While laying in a pool of blood from one of his wounded Marines, Lt. Jesse Grapes, commander of 3rd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, prepares to fire into the second floor landing of the "Hell House" in the city of Fallujah, during Operation Phantom Fury on November 13, 2004.
In 1959, an American Gothic horror novel was released: "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson, which would become one of the most influential haunted house stories ever written in the 20th century.
In 1963, a British movie adaptation of the novel was released under the title "The Haunting" - a work of Robert Wise and Nelson Gidding that would become one of the classics of the black-and-white horror movies.
In 1999, another "The Haunting" movie was released - a Jan de Bont adaptation that presented itself as a remake of the 1963 movie...
... When in truth it was not. The American "The Haunting" was not based on the British movie, neither was it actually based on the original Shirley Jackson novel, despite taking lots of elements, names and details from it.
No, in truth, a careful look at the 1999 "The Haunting" reveals that this movie was actually based on/strongly influenced by a book titled "Hell House".
Published in 1971, "Hell House" is a horror novel by Richard Matheson that was heavily inspired and strongly influenced by Jackson's own novel, to the point a lot of people tend to confuse the two despite being very different in tone, style and outcome, thanks to their similar premise and characters.
The confusion also applies to the 1973 movie adaptation of Matheson's novel, "The Legend of Hell House", which people tend to mix with the 1963 "The Haunting" despite again, very different tones, styles and outcomes.
And things get even more confused when you consider that a "Haunting of Hell House" exists! A 1999 horror movie (yes, released the same year as the American "The Haunting").
But it has nothing to do with either the Haunting of Hill House...
... Or with "Hell House"...
This movie is actually inspired by a story by Henry James, "Ghostly Rental" - hence this movie's alternate name, "Henry James' The Ghost Rental". (Henry James who was also the author of "The Turn of the Screw". Remember, it will be important for later)
However, the movie clearly decided to play on the famous evocation of Jackson's novel by choosing a title that has just one letter different from the original...
And if you believe the chain stops here... There's still much more to say. Much more to see. And much more to compare.
But that will be for another post, because this one might become too big for Tumblr's liking.
rewatching supernatural and i just realised that in season one every episode had a deeper meaning. like some lesson you could learn from it besides the main plot we followed.
for example 1x14 was mainly about sams powers focusing on the abilities he has and the murder of his mum and jess. but it was also about family stability (dean being the only reason sam didn't turn out the same as max) and abuse and about the question what abuse is (max being abused by his dad and uncle but kinda also his step-mom because she never helped him even though she knew what was happening). it was about breaking the vicious circle that abuse is ('old habits die hard I guess').
or 1x17. it was about the relationship between sam and dean (the simple joy of teasing your loved ones with pranks which kinda escalated at some point). it was about letting professionals handel things (the first time the ghostfacers interrupt one of sam and deans investigations), but it was also about the power of believing in something (mordecai only existing because people believed in him), it was about the hurt a belive can cause (a girl getting killed because the myth changed).
this is not a hot take I guess most people knew this from the start, but it just occurred to me and I wanted to share.
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If you can't stop being ableist because it's mean and gross, do it because it's just bad writing.
It will pull your readers right out of the story. And they will laugh at you.
I tried to read a "Hell House" because (embarrassingly) I confused it with the horror classic "The Haunting of Hill House"... "Hell house" is a very different book. Some of it is very good. But also it's SO DATED.
When trying to show how depraved & evil the people in the house became they are like "he went looking for deviant people like dwarves to bring to the house" Not only ableist but so silly it's immersion breaking. NOT DWARVS (really?)
I ended up posting about my confusion about why so many people liked the book and found out I was reading the wrong one.
I'm a little embarrassed I apparently got these books mixed up somehow. I've returned the knock off and Hill House is great so far... it's a much more sophisticated kind of horror. And ... it's not dated.
How is it that some books don't get as badly dated as others?
I'm still cracking up about this... just imagining the author wracking his poor lil brain for the WORST, the most depraved, more horrible thing he could imagine. He gets some real horrors like being locked in a house with no windows, everyone being controlled, all very creepy.
Then he's like "what if tons of sex and some of the people are really short?"