Review: Hell House by Richard Matheson
Hell House
by Richard Matheson
Publisher: Tor Books
Publish Date: April 1, 2011 (first published 1971)
Kindle Edition
302 Pages
Standalone
Genre: Horror
Rolf Rudolph Deutsch is going die. But when Deutsch, a wealthy magazine and newspaper publisher, starts thinking seriously about his impending death, he offers to pay a physicist and two mediums, one physical and one mental, $100,000 each to establish the facts of life after death.
Dr. Lionel Barrett, the physicist, accompanied by the mediums, travel to the Belasco House in Maine, which has been abandoned and sealed since 1949 after a decade of drug addiction, alcoholism, and debauchery. For one night, Barrett and his colleagues investigate the Belasco House and learn exactly why the townfolks refer to it as the Hell House.
My Review:
Holy hell! 😈 I can't believe it's taken me this long to read this classic horror book. This was the #BuddyReadsToDieFor October choice and just perfect for the Halloween month - Spooky Season is ALL year for this macabre loving ghoul and Hell House is an amazing setting to let my mind wander through for 302 creepy pages.
Would you stay in a haunted house for one week if you were paid $100,000? Personally, since Dr. Barret is a billionaire, that seems like chump change but who am I to say - I think that I would! Probably to my detriment but hey, YOLO and all that jazz.
I sometimes can find haunting stories to be a bit too slow for my taste but the atmosphere is hard not to take a taste of so I usually try to meander through. Luckily Hell House is written in a way that the slow creepiness that builds night by night goes at a moderate pace, thus keeping my attention from beginning to end. Definitely lots of sexual scenes but I didn't mind them... the weirder shit got the more I was fascinated, nose deep into my kindle - which seems weird but you get what I'm saying here.
Overall this is a very satisfying read and I'm pretty happy with it from beginning to end. Strap yourself in and get ready to feel the creepy vibes crawl on your skin. It's absolutely worth it. Apologies to the reading group as I had some great intentions but with these being holiday times it's been madness trying to sort anything - like herding cats, I have failed. However, I'm still definitely going to try and watch the adaptation, The Legend of Hell House as Matheson also wrote the screenplay!
★★★★
Oooh! I need to add this to my TBR!
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