HELL HOUSE BY RICHARD MATHESON

Welcome to Hell House, officially known as the house of the psychotic pervert Emeric Belasco. It's a place regarded as the Mount Everest of haunted houses due to the unimaginable horror and depravity that once occurred there (blood orgies, cannibalism, cult rituals, necrophilia, beastiality, among other lovely things). A new investigation brings to the mansion four strangers who are determined to uncover the ultimate secrets of life and death. What better place to do it than Hell House?

This book reads like The Haunting of Hill House meets The Shining, (I know this was written before The Shining but King was highly inspired by Matheson so it's easy to draw parallels between the two). It follows the exact same premise of The Haunting of Hill House; four people being hired to spend some time in an infamously haunted house and getting a reward for reporting their experiences and findings. Unlike Hill House, the paranormal elements are much more literal, the violence, gore, grotesqueries and psychological influences on the main characters by the spirits within Hell House are very reminiscent to the Overbrook Hotel's impact on Jack in The Shining. It's an effective combination of gross-out horror and psychological drama.

Hell House is a very invasive and claustrophobic novel, the horror and residents of Hell House close in on you with every page. It definitely made me uncomfortable.