Hell's House

Really liked the idea for the story for 'Hells House'. It sounded quite touching and relatable. It also had Bette Davis, reason enough to see anything she was in regardless of the film's overall quality, in a small early role. The title does grab the attention and do appreciate early film, so there were enough reasons to make me want to see 'Hells House'. Regardless of the lukewarm reviews here and that it didn't look particularly great production-values wise.

'Hells House' has its moments and good things, and is overall quite watchable. It is though not much more than a curiosity piece, my curio reason being me wanting to see all the films not seen yet starring or featuring Davis. For me, the film could have a lot more with its relatively under-explored potential and more induced mixed feelings within me. It is namely to be seen for Davis but execution-wise it doesn't have much of everything else going for it.

Davis' screen time is far too small and her character is stock, she is above her material, but she brings a lot of dignity to what she has. Actually thought that in general the acting was above average, not mind-blowing but not amateur-hour, definitely one of 'Hells House's' better aspects. Great to see Pat O'Brien and Charley Grapewin here and giving likeable performances, Junior Durkin tries too hard at times and Jimmy was to me a problematic character in a way but he and Frank Coghlan's performances are deeply felt.

Their chemistry is also tenderly done, generally thought the character interaction was beautifully done in 'Hells House' and didn't get too cloying or overdone.

For all those good things though, too much is done wrong. The production values are far from great, excepting the effective use of shadow it looks very primitive. The sound likewise. The dialogue tends to be too corny and doesn't flow particularly well.

As said, Jimmy's character is problematic. Too naive in an unrealistic way. The story is charming and touching enough, but can be a little too slow in the early parts and can be contrived.

Overall, watchable curio but there are far better representations of Davis around. 5/10