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A review by humnak
Hell House by Richard Matheson
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.
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
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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!
Graphic: Sexual content, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence