also disc...more

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Apr 13, 2009

Dreadlocksmile rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

Read in January, 2005

Richard Matheson’s classic horror novel ‘Hell House’ was first published by Viking Press Inc back in 1971. Matheson had already received much praise for his previous work with novels such as ‘I Am Legend’ and ‘The Shrinking Man’. The novel proved to be such an inspirational piece of horror fiction that it was later made into the film ‘The Legend of Hell House’ starring both Pamela Franklin and Roddy McDowall.

From the very beginning of the novel, the reader is thrown...more

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Jan 18, 2009

Amber rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

Read in January, 2009

First off, I just want to say that this book is what it is... a tale of horror, nothing more but also nothing less. It does what a horror book should do and succeeds. Unfortunately, I disliked the ending of the book (the very last bit... not the ending as a whole). I enjoyed the psychological aspect of the supernatural. The thought that all supernatural events could be straight from our own minds. Opening up the parts of our brain we don't use and convincing ourselves that these abilities are th...more

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Dec 09, 2009

Rebekah rated it:

(review of other edition)

Read in December, 2009

I enjoyed this book from beginning to end. First of all I am a great fan of horror and this is really a horror book, no argument there.
*spoilers*
I especially enjoyed some of the themes implicitly presented by the author: A) we create our own horror and B) when we understand something, it is no longer frightening.

I found the explanation of Florence's experience with the character of Daniel Belasco fascinating when compared to her relationship with her lost brother, David...more

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Oct 22, 2009

Ivan rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

bookshelves: non-romance

Read in October, 2009

I decided to put my thoughts down on this book. I’m sure no one actually cares, but I’ll pretend people do.

I admit I was reluctant to read Hell House. I’m not really one to be scared. I think there are enough real life horrors in the world to subject ourselves to imaginary ones, but the Mighty M can be….ahem…persuasive.

Anyway, first I have to say if shifting points of view bother you than you may not like this book. At times we are in the heads of each of the ch...more

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Aug 29, 2009

Caitlin rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

bookshelves: 2009

Read in September, 2009

This book serves as a nice companion piece to The Haunting of Hill House, although I like it less. There is a similar setup - scary old house that has more or less devoured people who lived in it is investigated by four researchers. In Hell House the ~~victims~~ investigators are a physicist/parapsychologist, his wife, a spiritual medium, & a physical medium who was the only survivor from the last investigation of the house.

Where the horror in The Haunting of Hill House is implicit, th...more

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Oct 22, 2009

Jim rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

bookshelves: horror

Read in October, 2009

This is a classic. Matheson has managed to create the perfect haunted house story, IMO. He has it all; eccentric rich men, mediums, the loyal wife, the dedicated scientist & the creepiest house in the most horrifying setting imaginable. There's some sex, plenty of violence & wonderfully described seances.

Best of all, there is a pervasive logic behind the entire story & several layers of horror. It's not just horror of outside forces, but also of inner demons. Each character is wel...more

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Nov 15, 2009

Bondama rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

Read in January, 1971

I first read this book when it was initially published, and I don't mind saying in scared the holy crap out of me. This book is the exact opposite of "The Haunting of Hill House" which frightens the reader by suggestion, by sound, and by inference.

"Hell House" is flat out terrifying. I had almost managed to forget the nightmares until about four years ago I was in a book store, and noticed that there it was, a new edition -- I bought it, of course, and fortunate...more

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Feb 09, 2009

Tom Meade rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

bookshelves: horror, library-book

Read in February, 2009

An enjoyably pulpy haunted house story with lots of sex and ectoplasm. It plays like a trashy rewrite of The Haunting of Hill House but owes just as much to The House on Haunted Hill. A researcher is hired by an ailing millionaire to prove conclusively whether or not the human soul survives after death. That might sound tricky, but Lionel Barrett has an ace up his sleeve - Hell House, the Mount Everest of hauntings, which has chewed-up and spat out more research teams than anyone cares to rememb...more

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Sep 17, 2009

Ali Ibarra rated it:

(review of isbn 0727860992)

Really great book! I can see why it's considered one of the best horror novels. It's such a classic haunted house story. The best haunted house story i've read up to date. As the story progresses it gets better and better. Things happen, especially towards the end, that totally blow your mind. What i mean by that is that everything you thought would happen, everything you hoped and wanted to happen, all of that is wrong. A bit slow in the beginning, but it speeds up later. You all should read it...more

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Nov 22, 2008

Kitty rated it:

(review of isbn 0312868855)

Read in May, 2001

REALLY scary!

I'm a little surprised that I got through this one. It's probably one of the scariest, most disturbing books I've ever read. I enjoy a good ghost story, but this one is really over the top. However, I really love the author, and it's a classic, so I had to give it a try. (Can you believe this is the same guy that wrote "Somewhere in Time"?!!)

It's worth noting that it's not only scary, it's rather graphic - not for the light-hearted. It's well-writte...more

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