Cat Classics on Film: The Legend of Hell House (1973)

Today’s Cat Classic, The Legend of Hell House, directed by John Hough, is a haunted house movie that we did not find to be especially frightening. The cat is not a major player, and his supposedly horrifying scenes are (a) not horrifying and (b) kind of nonsensical. Nevertheless, Halloween is coming, and if you’re looking for a kind-of-good haunt film, this one is worth a look.

The plot

The movie is based on the book Hell House, by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the screenplay. It opens with physicist Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill) meeting with a millionaire to investigate whether it is possible to survive after death. The millionaire offers Barrett a large sum of money to spend one week investigating at a place called the Belasco House, also known as Hell House or the Mount Everest of haunted houses. Eight people have died in past investigations there, and the last time a team investigated that house, 20 years earlier, only one person made it out alive and sane. That survivor, a physical medium named Fischer (Roddy McDowell), will be joining the new investigation. Also going to the house are Barrett’s wife, Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt), and a mental medium, Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin).

They arrive on an appropriately foggy evening, and it soon becomes clear that this place is weird. Tanner, the mental medium, begins experiencing things right away. She comes to believe she’s being contacted by the son of the house’s mysterious owner, Emeric Belasco. Belasco, reportedly six feet five inches tall and a violent sadist, disappeared after several people were massacred in the house. Lots of ghostly things happen, such as furniture moving and things being thrown.

Tension grows between the investigators as Tanner keeps having close encounters with what she thinks is Belasco’s tortured son (the others are skeptical of this), and Ann Barrett seems to be taken over by something that drives her to try to seduce Fischer. Fischer, meanwhile, refuses to open himself to allow whatever is in the house to affect him; he intends only to survive the week and collect his paycheck. And Dr. Barrett is busy measuring things and setting up the device that will drive the psychic energy completely out of the house. Let’s just say this “housecleaning” scheme does not work entirely as planned.

The cat

This movie includes a somewhat gratuitous black cat. And not just any old black cat. No, this is a killer black cat. Sort of.

Anyway, the cat is first seen when the team arrives at the house. A handsome black cat appears outside, sitting there among all the fog and gloom. Later, the cat is seen outside again, this time walking past the house. Then, somehow the cat gets inside the house and attacks Tanner in her room. The stuffed stunt cat used for these scenes is not especially convincing, and the cat paws seen reaching under the door are almost laughably fake. Tanner claims that the cat was obviously possessed by Belasco’s son, and of course no one believes her.

Later, Tanner finds the cat dead, and we do see a brief shot of the bloody body. The stuffed stunt cat played this scene about as well as he played the attack scene, so we did not find it particularly convincing, and you see the cat for such a short time, you may be left asking, “Wait—was that the cat?”

At the movie’s end, the black cat is again seen outside and very much alive…so go figure.

Our verdict

We did not find The Legend of Hell House scary or even all that engrossing. This isn’t the kind of film that grabs you and gets inside your head, which is probably a good thing, because that Belasco guy was a real creep. The cat does not play a big role and is of course uncredited. If you’re watching this movie mostly for the cat, you will likely be disappointed…unless you really want to be entertained by the stuffed stunt cat. Much of this film was as unconvincing to us as that stunt cat was. Which is not to say we didn’t enjoy watching it; it has a 1970s horror vibe that is fun in small doses, like around Halloween, with a big bowl of popcorn with candy mixed in. But if you want a great classic haunted house film, we think you’d be better off watching House on Haunted Hill (the 1959 version starring Vincent Price).

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good movie; two paws is for a great movie. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the movie through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!