22 - The Legend of Hell House

The Legend of Hell House is a 1973 supernatural horror film directed by John Hough, and starring Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill, and Gayle Hunnicutt. 

It follows a group of researchers who spend a week in Belasco House, the "Mount Everest of haunted houses." , originally owned by Emeric Belasco, an imposing, perverted millionaire and supposed murderer whose acts of debauchery were loosely based on the occultist Aleister Crowley. Belasco disappeared soon after a massacre occurred at the home and since the house is haunted by the victims of his twisted and sadistic desires. Subsequently, paranormal investigators to the house have been inexplicably killed. 

Matheson's screenplay, based upon his 1971 novel Hell House, drastically reduced some of the more extreme elements of the novel, particularly its graphic sexuality and BDSM. It also changed the location of the events to England, whereas the novel took place at an estate in rural Maine in the United States.

The external shots of the house were filmed at Wykehurst Park, West Sussex.

The mansion in the opening sequence is Blenheim Palace. The interior shot of the long room is the palace's library.

The role of Belasco was played by an uncredited Batman’s Michael Gough. His part consisted of a couple of recorded lines and an on-camera appearance as an embalmed corpse seated upright in a chair.

The film features a score with an electronic music bassline (with occasional woodwind and brass stabs). The score and electronic sound effects were created by Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson, recorded at Hodgson's Electrophon studio in London.

The shot of the cat in the opening credits sequence was later used for the Granada Night Time ident on the ITV network in the United Kingdom in 1988.

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