Reviews with content warning for Violence - Hell House

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

ruthypoo2's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This story is a classic haunted house investigation story, but with some of the most malignant entities imaginable. The set up is engaging with a wealthy old man, Rolf Rudolph Deutsch, assembling from his death bed a small team to investigate paranormal activity at The Belasco House, also known as Hell House due to its reported haunting events. The team consists of highly regarded parapsychologist, Dr. Lionel Barrett, his wife, Edith, spiritualist medium Florence Tanner, and sensitive medium Franklin Fischer, who himself has a history of surviving time spent at the Belasco House decades earlier when he was a young teen. Deutsch pays the team to either prove or disapprove the existence of spirits at the house within the timeframe of a week, taking place immediately prior to the Christmas holiday in 1970.

The action is constant and unrelenting as the group moves into the house, begins exploring the property, discussing the history of the house and outcomes of past investigations, attempting to communicate with spirits, and rationalizing the odd occurrences that start the moment they all enter the house. It's really the perfect collection of personalities for haunted house exploration: Dr. Barrett the skeptic and his wife Edith along for the ride; fully invested and spiritually open Florence; and Franklin, who warns and knows what to expect better than any of them because of his past experience being physically and mentally assaulted by the environment of Belasco House.

Although the story feels like it drags a little at times, there's actually something always happening. So many times, I was just telepathically yelling at the characters to, "GET OUT NOW!" But as you find with classic haunted house tropes, there will always be some reason why the characters can't or won't leave and rational decision-making capabilities are nowhere to be found. It was especially a treat and made that much more harrowing because this story is set in the seventies, well before cell phones and thus making it feel like the team is hopelessly alone in their quest to discover a genuine haunting and survive the quest. It's a good story and may be kind of hard to read alone.

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_terah_hansen_'s review against another edition

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dark 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? Yes

2.5

I have read many books with disturbing themes and plenty of gore and even those things can't compare to how disgusted I felt when reading the last 100 pages of this book. And not the good kind of disgust that makes a horror book great. I have never read a book that made me gag so much. Just ew.

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stduke's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

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.

Content Warnings

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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kantestadros's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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zeynothekivircik's review against another edition

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challenging dark 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

1.5

It's not horror, there is nothing scary in it. The bigotry is scarier than the actual horror elements. Quite unreadable by 2022 standards but might have been decent back when it was first released. (Also what is the obsession with nipples???) The ending is very, and I mean very unsatisfactory. Once again adding that this book is more focused on fetishising and stereotyping its characters than the horror itself. Avoid this if SA topics, homophobia, misogyny and excessive mention of genitalia is triggering to you.

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