Hell House, by Richard Matheson
A dying rich man pays four people to go to investigate a haunted house.
"It's the Mount Everest of haunted houses, you might say. There were two attempts to investigate it, one in 1931, the other in 1940. Both were disasters. Eight people involved in those attempts were killed, committed suicide, or went insane. Only one survived, and I have no idea how sound he is."
The one survivor, the young psychic Fischer, is one of the four. The others are Florence, a medium who believes in ghosts, Barrett, a psychic investigator who believes that there are no ghosts and all psychic phenomena are caused by human psychic energy, and Barrett's wife Edith, who has severe anxiety and comes along because Hell House scares her less than being alone for the weekend. The characters were a lot more interesting and sympathetic than I expected, given that they're dealing with sixteen quadrillion different supernatural manifestations around the clock.
Richard Matheson is best known for rather restrained, deadpan scary stories. Apparently that just pent up his desire to really cut loose. I feel a bit odd calling a book with this much rape "charming," but it's so enthusiastically batshit that I picture him hurling the metaphoric kitchen sink at his characters every thirty seconds, with great glee, and this charmed me. This is not a book which lacks for incident.
Here is a list of all psychic phenomena which have occurred at Hell House:
Apparitions; Apports; Asports; Automatic drawing; Automatic painting; Automatic speaking; Automatic writing; Autoscopy; Bilocation; Biological phenomena; Book tests; Breezes; Catalepsy; Chemical phenomena; Chemicographs; Clairaudience; Clairsentience; Clairvoyance; Communication; Control; Crystal gazing; Dematerialization; Direct drawing; Direct painting; Direct voice; Direct writing; Divination; Dreams; Dream communications; Dream prophecies; Ectoplasm; Eidolons; Electrical phenomena; Elongation; Emanations; Exteriorization of motricity; Exteriorization of sensation; Extras; Extratemporal perception; Eyeless sight; Facsimile writing; Flower clairsentience; Ghosts; Glossolalia; Hyperamnesia; Hyperesthesia; Ideomorphs; Ideoplasm; Impersonation; Imprints; Independent voice; Interpenetration of matter; Knot tying; Levitation; Luminous phenomena; Magnetic phenomena; Materialization; Matter through matter; Metagraphology; Monition; Motor automatism; Newspaper tests; Obsession; Paraffin molds; Parakinesis; Paramnesia; Paresthesia; Percussion; Pantasmata; Poltergeist; Psychic rods; Psychic sounds; Psychic touches; Psychic phenomena; Psychokinesis; Psychometry; Radiesthesia; Radiographs; Raps; Retrocognition; Scriptograph; Sensory automatism; Skin writing; Skotography; Slate writing; Smells; Somnambulism; Stigmata; Telekinesis; Teleplasm; Telescopic vision; Telesthesia; Transfiguration; Transportation
There needs to be a bingo card for these, where you need feature one of these phenomena in a story ala hurt/comfort bingo. It would be good for Halloween. Also educational, since I don't know what half of these are and even Matheson couldn't jam them all in. I still don't know what flower clairsentience is and regret that I don't think it appears in the book. Such a tragic oversight. If you put flower clairsentience on the wall in Act I, someone needs to telepathically commune with a rosebush by Act III.
Early on, they get the history of Hell House's original owner, the subtly named Belasco, who had a perma-orgy going on which ended when the servants all fled and no one did the laundry. I am totally serious. The ultimate downfall of Satanic orgy cultists is the same as with any commune: no one wants to do the dishes.
This book is trashy fun if you're in the mood for one bazillion psychic phenomena, ghosts vs psychic energy arguments, tragic damaged psychics, and the hot medium getting felt up by everyone from repressed lesbian Edith strip-searching her before a seance to ensure that there's no cheating to ghosts to floating severed hands. It was too gonzo to be truly scary for me, though it did have some good scary moments, but it was a lot of fun.
There are a pair of shocking reveals at the end, both of which fell completely flat for me, one because it depends on what I suspect was a topic of great interest at the time of writing which is just not a thing at all anymore, and one because it's completely ludicrous.
( Read more... )
I listened to this on audio, with narration by Ray Porter. Audio version recommended if you plan to listen in your car, or live in an isolated area, or don't care if anyone hears a great booming voice coming from your home, saying, "Let his God cock sink into my mouth," she said. "Let me drink his holy, burning jism."
