Hell House

Dying millionaire Rolf Rudolph Deutsch summons Dr. Lionel Barrett, a physicist specializing in parapsychology, and offers him $100,000 for a definitive answer on survival after death. Barrett, whose right leg is partially paralyzed from childhood polio, is to investigate the Belasco house in Maine, known as "Hell House," the only location where survival after death has never been disproven. Two previous investigations ended in catastrophe: eight people died, committed suicide, or went insane. The sole survivor was Benjamin Franklin Fischer, a physical medium (one who produces tangible phenomena such as materializations), who was 15 at the time. Deutsch assigns two others to accompany Barrett: Florence Tanner, a former television actress turned Spiritualist minister, and Fischer, now 45. Barrett accepts, seeing a chance to prove a theory he has developed over 20 years. He requests construction of a large machine he has blueprinted, though he keeps its purpose to himself.

The night before departure, each member prepares alone. Florence prays for strength to cleanse the house. Barrett's wife, Edith, decides she would rather face any haunted house than endure Lionel's absence; she nearly had a mental health crisis during his three-week trip to London in 1962. Fischer recalls being found naked and catatonic on the house's porch after the 1940 investigation, spending three months in a coma, and emerging aged beyond his years.

On December 21, the group arrives at the Belasco house in Maine's fog-shrouded Matawaskie Valley, a windowless stone edifice surrounded by a dark tarn, a stagnant pool. The electricity fails immediately. By candlelight they explore: a great hall with a massive round table, a theater, a kitchen, and a chapel that Florence cannot enter because psychic nausea overwhelms her. An antique phonograph in the great hall plays a record of Emeric Belasco's voice welcoming guests. Fischer reveals Belasco would play this record while spying on arriving guests from hiding.

Over dinner, Fischer recounts Belasco's history. Born in 1879 as the illegitimate son of an American munitions maker and an English actress, Belasco built the house in 1919 and corrupted his guests through escalating depravity: lavish parties gave way to drug use, sexual violence, mutilation, murder, and cannibalism. When relatives broke in during November 1929, all 27 occupants were dead. Belasco was not among them.

That evening, Florence conducts a séance. Her supposed spirit guide, "Red Cloud," describes the house as a place of "bad medicine" and speaks cryptic words: "Extremes and limits. Terminations and extremities." A hysterical voice then erupts through Florence, warning the group to leave or be killed. Later, an unseen presence visits Florence's room, and a bedspread leaps into the air, forming the shape of a standing figure before collapsing.

Events escalate rapidly. During a controlled sitting, Florence produces teleplasm, a viscous organic substance that oozes from her fingertips and forms a robed figure reaching for Edith. Florence becomes convinced that the spirit of Belasco's son, Daniel, haunts the house. A tense dinner debate spirals into a poltergeist attack after Barrett's coffee cup explodes in his hand: glasses shatter, plates fly, and the dining table slides across the floor. Barrett accuses Florence of unconsciously causing the attack with psychic energy amplified by the house and cancels all sittings.

Late that night, Florence is drawn to the wine cellar, where unseen hands clutch her throat. She fights through and receives a vision of a young man. The next morning, Fischer helps her break through the cellar wall, and they discover mummified remains behind it, apparently sealed in alive, with a gold ring inscribed "D.B." Barrett refuses to accept the discovery as proof. Fischer and Florence bury the remains outdoors, and Florence gives Fischer a medallion.

The house attacks each member with increasing ferocity. Florence is savaged by a cat she had befriended, which she believes was possessed. Barrett is trapped in the steam room by a gelatinous entity that covers his legs until Fischer batters the door open. Edith sleepwalks to the tarn at midnight, and Fischer saves her. Barrett learns Deutsch has died and his son refuses to honor the fee. Devastated, Barrett pours his energy into completing his machine, which he calls the Reversor. Florence develops her theory that Belasco himself is the hidden master of Hell House: a surviving will so powerful he controls every entity, acting as "a general with his army."

Florence conducts another sitting, during which a voice identifying itself as Daniel cries: "Him! The Giant! Him! Father, Father!" Florence is nearly killed when Belasco creates a hallucinatory dance leading her to the tarn's edge. In the chapel, a Bible reveals a birth entry for Daniel Myron Belasco. That night, "Daniel" appears and begs Florence for physical love. She eventually capitulates, but what lies on her is a decomposing corpse with living yellow eyes. Fischer breaks down her door and finds Florence brutalized and whispering the word "Filled."

On December 24, Florence alternates between her own personality and a vicious, possessed one. Barrett explains his full theory: The house is saturated with decades of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from its violent history, creating a "giant battery," and his Reversor will dissipate the accumulated energy with a countercharge. Florence attacks the Reversor with a crowbar, then assaults Fischer and Edith before Barrett sedates her. Florence, gravely weakened, dies soon after. Barrett activates the Reversor at noon and evacuates the house with Edith. When Barrett re-enters alone, his instruments reactivate. The EMR recorder explodes, driving metal into his face. An invisible force drags him through the house and hurls him into the swimming pool, where he drowns. Edith, searching for Lionel, endures a cascade of horrifying apparitions until Fischer finds her and knocks her unconscious.

Fischer and Edith place Barrett's body in the car. Fischer tells Edith what he has pieced together: Belasco created the entire haunting alone, a personality so powerful he appeared to be dozens of entities. He built the Daniel persona from Florence's memories of her dying brother David and used the manufactured intimacy to destroy her. He allowed the Reversor to weaken him because his ego demanded the satisfaction of destroying Barrett at the peak of Barrett's triumph.

Fischer returns to the house alone. He replays the séance tapes and catches Red Cloud's cryptic words. Florence's lingering presence guides him to the chapel, where clues converge: a Bible verse reading "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out," torn wallpaper behind the altar, and Florence's medallion burning and falling to point at the altar. Belasco's power drives Fischer toward the tarn, but Edith, who has followed him, pulls him out. Edith argues that Belasco allowed the Reversor to weaken him because destroying it would have validated Barrett's theory, and his ego could not permit that. Fischer seizes on "ego" as the key: "Extremities" refers to legs; the Bible verse refers to removing an offending body part.

Fischer charges into the chapel and taunts Belasco, targeting his illegitimacy and short stature. Belasco materializes as an enormous figure in black, but with each insult he shrinks until a hideous wail fills the chapel and he vanishes. Behind the altar, Fischer finds a sealed, lead-lined chamber containing Belasco's mummified corpse. Through psychometry, reading an object's history by psychic touch, Fischer learns Belasco willed himself to die of thirst as a final exercise of will. The corpse's legs are artificial: Belasco had his own legs amputated and replaced with prosthetics to gain height. The lead sheathing shielded his electromagnetic radiation from the Reversor, explaining why Barrett's machine cleared the house but could not reach Belasco himself.

Fischer and Edith leave Hell House on Christmas Eve. Fischer reflects that all four contributed: Barrett's science weakened Belasco, Florence's spirituality led to the answer, Fischer confronted Belasco directly, and Edith saved Fischer's life. As they walk into the mist, Fischer murmurs, "Merry Christmas."