Today we start with a review and end with a Shia Labeouf. First, the review.
Hell House is a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while. The fact that it took me this long is a bit of an embarrassment. But hey, better late than never right? The synopsis:
Rolf Rudolph Deutsch is going die. But when Deutsch, a wealthy magazine and newpaper publisher, starts thinking seriously about his impending death, he offers to pay a physicist and two mediums, one physical and one mental, $100,000 each to establish the facts of life after death.
Dr. Lionel Barrett, the physicist, accompanied by the mediums, travel to the Belasco House in Maine, which has been abandoned and sealed since 1949 after a decade of drug addiction, alcoholism, and debauchery. Barrett and his colleagues investigate the Belasco House and learn exactly why the townfolks refer to it as the Hell House.
I’ll admit, this book is a slow burn, especially at first. Hell House is often compared to The Haunting of Hill House. That book is one of the best I’ve read; Hell House did nothing to supplant it, and honestly, I wasn’t even sure I’d get through it at first. But I stuck with it, and I was glad I did.
I don’t have a lot more to say about it than that. You should read it. It’s a classic. But you probably know what to expect.
4 Stars
And now, Shia LaBeouf, terrifying and hilarious, all at once. (quiet, quiet)
Beware The Shadows 