There is a place called Hill House built in the 1870s in New England that has caused the death of all those who have owned it and lived in it.\u00a0 A researcher in the paranormal, Dr. John Markway, has gotten permission from the present absentee owner to stay in the house and investigate its behavior.\u00a0 Markway hires two women, Theodora, a psychic and Eleanor, a neurotic woman who attracts supernatural activity, to help him detect the supernatural activity there.\u00a0 In addition, the owner has designated her nephew Luke Sanderson to be present as her representative.<\/p>\n
Eleanor is more or less the protagonist of the movie.\u00a0 She has led a tortured existence having spent eleven years as the caregiver for her invalid mother.\u00a0 Becoming involved in the paranormal research seems like her chance to escape from her dreary existence and strike out on her own.<\/p>\n
Theodora is a lesbian and she takes an immediate interest in Eleanor.\u00a0 But it\u2019s obvious that her attentions annoy Eleanor.\u00a0 Eleanor on the other hand seems attracted to Markway who unbeknownst to her is married.\u00a0 Luke is the scoffing skeptic who finds the whole idea of a haunted house laughable.<\/p>\n
During the first day nothing notable happens but during the night the two women hear very loud and frightening pounding on the walls and at one point the doorknob in the room they\u2019re in starts to turn.\u00a0 The men had been outside chasing a dog that seemed somehow to get in the house on its own and had heard nothing.\u00a0 On the second day Eleanor has several sensations caused by supernatural presences.\u00a0 She is especially overcome by a horrible smell coming from the library where, as it turns out, one of the owners had hanged herself.\u00a0 That night more noises and voices are heard.<\/p>\n
Next day, Dr. Markway\u2019s wife Grace shows up.\u00a0 Eleanor is crushed when she realizes that the man she\u2019s been interested in is married.\u00a0 Grace announces that she will sleep in the nursery, the room where the eeriest happenings were known to have been centered.\u00a0 While she is upstairs in her room the rest of the party is downstairs when the pounding starts again.\u00a0 But this time things get out of hand.\u00a0 Whatever is making the booming noise is also able to push against a thick wooden door and bow it in as if some inconceivable weight or pressure was being brought to bear.\u00a0 As soon as it ends Dr. Markway runs upstairs to find how his wife is, but she\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Eleanor runs into the library and climbs an extremely dangerous metal spiral staircase to the top of the forty-foot tall room with the intention of throwing herself down in order to become a permanent part of the ghost community.\u00a0 Markway risks his life climbing up the tottering staircase to stop her.\u00a0 Rather than go back down the stairs they open a trap door to the attic to escape their predicament.\u00a0 And at that moment Grace Markway sticks her face down the trap door from above and scares Eleanor into a fit.<\/p>\n
In the next scene Markway has decided that the whole experiment is a mistake and orders Eleanor to leave.\u00a0 He will continue to search from Grace who has somehow eluded them again.\u00a0 Eleanor begs desperately not to be sent away.\u00a0 She feels she belongs in the house.\u00a0 But Markway is adamant and he is sending Luke with her to make sure she returns home.\u00a0 But at the last second Eleanor drives away without him and heads down the long driveway.\u00a0 But some force takes control of her car and eventually she crashes the car into a tree and dies.\u00a0 The others reach her car and find her dead.\u00a0 Grace has been wandering around and happened to be right at the scene of the crash.\u00a0 The consensus is that Eleanor got her wish and will stay with the house.<\/p>\n
In the last scene we\u2019re shown a nighttime view of the house while Eleanor\u2019s voice talks about being part of the ghost community there.<\/p>\n
As far as haunted house movies go this is probably the best one until The Shining was made in 1980.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say that the film and the characters aren\u2019t extremely annoying, because they are.\u00a0 Eleanor is a thoroughly neurotic and unpleasant personality.\u00a0 The others are tolerably less annoying than Eleanor but none of them is going to win any personality contests.<\/p>\n
All that being said, the movie does have an atmosphere of foreboding about it and the sights and sounds do produce the desired effect of creepiness.\u00a0 Without a doubt the spectacle of frightened isolated women does effect a movie audience powerfully.\u00a0 If you\u2019re looking for a good haunted house movie it\u2019s this or The Shining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a place called Hill House built in the 1870s in New England that has caused the death of all those who have owned<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,237],"tags":[354,43,38,1355],"class_list":["post-12606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-horror","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\n