The Legend of Hell House (1973) with Christopher Shinn

Eccentric billionaire Rudolph Deutsch wants someone to figure out what (or who's) been haunting the old Belasco mansion, the “Mt Everest of haunted houses.” Apparently the house has something to do with the secret to life after death, so Deutsch enlists a team of potential rivals to get to the bottom of it:  physicist and sometime paranormal investigator Barrett and his wife Ann; mental medium Florence Tanner; and physical medium Ben Fischer, the sole survivor of the last attempt to exorcise the old home. Almost from the jump, something’s off – no one trusts each other, science butts heads with pseudoscience, and when the actual haunting comes, no one really wants to discuss it.  No one, that is, except for Florence and Ben, who’ve seen enough in their time to recognize the dangers that lie within Belasco House.  And by the time the possessions begin, furniture starts shaking, and chandeliers start tumbling, it’s too late to turn back.  The team must see this through, and get to the bottom of what’s been driving Hell House’s off-the-charts psychic energy.

Intro, Math Club, Debate Society, Hot for Teacher (spoiler-free): 00:00-30:32
Honor Roll and Detention (spoiler-heavy): 30:33-1:04:30
Superlatives (spoiler-heavier): 1:04:31-1:20:20

Director John Hough
Screenplay Richard Matheson, based on his novel Hell House
Featuring Peter Bowles, Roland Culver, Pamela Franklin, Michael Gough, Gayle Hunnicutt, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill

Christopher Shinn is a playwright and screenwriter who lives in New York. Several of his plays have premiered at the Royal Court Theatre: Four, Other People, Where Do We Live (Obie Award), Dying City (Pulitzer Prize finalist) and Now or Later, which was shortlisted for the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play. His other plays include The Narcissist (Chichester Festival Theatre), Teddy Ferrara (Goodman Theatre and Donmar Warehouse), An Opening in Time (Hartford Stage), Picked (Vineyard Theatre), What Didn't Happen (Playwrights Horizons), On the Mountain (South Coast Rep), The Coming World (Soho Theatre), and Against (Almeida Theatre). His adaptation of Hedda Gabler premiered on Broadway in 2009 and his adaptation of Judgment Day premiered at Park Avenue Armory in 2019 and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Adaptation. His awards and grants include a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting, a grant from the NEA/TCG Residency Program, and the Robert Chesley Award. He was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard in 2019-2020, a Cullman Fellow at New York Public Library in 2020-2021, and a MacDowell Fellow in 2023.

Our theme music is by Sir Cubworth, with embellishments by Edward Elgar. 

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