The Hell House, also known as the Belasco House, is a haunted house and the main setting of the Richard Matheson's horror novel Hell House and the 1973 horror film The Legend of Hell House. It is the home and resting place of the evil occultist Emeric Belasco, and is haunted due to the heinous crimes he committed there.
Description[]
Hell House is a sprawling manor house located in rural Maine, ideally placed to avoid outside attention. It is constructed in Gothic Revival style and is meant to resemble an English manor - Belasco was American, but grew up in England. One notable modification is that every window of Hell House is boarded over. Belasco did this to ensure that people did not see the atrocities within. The house is haunted, and to most observers it appears to be infested with dozens of restless spirits. In fact, only Belasco's spirit inhabits the house. He is so powerful that he can pretend to be numerous spirits acting in unison.
History[]
Emeric Belasco constructed the house in 1919. He used it both as a home and as a setting for depraved parties and rituals. As the 1920's progressed, the parties grew more and more disturbing and violent, eventually involving acts such as drug abuse, rape, murder, and cannibalism. From 1928 onward, maintenance of the house failed as the "guests" became permanent residents and descended into madness. In November 1929, relatives of those inside broke into the house and found the remains of 27 people, killed either by each other or by exposure and disease. Belasco's body was never found, since he had sealed himself into a small lead-lined room in order to become a ghost.
The Hell House as seen in The Legend of Hell House.
In 1931 and 1940, efforts were made to explore Hell House and determine the nature of the haunting there. Between these two explorations, Belasco's spirit killed eight people and drove more to madness, leaving only a single functional survivor of the 1940 exploration. In 1970, the property was purchased by aging billionaire Rudolph Deutsch, who wished to have it explored in order to determine the nature of a potential afterlife. He sent a team of several paranormal investigators, including the sole survivor of the 1940 exploration. They were to stay at the house for a week and determine the nature of the haunting in exchange for a reward of $500,000. Deutsch died while his team was exploring Hell House, and the deed passed to Deutsch's son, who did not intend to pay the team. However, the team still had to get out of the house on their own. Belasco killed two team members, but the team ultimately managed to exorcise him from the home, ending the haunting. The property presumably remained in the hands of Deutsch's son after the haunting ended. It is unknown what he did with it.