The Haunting of Hell House 2003 Horror Movie Review

I stumbled onto this movie by accident.  I thought it was a remake of The Legend of Hell House - apparently my brain melded Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House with the Richard Matheson’s The Legend of Hell House.  After getting it home and reading the back of the box, I quickly realized that was not the case.  I went ahead and watched anyway, and I wasn’t disappointed.  It turned out to be a pretty entertaining ghost story with a bit of a gothic feel.  It kind of reminded me of some of the Hammer Horror movies I watched on TV when I was a kid.  The acting wasn’t the best out there - Michael York was a bit hammy - but it didn’t detract from the overall enjoyment of the movie.  The set pieces and look of the movie set a very nice moody tone that kept you in the period, and there were no cars passing by in the distance or actors wearing digital watches as far as I saw.  It was definitely no masterpiece by any stretch, but it did keep me from getting bored, and I never once looked at my DVD player’s readout to see how much longer it would be until the movie ended.