Hell House

This book follows an established horror trope where an old, wealthy man, wanting to know if life really continues after death, offers to pay a large sum to a small group to spend a week in a extremely dangerous haunted house. The small group is made up of four people - a somewhat crippled by polio physicist, his mousy wife and two mediums. Two former expeditions into the house, one in the early 1930s and another in the early 1940s had both ended in insanity or death. It is now 1970 and the one, now older, surviving member of the 1940s group is one of the mediums willing to enter the house to overcome his fear and defeat the evil that permeates the house. The physicist, not believing in ghosts, has invented a machine to clear the house of what he believes is residual noxious energy from past horrendous behavior that occurred there. His wife, though warned about the dangers, is more afraid of being away from her husband and will not leave his side. The other medium is a beautiful redhead who is the leader of a spiritualist church and has her own plans to clear the house of the ghosts that linger there. But whoever or whatever exists in the house has other plans and considers any of the living who enter toys to be played with and eventually destroyed. The story is filled with supernatural occurrences and violence, including sexual violence.