When Eleanor, Theo, and Luke decide to take part in a sleep study at a huge mansion they get more than they bargained for when Dr. Marrow tells them of the house's ghostly past.

Mrs. Dudley: [Eleanor has just been shown her room after she arrives] I can't keep the rooms the way I'd like, but there's no one else they could get that would help me.
Eleanor Lance: How very nice.
Mrs. Dudley: I set dinner on the dining room sideboard at 6. I clear up in the morning. I have breakfast for you at 9. I don't wait on people. I don't stay after I set out the dinner, not after it begins to get dark. I leave before the dark.
Eleanor Lance: Your husband?
Mrs. Dudley: We live over in town, miles away.
Eleanor Lance: Yes.
Mrs. Dudley: So there won't be anyone around if you need help.
Eleanor Lance: I understand.
Mrs. Dudley: We couldn't hear you. In the night.
Eleanor Lance: Do you have any idea when Dr. Markway...
Mrs. Dudley: [cuts her off] No one could. No one lives any nearer than town. No one will come any nearer than that.
Eleanor Lance: I know.
Mrs. Dudley: In the night. In the dark.
[Mrs. Dudley grins and leaves]
[first lines]
Dr. John Markway: [voice-over] An evil old house, the kind some people call haunted, is like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored. Hill House had stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there... walked alone.
Theodora: Haven't you noticed how nothing in this house seems to move until you look away and then you just... catch something out of the corner of your eye?
Luke Sanderson: Only one way to argue with a woman Doc... Don't.
Dr. John Markway: Did something happen?
Eleanor Lance: [she and Theodora start laughing hysterically] No, nothing in particular, just someone banging on the door with a cannon ball!
Luke Sanderson: Doc, I'll let you have the house cheap!
Dr. John Markway: You wait here, Grace. I'll go in and get your things, and then call the police.
Grace Markway: No, no, no! No one must go back into that house again. Whatever's there might...
Dr. John Markway: I'll be all right. The house has what it wants... for a while.
[last lines]
Eleanor Lance: [voice-over] Hill House has stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more. Within, walls continue upright, bricks meet, floors are firm, and doors are sensibly shut. Silence lies steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House. And we who walk here... walk alone.
Eleanor Lance: I got dizzy.
Luke Sanderson: Dizzy like a fox, hmm?
Mr. Dudley: You'll be sorry I ever opened the gate.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: This house, who built it? Who lived here?
Dr. David Marrow: Well actually that makes a very good bedtime story. Once upon a time, there was a king who built a castle. His name was Hugh Crain. 130 years ago, towns like Concord and Manchester were the centre of American industry, that's where Crain made a fortune on the backs of workers in his textile mills. Now this man could have anything he wanted, but what he wanted was another thing. It was a house filled with the laughter of children.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: That's why there are all the carvings.
Dr. David Marrow: He married the most beautiful girl in town, called Renee, and he built her this house, at least some of it.
Theo: God, it sounds like a fairytale or something.
Dr. David Marrow: Well that's where the fairytale ends. Hugh and Renee never had children. They all died at birth. And a few years later, Renee passed away and Crain became a total recluse. But, he kept on building. Building room upon room as if he was building for the familiy he would never have. No one had seen Crain for years. But the townspeople said they could hear sounds coming from the old house. Sounds of children.
Dr. John Markway: When people believed the earth was flat, the idea of a round world scared them silly. Then they found out how the round world works. It's the same with the world of the supernatural. Until we know how it works, we'll continue to carry around this unnecessary burden of fear.
Dr. John Markway: Now. Which door?
Theodora: [pointing to her right] That one.
Dr. John Markway: Wrong. I've studied the map, it's this one.
[goes to his right and walks straight into the broom cupboard]
Mrs. Sanderson: The dead are not quiet in Hill House.
Theodora: What would you call this place? Fun-o-rama?
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: Purgatory is over, you go to hell.
Theodora: You see? You haven't a ghost of a chance.
Luke: What's the deal with the Addams Family mansion?
