It was written well. The premise was fine. The pacing was fine. It wasn’t scary. It really was just like a man read the haunting of hill house and got pissed off that it was a sapphic tale of love and repression and decided he was gonna rewrite it with sex and drugs and shock. But even the most shocking thing wasn’t shocking. Nothing was nearly as scary as the hand holding in the dark in hill house. Nothing was nearly as shocking as the unseen terror of Theodora in the woods. It just…didn’t hit…and all the sexual assault and punishing of women for existing and therefor being inherently sexual and asking for it…gave off bad vibes but not in the way a horror novel should.

So this is what happens when The Haunting of Hill House is rewritten by a man who thinks he's edgy. I respect Matheson's contributions to the genre, but I can only assume this played better in 1971.

The women are barely people, hysterics at constant threat of (and victim of) sexual violence. Their bodies (particularly the more buxom of the two) are described in graphic detail. The men are reticent and upstanding and with the sole exception of the one character's post-polio disability being a factor, the men's bodies are essentially not described. The backstory is just a mashup of the most morally abhorrent things a straight man in 1970 could think of, which of course means that much of it isn't even particularly shocking (oh no! Sex parties and lesbians!).

And then at the end it turns out the Big Bad became so because he was... insecure? Because he was short and born illegitimate? I guess, while I'm sitting here in the US in 2025 watching two men burn the country to the ground because people made fun of them on the internet, it shouldn't make me scoff, but it does anyway.

I was not a fan of this book. I didn't care for the characters, the plot was weak, and the only interesting moment was when stuff started flying around the dining room. I truly didn't care who lived or died and the ending wasn't satisfying. 

70s sexual objectification lol

The scariest thing about this book was when my sky light window decided to smash as I was reading it and I dismissed as it being my overactive imagination deciding to spice up this boring book, while I was in a dark house by myself. Yeah, it was the only inside panel so spooky.

This book is from 1970 and apparently being lesbian was the scariest thing possible. Or this was written by a man who wants to fetish woman so it's just someone being sexually oppressed. This book is compared to Shirley Jackson beautiful novel, however, they not that similar except both have a group of four people investigating ghosts. Also, lesbians. One makes me want to dig up a body, just to disrespect it, in the way the author disrespects women. This novel falls into "Men should be banned from writing horror" camp. I found the writing of the women very annoying especially as the men were not sexually haunted. 

Disability is treated interestingly here and interesting, I mean it's definitely has ableism. A slur even and disrespectful to intersex people. 

Surprise, we have a disabled villain reveal at the end that rises several questions for anyone who knows anything about the dangers of amputation in 1800s.  

We have a disabled main character, but he also a constant sceptic in an haunted house so definitely mocked by the narrative. I don't think he disabled in the film adaption but I'm gonna have to re-watch that because I rated it very high and I'm curious to remind myself why. Possible because all the sex stuff is not there, but definitely had questionable things on disability too. 

The sexual nature of this book has aged it terribly. Frankly, now it would be comical for some of the tad bits.

Like Jesus's giant penis.

. Yes, Americans are still weird about sex but gay people exist in normality now and thanks to the internet, I treat kink in horror like an annoying jump scare. I think it would be funny to adapt it now, with modern people. Maybe that's just Scary Movie 2. 

The haunting is meant to be personal but I get the women confused and had to go back to figure out who was being sexually violated this time. 

The ending is too convoluted. Frankly, you can only do a fake out once, where this book does three times and expects me to respect it. 

The setting of Christmas is incredibly random and it's never justified, or brought up until the last line of the novel. Why start this thing five days before Christmas? I mean in real life, stuff happens whenever but story tend to have reasons for being set at Christmas. 

Anyway, Maine continues to be the most cursed place in Horror. Its funny seeing it appear pre-Stephen King who has a thing against his home state. I will probably read "I am legend" but probably done on the novel front for Matheson.

This audiobook is one of the best horror books I've come across. It gives enough vivid descriptions to know what is happening at any given time, the characters backstories are fleshed out, but not overly so, and the plot is a lot of fun. Don't read if you're squeamish with descriptions of sexuality or gore.

I read this cause I was really into the movie, Legend of Hell House, and in this case, the movie is better than the book.  The book was a very quick read, I finished it in one sitting, not because the story was super compelling, the writing was just kinda easy to read. It is misogynist, homophobic, perverted, and worse of all, boring.