Hell House[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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"It's the Mount Everest of haunted houses, you might say. There were two attempts to investigate it, one in 1931, the other in 1940. Both were disasters. Eight people involved in those attempts were killed, committed suicide, or went insane. Only one survived, and I have no idea how sound he is."
The one survivor, the young psychic Fischer, is one of the four. The others are Florence, a medium who believes in ghosts, Barrett, a psychic investigator who believes that there are no ghosts and all psychic phenomena are caused by human psychic energy, and Barrett's wife Edith, who has severe anxiety and comes along because Hell House scares her less than being alone for the weekend. The characters were a lot more interesting and sympathetic than I expected, given that they're dealing with sixteen quadrillion different supernatural manifestations around the clock.
Richard Matheson is best known for rather restrained, deadpan scary stories. Apparently that just pent up his desire to really cut loose. I feel a bit odd calling a book with this much rape "charming," but it's so enthusiastically batshit that I picture him hurling the metaphoric kitchen sink at his characters every thirty seconds, with great glee, and this charmed me. This is not a book which lacks for incident.
Here is a list of all psychic phenomena which have occurred at Hell House:
Apparitions; Apports; Asports; Automatic drawing; Automatic painting; Automatic speaking; Automatic writing; Autoscopy; Bilocation; Biological phenomena; Book tests; Breezes; Catalepsy; Chemical phenomena; Chemicographs; Clairaudience; Clairsentience; Clairvoyance; Communication; Control; Crystal gazing; Dematerialization; Direct drawing; Direct painting; Direct voice; Direct writing; Divination; Dreams; Dream communications; Dream prophecies; Ectoplasm; Eidolons; Electrical phenomena; Elongation; Emanations; Exteriorization of motricity; Exteriorization of sensation; Extras; Extratemporal perception; Eyeless sight; Facsimile writing; Flower clairsentience; Ghosts; Glossolalia; Hyperamnesia; Hyperesthesia; Ideomorphs; Ideoplasm; Impersonation; Imprints; Independent voice; Interpenetration of matter; Knot tying; Levitation; Luminous phenomena; Magnetic phenomena; Materialization; Matter through matter; Metagraphology; Monition; Motor automatism; Newspaper tests; Obsession; Paraffin molds; Parakinesis; Paramnesia; Paresthesia; Percussion; Pantasmata; Poltergeist; Psychic rods; Psychic sounds; Psychic touches; Psychic phenomena; Psychokinesis; Psychometry; Radiesthesia; Radiographs; Raps; Retrocognition; Scriptograph; Sensory automatism; Skin writing; Skotography; Slate writing; Smells; Somnambulism; Stigmata; Telekinesis; Teleplasm; Telescopic vision; Telesthesia; Transfiguration; Transportation
There needs to be a bingo card for these, where you need feature one of these phenomena in a story ala hurt/comfort bingo. It would be good for Halloween. Also educational, since I don't know what half of these are and even Matheson couldn't jam them all in. I still don't know what flower clairsentience is and regret that I don't think it appears in the book. Such a tragic oversight. If you put flower clairsentience on the wall in Act I, someone needs to telepathically commune with a rosebush by Act III.
Early on, they get the history of Hell House's original owner, the subtly named Belasco, who had a perma-orgy going on which ended when the servants all fled and no one did the laundry. I am totally serious. The ultimate downfall of Satanic orgy cultists is the same as with any commune: no one wants to do the dishes.
This book is trashy fun if you're in the mood for one bazillion psychic phenomena, ghosts vs psychic energy arguments, tragic damaged psychics, and the hot medium getting felt up by everyone from repressed lesbian Edith strip-searching her before a seance to ensure that there's no cheating to ghosts to floating severed hands. It was too gonzo to be truly scary for me, though it did have some good scary moments, but it was a lot of fun.
There are a pair of shocking reveals at the end, both of which fell completely flat for me, one because it depends on what I suspect was a topic of great interest at the time of writing which is just not a thing at all anymore, and one because it's completely ludicrous.
( Read more... )
I listened to this on audio, with narration by Ray Porter. Audio version recommended if you plan to listen in your car, or live in an isolated area, or don't care if anyone hears a great booming voice coming from your home, saying, "Let his God cock sink into my mouth," she said. "Let me drink his holy, burning jism."
Hell House[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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