10 Best Ghost Story Movies

From the title alone, it's clear that this 1973 production owes a great deal to The Haunting and its source novel, The Haunting of Hill House. Even so, it's a great haunted house film in its own right, with an agreeably creepy atmosphere all of its own.

Adapted by legendary horror/science fiction writer Richard Matheson from his 1971 novel Hell House, the film centres on a group of individuals hired by an dying millionaire to provide conclusive proof of life beyond death. To this end, the four are sent to Belasco House, former home of a deranged hedonist which is thought to be haunted by the spirits of those killed in a massacre many years earlier.

So far, so familiar, but The Legend of Hell House takes things to a far more lurid place where not so much is left to mere suggestion. Most prominently, the spirits present in the house have a strongly sexual power, although - despite the film arriving in the more permissive 1970s - this aspect of the novel was toned down somewhat for the screen.

Directed by John Hough (Twins of Evil, The Watcher in the Woods), The Legend of Hell House boasts some strong performances, notably from Roddy McDowall as a troubled medium. Plus it has a wonderful location in West Sussex's Wykehurst Place, also used in such 1970s horror films as Demons of the Mind and All The Colours Of The Dark.