This was a film that I came across while flipping channels. The first time that I came across it, the movie was about halfway through so I saw no point in picking up in the middle. The second time I was able to watch the whole movie all the way through.
This film tells of a team consisting of a physicist named Dr. Lionel Barrett (played by Clive Revill), his wife Ann Barrett (played by Gayle Hunnicutt), a "non-physical" medium named Florence Tanner (played by Pamela Franklin) and a "physical" medium named Benjamin Fischer (played by Roddy McDowall) who are going to a large estate in the English countryside infamously referred to as "Hell House" to investigate the possibility of life after death. They have been selected by a Mr. Deutsch (played by Roland Culver) to spend a week at "Hell House" to find and bring back proof that there is either life after death or not.
The estate is referred to as "Hell House" because of the events that have taken place at the estate including many deaths, acts of debauchery, witchcraft, etc. The last team that tried to investigate the house had only one survivor, Benjamin Fischer and he is said to have become unbalanced as a result of his experiences.
Things start out ok but from the moment the group enters the house there is an apparent "atmosphere" of unease and darkness that rapidly progresses to horror. The two women are the ones who are initially the most afflicted by whatever seems to be haunting the house.
Dr. Barrett is determined that there is no actual haunting but rather that the "atmosphere" is due to energy caused by the events of that occurred inside of the house. Florence is adamant that there is a haunting. Benjamin seems closed off. Ann is conflicted. When mysterious events start happening and the events take on more frightening aspects, everyone's ideas and perceptions are put to the test.
This is an excellent atmospheric horror movie. There is almost no blood and very little violence. The "scares" aren't the typical "jump scares" that we see quite frequently in many recent horror pictures. The acting is all around very good. The story was well thought out and well executed. While this is an older picture, I think that it has stood the test of time well. I liked that they tried to add a scientific aspect to this horror movie as opposed to just pure horror. It is interesting to note that this is probably one of the first scary movies that featured science in it. There was an interesting level of respect shown to the mediums in this picture and it felt like the filmmakers were portraying mediums with emphasis on the scientific side rather than the "metaphysical" side which is different.
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