What the Hell House: Matheson's Hell House Review

Ghost stories tend to be difficult to right. Those bumps in the night might be closer than imagined with Matheson’s Hell House. They just might inside one’s own nose. Old homes usually have secrets, and this home is more like Thelema Abbey. Perhaps Matheson used the abbey as inspiration. How wouldn’t?

What struck me in the novel was the subtle yet not so subtle way Matheson breaks most if not all assumptions of the ghost story. I certainly didn’t know what to expect. A good number of writers tend to be formulaic in their works, but in comparison to I am Legend, there’s little to compare. If there is a formula, it has yet to be seen. Though, comparing only two works is limiting and does Matheson no justice.

Hell House certainly took me for a spin. Matheson uses a cliché as a trap and it isn’t easy to escape. The beginning pages seemed like something a high school student would think up, but in one strike, Matheson rips the cliché apart with the sitting scene. Which is where things really get going.

I found Florence to interesting, if maybe a bit atypical. She’s impulsive, naïve to a degree, and perhaps her greatest flaw is her optimism. She puts herself in danger for something that may not be resolved and things that have the potential to destroy her. After the body was disturbed, the possibility of her meeting her end increased. As a lover of ghost stories and ghost shows, a full-on apparition is nothing to trifle with, even if the intentions are pure. The best intentions invite the worst trouble.

Florence doesn’t seem to fit in a supernatural novel like Hell House. She is too well rounded and her drive to find and resolve the source of the haunting almost upsets the ghost story. The little ray of sunshine she is, turns her into the biggest target for a haunting. Like I said before, the best intentions bring the worst trouble. Some things shouldn’t be disturbed. Better yet, they should be forgotten and left to rot away.

What I found intriguing was Fischer. The entire time I was reading this, especially in the beginning, it seemed like he knew how to end the haunting, but he just stood in the background. To a reader, this could be viewed as deception on the authors part. But not necessarily. I view him as more of an anti-hero. Or I should say a hero in name only. He never struck me as someone who acts for the benefit of someone else. It may be more accurate to see him as the hero after the he realizes that happily ever after is bullshit. He’s broken, but something is holding him together somehow.

I could not help but think of classical Gothic tales and the Scooby Doo cartoon, where the hauntings were just a greedy villain in a white sheet and chains. There was little in the way of actual supernatural elements in the novel in such cases. However, in Hell House, the supernatural oozes from orifices. The image of Florence strapped down while some god-awful apparition doesn’t sit right with me and for damned good reason. Going back to her character for a moment, she opens herself to the darkness to shed light into it. It may be skepticism, but that seldom works out well. Sometimes God can be indifferent to human error.

I loved the clarity in which Matheson writes. The descriptions are, dare I say it, haunting. His use of simple sentence structures and uses character dialogue to develop character a fair 75% of the time or more gives this novel gives it a slow-burn when needed and high octane moments that not only spike the horror aspects, but they reveal something, which is the goal of the horror genre in some respects. His description is concise and cuts deep. No frills, just chills.