Eleanor Lance: What scares you, Theodora?
Theodora: Knowing what I really want.
Dr. John Markway: Look, I know the supernatural is something that isn't supposed to happen, but it does happen.
Luke Sanderson: [referring to Hill House] It ought to be burned down... and the ground sowed with salt.
Eleanor Lance: Human nature could certainly stand some improvement.
Dr. John Markway: A closed mind is the worst defense against the supernatural... If it happens to you, your liable to have that shut door in your mind ripped right off it's hinges!
Dr. John Markway: It was an evil house from the beginning - a house that was born bad.
Luke: Hey, you guys wanna hear something really scary? I just found this out. It turns out there's a more darker chapter in the Hugh Crain fairytale. Remember his lovely wife Renee? Well Renee, the town beauty, she didn't just die, she killed herself.
Theo: Really? He just told you that?
Luke: Yes, but you can't say anything because he actually swore me to secrecy.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: Why did she kill herself?
Luke: The stillborn children story is more sinister, and maybe Hugh Crain was a horrible monster that drove her to it.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: Monster? But he built this house with the woman he loved like the Taj Mahal.
Theo: The Taj Mahal wasn't a palace, it was a tomb. And equally overdone.
Dr. John Markway: It has taken 60 million years to develop the carnivorous biped you see before you, Luke Sanderson.
Theodora: Let's see what kind of martinis it makes.
Luke Sanderson: They should be pretty good. I majored in them at college.
Theo: Is this one of your sick jokes, Luke?
Luke: What? You really think I wrote that?
Theo: You found it; you could have.
Luke: How, with the twenty-foot ladder I keep in my back pocket?
Theo: Isn't it based on the Gates of Hell, by Rodin?
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: Well, It's not just hell. You see the children, they're are reaching up for heaven, but their souls are trapped in purgatory. And these are the demons... who can hold on to your soul for as long as they want.
Theo: Did you study art?
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: No, I studied purgatory. I was there once for eleven years. It's when your soul is caught between the living and the dead.
Luke: And you I'm gonna guess, are a les...
Theo: Don't even start.
Luke: Wow, You're so bossy and domineering...
Theo: Thanks. Theo.
Dr. David Marrow: The only problem with fear is that it largely has become inappropriate and non-adaptive.
Eleanor Lance: God! God! Whose hand was I holding?
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: You know all my life, I have been waiting for an adventure. I thought it would never happen to me. I mean adventures are for soldiers, or for bullfighters, the women fall in love with. Now, here I am. Paintings are moving and strange voices are calling for me at night, and all it cost me was FIVE GALLONS OF GAS.
Ritchie: Eleanor, help me! I gotta pee!
Luke Sanderson: I haven't seen a damn thing! I just don't like the way it looks.
Luke: [looking at a statue] These carvings are really creepy. All these fat little cherubs and angels with furry animals, it's really bizarre, I think.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: I think they're the children Hugh Crain built the house for.
Luke: I don't buy that for a second - that Hugh Crain was this lovable old tycoon with a soft spot for kids? This guy was obviously running a sweatshop, had children working 16 hours a day. Then he builds all this crap, it's propaganda. It's like those Teletubbies, those things freak me out also. Then they sing, so they're actually kinda scarier when you think about it.
[after either nearly falling off a high balcony - or being pushed off - she is saved by John Markway]
Eleanor Lance: Oh! This house! You have to watch it every minute!
Mrs. Dudley: I set dinner on the dining room sideboard at six. Breakfast is ready at nine. I don't stay after dinner. Not after it begins to get dark. We live in town, nine miles, so there won't be anyone around if you need help...
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: We couldn't even hear you.
Mrs. Dudley: No one could. No one lives any nearer than town...
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: No one will come any nearer than that.
Mrs. Dudley: In the night...
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: In the dark.
Theo: We can't get out. Why won't he let us leave?
Dr. David Marrow: What do we do Eleanor?
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: He played hide-and-seek with them, that's why he built the house. You have to hide.
