Hell House

I began reading Hell House shortly thereafter reading The Haunting of Hill House – it was my strong attempt to get ahead. With similar titles, I went with my gut and figured that they would be similar stories…well, at least about houses, haunted houses.

If I’m being honest, I was more interested more in Hell House right off the bat than I was with The Haunting of Hill House. Why? I think it mainly deals with the characters. As I stated previously (blog and forums), Eleanor was never much of a favorite character. Granted, Hell House doesn’t get the prize for most memorable characters, but I liked them better. They had my attention more. Plus, I was with Dr. Barrett in proving his theories from the get go. I was interested to see his infamous machine. I must also throw in there that I was hoping to have a better experience at Hell House!

Back to the characters, I liked how they all had their place at Hell House and I thought their place here was better thought out in “proving” that this infamous house was indeed haunted. Matheson gave them all reason and purpose to be there and layered them just so. I enjoyed how we had the scientific side of the haunts, but we also had the spiritualistic side of them as well…and of course, we had to have the only survivor of the previous Hell House stay. I enjoyed how Matheson gave us two sides to this horrific house through the characters he created. He gave us all the details that we needed in order to “see” and “feel” this angry and terrifying house, and as he gave us these details to pull us into the story, he gave us varying ways to believe what is going on here. As we talked about on the forum, whether you actually believe in ghosts or not, Matheson sort of gives us both sides of the coin. Dr. Barrett always has his answer to why there are noises or actual physical retaliation from the house, but we also have Florence handing us the other aspect as to why everything could be happening. Although while we have those two sides/arguments/people, let us not forget Dr. Barrett’s wife, Edith, and Ben. Although Ben has his ideas, we are sort of cut off from them at first – he came off to me as the person Florence wished she could be – and Edith played the part of the scaredy cat in all of us.

While I found the main characters portraying all the sides of “beliefs,” and they did make up much of the story, or at least carried the story, I thought that Belasco himself created the story. He was the story. He was the reason why these people were at his house. Belasco added the creepy element to the story for me. He was deranged, weird, and just plain scary. The descriptions of him throughout the book were frightening, but the things he did were as well. Until the end we have this vision of a man who is very tall and “imposing” and who was some sort of crazy, animalistic puppet master.

Speaking of creepy and frightening, I need to mention the moments that worked for me. When Florence was in her room and the blanket flew from the bed and onto someone was frightening. When the blanket was pulled from the bed, I thought okay…at least we have some interaction in this book…then when it talked about the form under the blanket – that took it to the extreme of scary for me. Call me a baby, but I did like that part. It was something! At least from that point on, I knew Hell House would be an enjoyable book for me. Let me say Florence was the Eleanor of this story. Girlfriend was vulnerable from the beginning. Granted, I feel that she wanted the experience that she got…well, minus the whole part of her dying. I felt terrible for this character! Terrible, yet so utterly grossed out – “His gaze shifted to her genitals…the outer tissues shredded” (249). What also added to the creepy feel for me was the atmosphere of the entire book. I liked how they had to drive to this house pretty much in the middle of nowhere, through the fog and mist of the bog. And of course we get to this mansion and it has no electricity. All the various elements of the scenery and the descriptions that Matheson used brought me into the story and gave me goosebumps. Of course along with the creepy and frightening that I already described, I cannot talk about this book without discussing the element of sex. Wow. Matheson, could you be any more of a weirdo?? From the start we see sexual references (in the chapel) to the pictures Edith comes across and pretty much everything that happens to Florence (and the focus on Florence throughout the majority of the book is sexual). I get it…it made the story. It was the aspect of Belasco that made him deranged for me – “One of his favorite hobbies was destroying women” (58). But as I said, Hell House certainly would not be what it is without that aspect of sex weaved into the story.

Overall, Hell House was a great book. It gave me the chills I wanted, but it got me involved in the story. Matheson created these fabulous characters that I liked and worried about throughout the book, but also placed them in this crazy, realistic place that came alive for me. I enjoyed reading it from beginning to end.