A dying rich man pays four people to go to investigate a haunted house.
"It's the Mount Everest of haunted houses, you might say. There were two attempts to investigate it, one in 1931, the other in 1940. Both were disasters. Eight people involved in those attempts were killed, committed suicide, or went insane. Only one survived, and I have no idea how sound he is."
The one survivor, the young psychic Fischer, is one of the four. The others are Florence, a medium who believes in ghosts, Barrett, a psychic investigator who believes that there are no ghosts and all psychic phenomena are caused by human psychic energy, and Barrett's wife Edith, who has severe anxiety and comes along because Hell House scares her less than being alone for the weekend. The characters were a lot more interesting and sympathetic than I expected, given that they're dealing with sixteen quadrillion different supernatural manifestations around the clock.
Richard Matheson is best known for rather restrained, deadpan scary stories. Apparently that just pent up his desire to really cut loose. I feel a bit odd calling a book with this much rape "charming," but it's so enthusiastically batshit that I picture him hurling the metaphoric kitchen sink at his characters every thirty seconds, with great glee, and this charmed me. This is not a book which lacks for incident.
Here is a list of all psychic phenomena which have occurred at Hell House:
Apparitions; Apports; Asports; Automatic drawing; Automatic painting; Automatic speaking; Automatic writing; Autoscopy; Bilocation; Biological phenomena; Book tests; Breezes; Catalepsy; Chemical phenomena; Chemicographs; Clairaudience; Clairsentience; Clairvoyance; Communication; Control; Crystal gazing; Dematerialization; Direct drawing; Direct painting; Direct voice; Direct writing; Divination; Dreams; Dream communications; Dream prophecies; Ectoplasm; Eidolons; Electrical phenomena; Elongation; Emanations; Exteriorization of motricity; Exteriorization of sensation; Extras; Extratemporal perception; Eyeless sight; Facsimile writing; Flower clairsentience; Ghosts; Glossolalia; Hyperamnesia; Hyperesthesia; Ideomorphs; Ideoplasm; Impersonation; Imprints; Independent voice; Interpenetration of matter; Knot tying; Levitation; Luminous phenomena; Magnetic phenomena; Materialization; Matter through matter; Metagraphology; Monition; Motor automatism; Newspaper tests; Obsession; Paraffin molds; Parakinesis; Paramnesia; Paresthesia; Percussion; Pantasmata; Poltergeist; Psychic rods; Psychic sounds; Psychic touches; Psychic phenomena; Psychokinesis; Psychometry; Radiesthesia; Radiographs; Raps; Retrocognition; Scriptograph; Sensory automatism; Skin writing; Skotography; Slate writing; Smells; Somnambulism; Stigmata; Telekinesis; Teleplasm; Telescopic vision; Telesthesia; Transfiguration; Transportation
There needs to be a bingo card for these, where you need feature one of these phenomena in a story ala hurt/comfort bingo. It would be good for Halloween. Also educational, since I don't know what half of these are and even Matheson couldn't jam them all in. I still don't know what flower clairsentience is and regret that I don't think it appears in the book. Such a tragic oversight. If you put flower clairsentience on the wall in Act I, someone needs to telepathically commune with a rosebush by Act III.
Early on, they get the history of Hell House's original owner, the subtly named Belasco, who had a perma-orgy going on which ended when the servants all fled and no one did the laundry. I am totally serious. The ultimate downfall of Satanic orgy cultists is the same as with any commune: no one wants to do the dishes.
This book is trashy fun if you're in the mood for one bazillion psychic phenomena, ghosts vs psychic energy arguments, tragic damaged psychics, and the hot medium getting felt up by everyone from repressed lesbian Edith strip-searching her before a seance to ensure that there's no cheating to ghosts to floating severed hands. It was too gonzo to be truly scary for me, though it did have some good scary moments, but it was a lot of fun.
There are a pair of shocking reveals at the end, both of which fell completely flat for me, one because it depends on what I suspect was a topic of great interest at the time of writing which is just not a thing at all anymore, and one because it's completely ludicrous.
I wish to record these liveblog emails I sent to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scioscribe for posterity:
"Edith is getting felt up by the floating severed hand of her husband!!!
The sequence with Edith getting attacked repeatedly by everything from her rapist dad to a leopard, with Lionel Barrett appearing in between to assure her that this time it was really him, onstage in front an of audience of naked ghosts, really feels like an actual nightmare you might have.
So how about poor Florence getting raped when a lifesize statue of crucified Jesus with an erection fell on her vagina?
Fisher: "I wonder if Belasco's power is electromagnetic radiation?"
Me: "Can we get back to floating severed hands feeling people up?"
Edith rescued Fisher, yay! I knew she was being underestimated the entire time.
