Though I enjoyed reading Hell House, I found the story to be predictable, the characters uninteresting, and the antagonist familiar. Perhaps this is because, since the publishing of Hell House in 1971, other stories and movies have hit the genre that are similar in plot and characters. Ghost hunters and scientists trying to discover the truth of life-after-death are commonplace in the genre of ghost stories. Look at the slew of found footage movies. Many of them use these same investigators as the focus of their narratives. Even The Haunting of Hill House used the investigation of a haunted house as the basis for its plot, and it has been done many times since both of these publications.
Perhaps if the characters had been more interesting, I might have cared more about what happened. All the usual suspects were accounted for: the lone survivor, the scientific disbeliever, the spiritualist, and the sadistic dead man. For most of the book, Fischer, the lone survivor, the greatest source of first-hand information the investigators have, does nothing. His main goal is to protect himself even as he watches the house destroy Dr. Barrett, Edith, and Florence Tanner as it had the group he watched die in the house. The spiritualist embraced the house blindly, allowing the house manipulate her because she refused to open her eyes to the menace lurking in house even when it physically attacked her. Seriously? This woman didn’t realize it would be a bad idea to have sex with a ghost? And the scientist was so sure about his work, so sure that his special machine could end hauntings, he refused to pay attention to all the evidence around him things weren’t going as well as he thought they might. If they listened to each other and listen to the h
ouse, Dr. Barrett and Florence Tannwouldn’t have died, and they could have ended the haunting in the house together.
Ramblings of Jhenry 
Yes!!! Yes to all of this. I am so glad I am not the only one who found this book to completely unoriginal. It felt like a rehash of The Haunting of Hill House sans the charm. I tend to shy away from comparing it to anything written or made after it but it was written after the last book we read so that’s fair game.
I also was unable to care about what happened to any of these characters as well. I thought that it was because they were so unoriginal that it was like, “eh, I’ve seen these guys before. I know what’s going to happen.” So I personally didn’t care because, I already knew what was going to happen.
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I said on the board discussion about the ending that I felt that Fischer’s lack of character growth was a real missed opportunity. Matheson mentioning Fischer being the lone survivor and possession keen psychic skills seemed to make a promise that wasn’t kept by the end. I think having one main protagonist to root for would have helped this story. In Hill House, it was obvious it was Eleanor’s story. It didn’t have a happy ending, but at least we felt something as we watched her journey to her doom. With Hell House, not having anyone to emotionally connect to created this distance and it was hard to have empathy for anyone.
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I can definitely see why the novel seemed predictable. I hadn’t really thought much of that, but as you point it out and I think back on it, I agree. Both the deaths of Florence and the doctor seemed like they were coming from a mile away just because of how involved they both tried to be in the house’s hauntings. We had opportunity for something interesting to happen with Fischer’s powers and his final showdown with Belasco, but instead we were given an ending that seemed more laughable than anything else. It was interesting to see what each character did if they got possessed and how Belasco played on their weaknesses, but for Hell House being so depraved I expected to see even more debauchery than what we got. There were some scenes and ideas I really did like in this novel. For example I thought the Reversor was an interesting element and the fact it didn’t work when they all initially thought it did was a good plot device. Overall though, I would have liked to see more happen at the ending rather than the kind of rushed out-of-steam way the novel ends.
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This is really interesting, because the problems you point out with the characters in Hell House are the same problems I had with the characters in Hill House. When it comes down to it, the cast of both of these novels is actually pretty similar and basically a “stock horror cast.” The difference for me was in the approach to POV. I found the POVs in Hell House to be much deeper than those in Hill House, and as such I was able to connect with and enjoy the characters far more.
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As much as I liked Fischer in the beginning, I do agree with the fact that the ending left a lot to be desired on the part of both surviving characters. Like you said if Fischer had been more active through the entire book they may have all survived. Whereas Florence and Barrett were too active. They pushed too hard. Yet, many of us complained about how in Hill House the characters weren’t active enough. It is interesting how the two extremes both created problems in the stories that pushed the reader out of the book.
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