Dr. David Marrow: Hide? What does he think this is, a game?
Jane: Come live with us Nell; you have no idea how hard it is out there.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: No Jane, you have no idea how hard it was in here.
[last lines]
Mr. Dudley: You find out what you wanted to know... doctor?
Dr. John Markway: That's very good, Eleanor. You catch on quickly.
Theodora: [gets jealous and stands up] I'm hungry. Let's go.
Dr. David Marrow: Because it was a controlled experiment.
Theo: A controlled experiment? She's in total shock, you can't do that.
Dr. David Marrow: I told you, it wasn't meant to be like this.
Theo: Oh c'mon, you don't care about insomnia, you just wanted to scare the hell out of us to be fit in your little test or model, an end to understand this. You can't do it...
Dr. David Marrow: LISTEN. You listen to me. I am trying to help people. My field of study is the science of fear, I try to understand why people act the way they act, why they feel the way they feel...
[Theo slaps Marrow]
Theo: You don't feel.
Jane: Also, we know how much you loved Mom's car, so we're giving it to you.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: You're taking away my home, and giving me a twenty year old car? Who are you?
[the group is huddled in the conservatory, Nell, Theo, and Markway are asleep as Luke enters and takes a drink from a liquor bottle, when the door suddenly slams shut by itself... waking everyone up!]
Dr. John Markway: [to Luke] Why aren't you upstairs?
Luke Sanderson: I needed a drink.
[suddenly there are sounds of wind blowing and then distant yet distinct footsteps are heard]
Dr. John Markway: Grace!
Luke Sanderson: Wait a minute! It's nowhere near the nursery... it's down here,
Theodora: Seems we've been on this kick before.
Eleanor Lance: Next vacation I must really go somewhere else!
[the pounding becomes louder and closer]
Eleanor Lance: [thinking; voice-over] It knows my name, this time it knows my name!
Dr. John Markway: I have to go out there.
Eleanor Lance: [shouting] No, No! It hasn't hurt me. Why should it hurt her?
Dr. John Markway: She might try to do something about it!
[the pounding stops]
Eleanor Lance: Is it over, Theo? Is it?
Theodora: No, I'm still cold. It's going to start everything all over again!
[the pounding resumes violently and loudly against the closed door]
Eleanor Lance: [screaming] It can't get in! It can't get in! Don't let it get in!
[the pounding stops and the door knob jiggles]
Eleanor Lance: [whimpering] God, it knows I'm here!
[the door begins to buckle and bend in on itself, Luke in his horror drops his bottle]
Luke Sanderson: Doc... I'll let you have the house cheap!
[the bulging door returns to normal, the wind is heard blowing again. Soon the pounding footsteps resume and head upstairs]
Eleanor Lance: [thinking to herself; voice-over] Go on and on and come back again until it finds me! On and on and on until it finds me!
Theo: Hi. Don't worry, I'm not an obsessive packer, it's just a cheap and exploitative way of making new friends, I'm Theo.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: Eleanor, but everybody calls me Nell.
Theo: Well, "Everybody Calls Me Nell", don't you love it here? It's like Charles Foster Kane meets the Munsters.
Dr. David Marrow: We should have stopped this when Mary got hurt. And definitely when Eleanor... Jesus Christ, we have to get out of here.
Theodora: Poor Nell. You look like Death.
Theodora: Is this another one of your crazy hallucinations?
Eleanor Lance: I'm not crazy!
Theodora: Crazy as a loon! You really expect me to believe that you're sane and the rest of the world is mad?
Eleanor Lance: Well, why not? The world is full of inconsistencies. Unnatural things. Nature's mistakes they call you for instance!
Dr. David Marrow: Eleanor, none of this is real.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: Yes, it is real.
Dr. David Marrow: It's not real.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: You have to go look for the bones in the fireplace.
Dr. David Marrow: It's not real.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: I saw... I saw his wife hanging in the greenhouse, I know, I saw it.
Dr. David Marrow: No, we'll be all gone, and the Dudleys will arrive in the morning and we can go. All of you.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: I can't believe you're not gonna look.