Still no psychic flowers."
The reveal that fell totally flat was that the only thing haunting the house was Belasco!!!! That was so obvious that I thought it was too obvious to be true. I guess there was a big debate in psychic circles at the time over how many manifestations one ghost could produce? Since I had no preconceived notions about that, I felt like Belasco alone was the obvious answer.
As for the ridiculous reveal...
He stood up with a leg in his hand. "He so despised his shortness that he had his legs removed and replaced with artificial legs to give him more height."
LOLOLOLOLOL.
scioscribe wrote an excellent, very dark coda to the book: Until We Meet Again.
I listened to this on audio, with narration by Ray Porter. Audio version recommended if you plan to listen in your car, or live in an isolated area, or don't care if anyone hears a great booming voice coming from your home, saying, "Let his God cock sink into my mouth," she said. "Let me drink his holy, burning jism."
Hell House
"It's the Mount Everest of haunted houses, you might say. There were two attempts to investigate it, one in 1931, the other in 1940. Both were disasters. Eight people involved in those attempts were killed, committed suicide, or went insane. Only one survived, and I have no idea how sound he is."
The one survivor, the young psychic Fischer, is one of the four. The others are Florence, a medium who believes in ghosts, Barrett, a psychic investigator who believes that there are no ghosts and all psychic phenomena are caused by human psychic energy, and Barrett's wife Edith, who has severe anxiety and comes along because Hell House scares her less than being alone for the weekend. The characters were a lot more interesting and sympathetic than I expected, given that they're dealing with sixteen quadrillion different supernatural manifestations around the clock.
Richard Matheson is best known for rather restrained, deadpan scary stories. Apparently that just pent up his desire to really cut loose. I feel a bit odd calling a book with this much rape "charming," but it's so enthusiastically batshit that I picture him hurling the metaphoric kitchen sink at his characters every thirty seconds, with great glee, and this charmed me. This is not a book which lacks for incident.
Here is a list of all psychic phenomena which have occurred at Hell House:
Apparitions; Apports; Asports; Automatic drawing; Automatic painting; Automatic speaking; Automatic writing; Autoscopy; Bilocation; Biological phenomena; Book tests; Breezes; Catalepsy; Chemical phenomena; Chemicographs; Clairaudience; Clairsentience; Clairvoyance; Communication; Control; Crystal gazing; Dematerialization; Direct drawing; Direct painting; Direct voice; Direct writing; Divination; Dreams; Dream communications; Dream prophecies; Ectoplasm; Eidolons; Electrical phenomena; Elongation; Emanations; Exteriorization of motricity; Exteriorization of sensation; Extras; Extratemporal perception; Eyeless sight; Facsimile writing; Flower clairsentience; Ghosts; Glossolalia; Hyperamnesia; Hyperesthesia; Ideomorphs; Ideoplasm; Impersonation; Imprints; Independent voice; Interpenetration of matter; Knot tying; Levitation; Luminous phenomena; Magnetic phenomena; Materialization; Matter through matter; Metagraphology; Monition; Motor automatism; Newspaper tests; Obsession; Paraffin molds; Parakinesis; Paramnesia; Paresthesia; Percussion; Pantasmata; Poltergeist; Psychic rods; Psychic sounds; Psychic touches; Psychic phenomena; Psychokinesis; Psychometry; Radiesthesia; Radiographs; Raps; Retrocognition; Scriptograph; Sensory automatism; Skin writing; Skotography; Slate writing; Smells; Somnambulism; Stigmata; Telekinesis; Teleplasm; Telescopic vision; Telesthesia; Transfiguration; Transportation
There needs to be a bingo card for these, where you need feature one of these phenomena in a story ala hurt/comfort bingo. It would be good for Halloween. Also educational, since I don't know what half of these are and even Matheson couldn't jam them all in. I still don't know what flower clairsentience is and regret that I don't think it appears in the book. Such a tragic oversight. If you put flower clairsentience on the wall in Act I, someone needs to telepathically commune with a rosebush by Act III.
Early on, they get the history of Hell House's original owner, the subtly named Belasco, who had a perma-orgy going on which ended when the servants all fled and no one did the laundry. I am totally serious. The ultimate downfall of Satanic orgy cultists is the same as with any commune: no one wants to do the dishes.
This book is trashy fun if you're in the mood for one bazillion psychic phenomena, ghosts vs psychic energy arguments, tragic damaged psychics, and the hot medium getting felt up by everyone from repressed lesbian Edith strip-searching her before a seance to ensure that there's no cheating to ghosts to floating severed hands. It was too gonzo to be truly scary for me, though it did have some good scary moments, but it was a lot of fun.
