House of Usher [PG]

Phillip Winthrop travels to the mansion of his fiancé to take her away and marry her. But upon arriving he notices that the house and all its inhabitants are very strange. The lively and vivacious Madeleine that he fell in love with in Boston is now soft-spoken and mild-mannered, her brother Roderick is peculiarly temperamental and convinced that both he and his sister are dying, and the mansion is crumbling around them as they live. Then Madeleine goes missing the night before she and Phillip plan to depart and he fears that his future brother-in-law, in a morbid exhibition of his ‘love’ for his sister, has done something terrible to her. 

Based on Edgar Allen Poe’s chilling tale, The Fall of the House of Usher, this movie is one of Roger Corman’s more serious thrillers. It’s a striking and delightfully eerie departure from his comical farce of a classic Poe poem, The Raven, and more of a closer adaptation to the original source material, though admittedly it’s been some time since I last read the tale. 

It’s a classic and predictable structure of a horror movie, particularly if we choose to focus our attention on the house itself (very creepy indeed), but what’s particularly compelling about House of Usher is its lavish sets and costumes, and its memorable performances, particularly that of Vincent Price. 

The film takes place entirely within the crumbling Usher mansion, which is very old and frightfully decrepit on the outside, yet lavish and eerily modern on the inside thanks to the artworks painted by Roderick Usher. We’re talking satin curtains, chandeliers, red candles, fireplaces, and four-poster beds: every classic lavish luxury of a centuries old mansion. We’ve seen it all before, the traditional gothic decadence of the houses in which horrible things happen, but it never gets old, despite the fake cobwebs and thick layers of dust. 

The mansion is absolutely magnificent and the costumes match it wonderfully with Roderick and Madeleine being clothed in nothing but the finest frills, ruffles, and red velvet, floor-length dresses. Madeleine’s dinner dress in just stunning! I wanted it in my wardrobe so much! 

The performances were all compelling enough, but of course the real star of the show was Vincent Price as Roderick Usher. I truly think the man could do no wrong. Here he delivers a performance that is eerie and unhinged, but at the same time very vulnerable and melancholy. Even though this guy is technically the villain, you really can’t bring yourself to dislike him at all. 

All the other performances are pretty so-so: Mark Damon is really just the film’s eye-candy that over-gestures and exaggerates his anger by bearing and talking through his teeth, Myrna Fahey proves to be a great screamer and able to pull the mad woman from the basement character pretty well, and Harry Ellerbe is the typical butler who’s been there since before the masters were born. Everyone played their part well and were all completely in place for the type of film that this was, but of course it doesn’t make their performances any more or less special. 

Filled with suspense, horror, romance, drama, madness, and attempted murder, House of Usher is a decadent and fairly close adaptation to Poe’s chilling tale and a fine way to while away a rainy Sunday afternoon.