Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

La casa infernal by Richard Matheson

13 reviews

humnak's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

My first read from richard matheson. 

Lets get the characters straight first cuz the names were so confusing! 

Deaustch- the rich guy who wants the investigation to be done at hell house for life after death, which he refers to as “survival”. Also the current owner of hell house.

Florence tanner- a medium/spiritualist. Florence was definitely one of my favourite out of the bunch.. 

Benjamin franklin fischer- a guy who survived the hell house in 1940, 30 years ago when he was 15, also a medium. And he seems to be the most aware of how the hell house works and how it manipulates the residents. I loved the scene where he got a wake up call and realised he was THE most powerful physical medium and was missing the opportunity to take hell house head on. Wow that complete monologue was intense. 

Spoiler (.  Plus towards the end he was practically the main character) 

Dr. Lionel Barret- a physicist with an interest in parapsychology. And Edith, his wife. I personally didn’t like Edith and Dr. Barrett much cuz Dr. Barrett refused to believe in the supernatural despite the fact that the worst of it was right in his face. 

But that ending changed most of my presumptions.

And as the story progresses the happenings and incidents keep getting more and more frequent and dangerous. And I pretty much loved the final act- the gruesomeness and intensity of the incidents- except for how the said malevolent powerful entity was dealt with. 

One major turn off about the whole book was the amount of sex scenes in it. Pretty unnecessary and although I am new to horror books but having watched so many horror movies I sort of know that the older horror movies/books have so damn much sexual scenes.. sometimes it gets more disturbing than the actual horror story. As I had to skip through the said scenes, it took me out of the story. Which I didn’t like. This could have done without those scenes. 

SPOILERS

.

.

.

.

I felt so bad for Barret at the end. The knowledge of his failure plaguing him to death. Sucks. He was right after all. 

As I read somewhere- and it couldnt be better explained than this- “Armed with this insight, Burnout guy goads Belasco’s spirit out of hiding, then mercilessly taunts and shames him into oblivion.” 

The reason why it felt so anticlimactic. 

Recently I am writing the word “anticlimactic” more and more in my reviews cuz all these horror books are so so good right until the end. It’s like the author almost convinced you that its a masterpiece but then completely missed the ending. 

It was good and enjoyable nonetheless so 3 out of 5 stars! 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence

wyatwrig's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Gore, Incest, Body horror, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual harassment

ohdamnjan's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Suicide, Sexual harassment, and Gore

Moderate: Death, Murder, Lesbophobia, Body horror, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Torture

Minor: Cannibalism

malthe's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It’s good. Only gripes I would say is that Barret is pretentious af to me, and the book was very slow (I think that’s how haunted house books are written, but idk). I liked the book! And they did my girl Florence so dirty in this 😭

Merry Christmas

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Blood, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Sexual violence, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Alcohol and Slavery

elysianbud's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

More gross than it is scary, but with enough creepy moments to keep reading. The ending felt rushed. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Confinement, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Rape, Death, Gore, Grief, Suicide attempt, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Alcoholism, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Terminal illness, Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, Incest, Grief, Pedophilia, and Animal death

brookey8888's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

3.25

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. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Drug use, Grief, Body horror, Cannibalism, Gore, Animal death, Self harm, Sexual violence, Death, Rape, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Infidelity, Blood, Cursing, Drug abuse, Incest, Sexual assault, Lesbophobia, Murder, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Violence

the_books_music_life's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

1.25

If you are thinking about reading this you really need to look into the content warnings and read some reviews. I would honestly say don't bother.

I picked this up on a whim because the synopsis sounded intriguing and like something I might enjoy.

I didn't. I really didn't.

I have a lot of issues with this book and not a lot of good things to say. I'm not even really sure why I didn't DNF it to be completely honest.

This book was a ride to say the least and not a good smooth ride, more like a bumpy, traffic filled ride from hell. 

Hell House is very scientific, almost to the point of annoyance and over explaining. The book is told through four different points of view but it never differentiated between whose point of view you were reading, and so when it would switch suddenly you were left confused. All of the characters are unreliable and you never really know what's going on.

There were certain scene I read and was just dumbfounded by. This book would go from being very scientific and to raunchy in the worst way possible.

The pacing was incredibly slow and fast at the same time. It felt like it dragged on and could honestly have been cut in half in my opinion. Then, other times if would feel like it everything was happening too fast and you were left 5 chapters behind.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Sexual harassment, Body horror, Gore, Self harm, Misogyny, Suicide, Death, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Cursing, Animal death, Violence, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, and Blood

Moderate: Child abuse, Rape, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Cannibalism

esslesmcgee's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-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

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, and Suicide

Moderate: Chronic illness, Sexual harassment, and Blood

childofmongreldogs's review against another edition

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.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Colonisation, Incest, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicide, Body horror, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Murder, Rape, Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Biphobia, Lesbophobia, Sexism, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Animal death, Blood, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Cannibalism, Incest, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Infidelity, Sexual content, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Colonisation, Drug abuse, and Murder

mauvesoul's review against another edition

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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Death, Grief, Gaslighting, Gore, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Vomit