Theo: Okay, that's enough of you. I'm taking her upstairs. I think you've done enough.
Luke: I'm not staying in this freaking house another second, so come on.
Dr. John Markway: [walks towards the door] Let's see if there's a tiger behind this one.
[first lines]
Jane: You already owe two months worth of rent.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: It's mine, and you're not taking it away.
Jane: Read the will, Nell. It states in plain language, the executor shall have the right to dispose of any and all personal property, as he shall see fit.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: He's not even real family.
Jane: Yeah, maybe not, but clearly Mother thought Lou would be better off dealing with these unpleasant details than you.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: [angrily] Unpleasant details? What have I been dealing with for the past eleven years? I've cooked, I've cleaned, I've mopped up for you and you call that an unpleasant detail?
Theo: [about Purgatory] I've been there. It's when you're on an 18-hour flight from L.A. to Paris and you're stuck in coach.
[repeated line]
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: He won't let them go!
Theo: You feel cut off from the world, but the world has missed you. Happy tossing and turning.
Eleanor Lance: I'm still so terrified from last night.
Dr. John Markway: You shouldn't be. It's silly to be frightened...
Eleanor Lance: Silly? You haven't been through it! This horrible unknown thing!
Dr. John Markway: 'Unknown.' That's the key word. 'Unknown.' When we become involved in a supernatural event, we're scared out of our wits just because it's unknown. The night cry of a child. A face on the wall. Knockings, bangings. What's there to be afraid of? You weren't threatened. It was harmless, like a joke that doesn't come out.
Eleanor Lance: But the child...
Dr. John Markway: There was no child, remember? Just a voice.
Eleanor Lance: A voice.
Dr. John Markway: Look, Eleanor, put it this way. When people believed the Earth was flat, the idea of a round world scared them silly. Then they found out how the round world works. It's the same with the world of the supernatural. Until we know how it works, we'll continue to carry around this unnecessary burden of fear.
Eleanor Lance: Supposing it is in my imagination. The knocking, the voices. Everything! Every cursed bit of the haunting. Suppose the haunting is all in my mind.
Dr. John Markway: Well, you can't say that, because there are three other people here. We all resist the idea that what ran through the garden that first night was a ghost. What banged on the door was a ghost. What held your hand was a ghost. But there is certainly something going on in Hill House. We're getting closer, very close to finding out what it is.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: I love your boots.
Theo: Oh, you do? Thanks! Prada; Milan, not New York. But they're killing me... Small price to pay for such savage kicks!
Dr. David Marrow: Let me explain what's happening here. You're participating in a study on group fear and hysteria.
Luke: What? That's it, that's what this was all about?
Theo: You brought us here to scare us, is that it?
Dr. David Marrow: Yes.
Luke: And you were just waiting for her to have a total nervous breakdown before you said it? I mean, what is your problem?
Theo: You know what, the rest of you may hate your insomnia but I'm not sure I want a cure for mine. That's when I get all my best ideas... I'm alone, occasionally... with no distractions. My mind is racing with creative ideas and come 3am I feel like a genius.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: Have you ever kept something for yourself because you were afraid?
Theo: All the time.
Theodora: Here you are. Okay, Isolde. Tristan wants you inside.
Eleanor Lance: Leave me alone.
Theodora: Stop trying to be the center of attention, Nell. Come inside.
Eleanor Lance: [swipes Theodora's hand off her shoulder] Don't touch me, Theo! You revolt me!
Theodora: Whoa, can't you take a joke? I didn't know you were serious about Markway.
Eleanor Lance: Of course you did.
Theodora: I'm not jealous. I'm actually flattered that you have feelings for him. But he shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.
Eleanor Lance: Get away with what?
Theodora: You're making a fool of yourself over him.
Eleanor Lance: Suppose I'm not, though? You'd mind terribly if you turned out to be wrong for once, wouldn't you?
Theodora: You poor stupid innocent.
