Shaun of the Dead (2004) creators Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg were obviously influenced by The Legend of Hell House for their contribution to the fake trailers that were sandwiched in the middle of Tarantino and Rodriquez' Grindhouse features. For their faux trailer to Don't!, we see three people approach a gate to a fog-enshrouded mansion – one of the characters even sports the same droopy '70's glasses that Roddy McDowall wore in The Legend of Hell House.

The Legend of Hell House was one of the first horror films ever made to feature sex with an invisible ghost. A few years later The Entity (1981) would revisit this disturbing concept with even more harrowing results involving a rapist poltergeist.

James H. Nicholson was the prolific producer who helped found American International Pictures and this was the only film presented by Nicholson for his newly formed Academy Pictures. It is also Nicholson's last credited film (as executive producer) before he died of a brain tumor in 1973. Nicholson was also a (uncredited) producer on director John Hough's follow-up to The Legend of Hell House: Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974).

In-between the ghostly attacks of Hell House, here are some of the offerings you would find on its bookshelves to help you kill the time: Obsessive Acts and Religious Practices (Sigmund Freud), The Worship of Priapus (Richard Payne Knight), The Psychology of Sex (H.H. Elliot), Sin and Sex, Conation Volition, Sex and Celibacy (T. Long), The Anatomy of Abuses (Philip Stubbs), and Phallic Worship and Autoerotic Phenomena in Adolescence (K. Menzies). Aside from Freud, Knight, and Stubbs, you might have a hard time finding the other authors at your local bookstore.

Musical appropriations of dialogue from The Legend of Hell House have been sampled by avant-industrial Skinny Puppy, techno superstars Orbital, and the English Black-Metal band Anaal Nathrakh.

The art used for the DVD of The Legend of Hell House contains spoilers; one is a shot of Gayle Hunnicutt's character lying dead on the ground, right next to the letter she scrawled out with her own blood to tip everyone off as to who is behind all the ghostly happenings.

Two oft-cited influences on The Legend of Hell House are Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House (Robert Wise directed the first film version) and the psychological ghosts in Henry James's 1898 book The Turn of the Screw.

Goof: Belasco's body holds a glass of un-evaporated wine in its left hand – this despite being dead over 20 years.

by Pablo Kjolseth

SOURCES:
The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film by Michael Weldon, Ballantine Books
Wikipedia
The Legend of Hell House (1973) – go in, or don't! by Mark A. Hodgson, Black Hole DVD Reviews
IMDB
The Legend of Hell House by Richard Scheib, Moria – The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review