THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE

(1973) The Belasco House, also known as Hell House, is a creepy gothic mansion supposedly haunted by ghosts - in particular the ghost of its owner, a sadistic serial killer.  Previous groups of mediums and ghost hunters who've entered the home trying to debunk its ghostly heritage have ended up mad or missing or just plain dead ... making the legendary residence a most attractive challenge for physicist Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill), who along with his wife agrees to spend a week there as part of a team seeking to prove or disprove the mansion's grisly reputation once and for all.  Roddy McDowall and especially Pamela Franklin as a pair of young psychic/mediums - along with Revill - add a lot to this spooky, slightly kinky ghost-fest, but while some scenes are downright under-the-skin creepy while others are just plain odd, the film builds up some good suspense before ultimately being a bit of a letdown in the end "when all is revealed".  The brilliant horror writer Richard Matheson, who wrote the novel this film is based on, claims to have toned down the overtly sexual stuff for the screenplay in favor of a "brooding" atmosphere to the film, and it shows in what feels like a half-commitment to that part of the storyline, when the film might have been better served taking an "all or nothing" approach instead.  Good, even a couple moments of greatness perhaps, but the 70's was a great decade for horror films that had some genuine skin-crawling creepiness to them - even those with the lowest of budgets - and for the most part Hell House falls a bit short by comparison. (rated PG)  6/10 stars