Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - La casa infernal

I did enjoy this more than I thought I was going to. I got this as a blind date with a book, so I didn’t know what is was(I wasn’t happy with it to be honest). It’s like the hunting of hill house, but I enjoyed this more because there was a lot of action. I was never scared, but I was disgusted. I don’t know why most horror has to have such gross sexual content in it. Honestly I would probably skip this, but it wasn’t horrible.

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hannanni41's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

The best parts of this book are ripped from Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House, the worst parts are nasty and misogynistic

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childofmongreldogs's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Took me a bit to think about how I feel about this one, but I have to say that I don't think I particularly liked it.

The writing was good. I love Richard Matheson's short fiction so it wasn't a problem with the actual quality of the prose itself which has me feeling a certain kind of way about this novel. I will also say that the actual storyline itself was good as well. The twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat. This feels like the definition of a genre. The ultimate kind of haunted house story.

The way I was on edge throughout the story was next level. Not really terrifying but I think that a lot of the tension was well done. I think that Matheson was an absolutely phenomenal writer.

I just can't jive with horror novels from this era, I think. There's too much that is bad writing to me because it fundamentally misunderstands certain people. I know that that is a controversial opinion to have: I don't like this novel because it's depiction of women is bad and it's depiction of the LGBT group is bad and it's depiction of people other than white straight men is bad, but it is what it is.

There's always a lot of handwringing and excuses for it being a different time so having an indigenous man's spirit talk like a cave man, a possible lesbian be a lesbian because she was sexually molested, and have women be generally overly emotional and easy to control (among other things like in other novels) is just something we have to forgive, just a quirk of the time, instead of being seen as a legitimate problem in the writing.

Is this the worst offender of these issues? Probably not. I'm currently reading one that's even worse, really, from a fundamental level. The problem though is that being slightly better or on the lighter end of awful for the time period isn't enough for me to forgive that form of writing. I think there's a place for making things uncomfortable for the reader, but it was lazy even then to make it uncomfortable for women by simply filling the story with violent rape of the female characters.

I can see that there's some aspects of this novel that are really good and interesting. It doesn't make up for the "problematic" nature of the novel in other ways for me.

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mauvesoul's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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dylpickles's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

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house_of_hannah's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This essentially boils down to being about a horny and deranged ghost. Due to this expect a lot of nudity, and sexual assault. I generally adore haunted house stories, but this just leaned too much into the sexual side of horror for my tastes.

The pacing feels ok for a majority of the graphic novel, but then the last 30 pages just zip through the climax. I didn't even exactly understand what happened at the end to solve the problem.

I do still want to give the novel a try, as I'd love to compare the two, but the graphic novel does not live up to what I've heard about the novel.

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ulysses_'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

My spoiler-free review:
Hellhouse has its creepy moments, but nothing more than that. The book is dark and fast-paced. Some of the characters have interesting dynamics with each other and development but not enough to look over some of the bigger sexual assault issues of the story.
I picked up this book to have a taste for the horror literature genre, and I saw that Stephen King had rated this book highly. A very relevant note to put here is that this is a horror novel book published in the 1970s. This was a time when the horror genre of both movies and literature was on the rise. While the genre has become a little more self-aware when it comes to female representation, it was very hard to overlook how the 2 female characters were represented and how they are treated throughout the book.
The male lead, Dr. Barrett, and Florence (female lead) are tied for the most POV time, and the juxtaposition of their perspectives when shit hits the fan is interesting and a good source of tension.
Edith is an interesting character, but I just don't think she is given enough development to really grow.
When the horror happens, what the female characters go through as compared to the men is just gratuitous, and there are definitely "menwritingwomen" moments that are hard to overlook.
Take notice of the content warnings before reading this book.
Extended review (With spoilers)

We will start with the good things first, but there are a lot of bad things. The science method Barrett sports with the spiritual method of Florence creates an interesting tension that is further hammered in by the fast pace of the story. There usually is a skeptic in the horror story, buts it interesting that the Barrettis out to prove the legitimacy of the paranormal as just a further extension of biology instead of believing that there is a real "afterlife."

Florence's rise and fall concerning her belief in Daniel Belasco interesting albeit maybe a little too naive, but the doubts especially when she realizes she might have made him all up make you want to keep turning pages. When she realized that one of her dreams of Daniel only consists of recited lines from her time as an actress, I was especially myself in doubt whether or not she manifested Daniel through her spiritual powers.

Unfortunately, character-wise, Edith and Fischer fall flat when compared to Florence and Barrett. Fischer, I suppose, has some excuse to not be too strong of a force because of his trauma at the house from his time before, but Edith seems to only exist to cause trouble. Her revelation near the end of the story feels completely alien since she had been otherwise simply a mechanism to cause conflict. There is something to be said that MAYBE she becomes relevant when her husband dies because her own force who don't need no man. This would be supported by Barretts own comment that being with him "repress's" her because of his own disabilities (this is his own can of worms but I can only write so much). But unfortunately, I don't think this is the case. Edith says that she struggled to be away from her husband and contemplated ending it all when he was gone for three weeks. Going from completely dependent to final girl feels forced to say the least. There could be something here, but really there's just not enough without potentially reading too much into things. Maybe Edith is supposed to be coming to terms with her potential attraction to women, but it's not a good look when it only gets mentioned when she gets possessed or when Belasco, the big ghost baddie, screams it at her. If it is supposed to be a coming out-of-the-closet reveal combined with the loss of her husband which frees her in a sense, I don't think it's handled well. The next section is my biggest issue.

<Spoiler> There's a lot of sexual violence aimed towards the women of the story. Considering that the haunting takes place in what effectively is a cannibalistic drug-fueled sex house, I was expecting some level of it but I feel Hellhouse takes it too far. Florence gets raped by a corpse, Edith is nearly raped by a ghost version of a dad. There is the frequent derogatory language associated with lesbianism. It's all terrible and takes away from the good points of the story. The worse the hauntings become, the worse the sex acts get. Edith gets possessed and tries to have sex with Fischer. Florence, who bears the brunt of it, becomes a "physical medium" for Belasco (the ghost) to channel himself through. The analogy is disturbing, to say the least. You might wonder, "Hey, what else did you expect reading a horror book that takes place in a cannibalistic drug-fueled sex house?" And my response would be, "Did Florence really have to be raped by a corpse and sodomized to make the haunting feel scarier? or "Did we really have to read that a ghost of Edith's father is chasing her while holding his large member?" For me at least, I think it went so over the line that it took away from the good parts of the story.
Overall. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

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