There are a pair of shocking reveals at the end, both of which fell completely flat for me, one because it depends on what I suspect was a topic of great interest at the time of writing which is just not a thing at all anymore, and one because it's completely ludicrous.
I wish to record these liveblog emails I sent to
scioscribe for posterity:"Edith is getting felt up by the floating severed hand of her husband!!!
The sequence with Edith getting attacked repeatedly by everything from her rapist dad to a leopard, with Lionel Barrett appearing in between to assure her that this time it was really him, onstage in front an of audience of naked ghosts, really feels like an actual nightmare you might have.
So how about poor Florence getting raped when a lifesize statue of crucified Jesus with an erection fell on her vagina?
Fisher: "I wonder if Belasco's power is electromagnetic radiation?"
Me: "Can we get back to floating severed hands feeling people up?"
Edith rescued Fisher, yay! I knew she was being underestimated the entire time.
Still no psychic flowers."
The reveal that fell totally flat was that the only thing haunting the house was Belasco!!!! That was so obvious that I thought it was too obvious to be true. I guess there was a big debate in psychic circles at the time over how many manifestations one ghost could produce? Since I had no preconceived notions about that, I felt like Belasco alone was the obvious answer.
As for the ridiculous reveal...
He stood up with a leg in his hand. "He so despised his shortness that he had his legs removed and replaced with artificial legs to give him more height."
LOLOLOLOLOL.
scioscribe wrote an excellent, very dark coda to the book: Until We Meet Again.I listened to this on audio, with narration by Ray Porter. Audio version recommended if you plan to listen in your car, or live in an isolated area, or don't care if anyone hears a great booming voice coming from your home, saying, "Let his God cock sink into my mouth," she said. "Let me drink his holy, burning jism."
Hell House
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no subject
OTOH, since I had no investment in that argument, the end of the third act fell flat for me too. I absolutely did not care whether Belasco was working in concert, or was a puppeteer of other ghosts, or whether it was all just him. And it does seem like Matheson really did expect me to care? It makes up so much of the final ~suspense!
Fischer was my absolute favorite. Middle-aged guy traumatized by past experiences and hiding it badly, give it to meee.
So did you read this because of the Yuletide request and/or because scioscribe was rereading it for the Yuletide request? When you first mentioned reading it I was like wow, what a weird coincidence, but it seems like maybe we were all just inspired by the same thing, because I too put it at the top of my to-read pile with the intention of treating. 😂
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Florence was my favorite.
You and I read it at the same time by sheer coincidence. Once I started, I emailed
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It really is SO GONZO, and its lurid excesses wound up being such fun. (Much like that book I read with the immortal line, "Damn the roaches! My kids are on that boat!" Only way better written.)
I'm also very glad you coined Chekhov's flower clairsentience.
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"Damn the roaches! My kids are on that boat!"
I really want Hell House bingo for next Halloween.
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I really want Hell House bingo for next Halloween.
I totally think we could make this happen.
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Re: "Damn the roaches! My kids are on that boat!"
https://www.amazon.com/Hell-House-Richard-Matheson-audiobook/dp/B0019HXP7S
Yes, let's make it happen!
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+3.
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Also I remember someone described as having "burning kidneys" when they needed to pee, which just makes it sound like they have an infection.
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I interpret Edith as actually being a very repressed lesbian.
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The film is less rapey but just about as kitchen sink and I love it. That is an unironic recommendation except for the ending, which may be impossible to enjoy without irony, but still.
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You're welcome! I'm so glad!
I really loved Fischer and Florence in the movie - even more than in the book - and feel surprisingly fannish about them. I will be requesting them in the soonest relevant fic exchange. Maybe I can make it a fandom!
I would adore that. In the meantime, if you like the fiction of Gemma Files, Carra Devize in We Will All Go Down Together (2014) has strong elements of a genderswapped, specifically film Fischer.
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Set of haunting manifestations for a future ficathon
*memorizes list*
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That's so cool!
What did you use for the soundtrack?
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I wish I knew! Unfortunately, the person who DM'd the game is the one person from the game who I am not in contact with. I don't know if they used parts of the soundtrack from the film, or what, but it was very important in setting up the atmosphere. It also helps that the entire game group were improv actors - it was remarkably how close we ended up to the plot.
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If it was the film soundtrack, there's not much of it (and I don't think it's ever been officially released), but it was by Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and it's great.
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The haunted house genre has always fallen flat with me, because of the persistent, distracting, perennial question: "Why has this place not been demolished, the ground salted, and exorcism rites of as many religions as necessary performed until everything is quiet?"
This is how every haunted house I know of personally has been dealt with. The resale value of the land has usually been too great for the indulgence of anti-social psychic phenomena, and no ghost has ever successfully stood up to a Chinese developer with a top-notch feng shui team....
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