Victorian science and spiritualism in The Legend of Hell House

This article explores how The Legend of Hell House (1973), the cinematic adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel Hell House ([1971] 1999), updates debates and struggles between scientists and spiritualists in the Victorian period, reworking many key themes and even individual personages. It shows that the film exposes the links between understandings of the scientific and the supernatural that underlie their superficial opposition. It also discusses how The Legend of Hell House self-reflexively comments upon the ‘supernaturalization’ of modern media technology and especially the ‘supernatural’ characteristics ascribed to cinema in its first years.