Eleanor Lance: I'd rather be innocent then like you!
Luke Sanderson: [when the group compares themselves to four statues] Which one am I?
Theodora: You're the dog.
[looking at the "Door of Hell"]
Theo: You don't get this from the Martha Stewart catalog.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: You have trouble with commitment?
Theo: Well, my boyfriend thinks so, my girlfriend doesn't. We could all live together, but they hate each other.
[looking at the crashed car, Theo and Marrow]
Mrs. Dudley: City people.
Luke: I don't know, I just think Dr. Marrow's up to something. And you know what, I'm going to find out. Right after I check on Theo, that is. I wonder how she's doing.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: Doing or wearing?
Luke: Yeah, no kidding. Did you see what she had on yesterday? Hey I definitely got a soft spot for Theo.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: Why do you need so many chains?
Mr. Dudley: That's a good question. What is it about fences? Sometimes the people on either side of the fence see a locked chain, they feel a little more comforted, why do you suppose that is?
Luke: [as noises come from chimney, he goes under it and yells up] Hello, Santa!
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: You'll never gonna believe how I found them.
Theo: How did you find them?
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: The blood led me to the bookcase.
Theo: The blood?
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: Little footprints in blood.
Theo: Nell, I'm worried about you.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: He killed them. Hugh Crain. The children from the mills. It's just like you said. He wanted to fill the house with the sounds of children. He took from his mills and he brought them here, but he wouldn't let them go. He would never let them go.
Luke: Oh come on, this is crazy. Maybe she doesn't want to be found.
Dr. David Marrow: Okay, so what do we all need in life? What are the basics? Food, water, shelter...
Theo: ...Sex.
Children: Help us... help us...
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: I'm here... I'm here... I'm coming to you, I'm coming to you...
Dr. John Markway: Ghosts make the papers along with celebrities every day of the week.
Eleanor Lance: The house... it's alive!
Dr. David Marrow: Okay, so why are we here? Probably to answer the most basic question: "What is wrong with you people?"
Eleanor Lance: Everybody has a right to run away.
Dr. David Marrow: The gate is still locked, we have to wait until the Dudleys arrive.
Luke: What? That's really compassion. Yeah, "let's wait until the morning, so tomorrow I have time to write a few more Welcome Home Eleanors".
Dr. David Marrow: Luke, I didn't write that stuff, okay?
Luke: Of course you didn't, that wouldn't be ethical, would it doc...
Theo: Would you guys just shut up?
[the group in the conservatory room hears the pounding and breaking glass and furniture from the unseen phantom]
Dr. John Markway: It's in the nursery!
Luke Sanderson: [stops Markway from opening the door] You must be crazy!
Dr. John Markway: I'm going out there!
Luke Sanderson: Oh, no you don't! Not with that thing out there!
Eleanor Lance: [intervenes] Luke, we must find Mrs. Markway to find out if she's there!
[Luke shoves Eleanor aside and continues to try to stop Markway from leaving the room]
Luke Sanderson: No! Don't be crazy!
Dr. John Markway: I've got to get out of here! I've got to find out if Grace is all right.
Luke Sanderson: Look, I don't know what that is out there, but I don't want to find out!
Dr. John Markway: Get away from me! I've got to get out of here! I've got to find out if Grace is all right!
Theodora: I don't think you killed your mother.
Grace Markway: Didn't you see me?
Dr. John Markway: No, but Eleanor did and it nearly killed her.
Theodora: It DID kill her, seeing her's what made her crash the car.
Eleanor "Nell" Vance: [breaking the glass where a monsterous specre of Hugh Crane is appearing] I will not let you hurt a CHILD!
Dr. John Markway: [voice-over] The story goes that the old lady died calling for help in the nursery upstairs; while the companion fooled around with a farmhand on the veranda.
Eleanor Lance: Can't you feel it? It's alive... watching.
Eleanor Lance: [panicking] But where?
Dr. John Markway: Home of course.
Theodora: Back to your little apartment, where all your things are.
Luke: We don't have time for baby talk.