The House of Usher

Oliver Reed, Donald Pleasence. Two of my all time favourite actors. Edgar Allan Poe. What could go wrong? Sadly quite a lot. These two great actors play brothers, living in the same house but have not seen each other for 15 years, apparently. Bit hard to digest that. Ollie plays sleazy Uncle Roderick, thankfully he does have plenty of on screen time. Pleasence however is not seen until an hour in. And not one of his finest roles. Usher is set in a fabulous Gothic mansion, good exterior shots. The interior has a rich colour palate, reminded me somewhat of Dario Argento's classics from the 1970's. However there is a cheapness in the look of these sets, especially when the obviously fake masonry starts to crumble. This film took a while to get going in terms of horror. It is a poor adaptation of the Poe tale and was ultimately watchable but somewhat disappointing. So now to my dilemma - I recently bought a nice, clean copy of this on VHS. The box with its artwork looks good but in all honesty I'll probably never watch it again. As a collector I don't like to lose tapes but I'm torn as to whether there is much point in hanging on to this one.

This movie can hardly be considered to be an adaptation of Poe, because it barely has any touch points. They are built on the same base, but the construction is completely different. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it is. Ideas that changed Poe's story are not that bad, but the realization is lousy. The complete scenery screams FAKE, the story is inconsistent, acting mediocre, directing like in porn, and ending knocks the final nail in the coffin. If we simply cut the last scene and end movie with the one before, without any changes, we'll get an average '80s B horror ending. Why did they feel the need to additionally annoy viewers, already annoyed by wasting an hour and a half on a crappy movie, by adding terribly stupid, inconsistent, illogical and most of all redundant nonsense to the movie that already had a decent ending in the previous scene... I have a feeling that team, who spent their lives making porn exclusively, suddenly decided to make Poe adaptation. If that's true, good job guys, but if it's not the case, then please, change profession, or at least keep your hands off of classics.

4/10

A couple of obvious continuity problems caught my eye, but I won't get into it. I did not care for the ghosts and they were never explained. All viewers will feel extremely cheated by the ending.

It's set in a visual interesting House of Usher decorated mainly with flowing drapes and robed statues. That held my attention, but then I got angry about the last scene.

Judge a movie on its own merits I say. Yes there is a couple of bad acting moments but there is nothing wrong with this movie per se. The movie has good production values, story and music. Oliver Reed doesn't disappoint and neither does Donald, those guys are very reliable actors.

You know the story, couple crash car and girl ends up in mansion by herself being prepped for her reproduction values by some evil inbred wealthy peeps. It's really nothing new to horror fans. Maybe the movie is a little drawn out and maybe some of the characters don't seem 100% all the time. I think a lot of people were not expecting its weirdness though, weird horror is not everyone's cup of tea. I liked it and at anything less than 5/10 its under-rated imo.

My review was written in January 1991 after watching the film on RCA/Columbia video cassette.

A lackluster remake of the Poe tale, "The House of Usher" was shot in South Africa in 1988 as one of four Harry Alan Towers Poe films, all going direct to video Stateside.

Fond memories of the Jean Epstein silent version or Roger Corman's vehicle for Vincent Price (which set off the Poe cycle in 1960) do not prepare one for this boring entry, perhaps closer to a forgotten 1949 British programmer version.

Oliver Reed huffs and puffs his way through the central role of Roderick Usher, decaying last representative of the House of Usher who is determined to impregnate young Romy Windsor to carry on his diseased, inbred line.

She's the girlfriend of his nephew Rufus Swart, latter dispatched in the opening as she's made a prisoner in the Usher mansion. Upstairs lives kindly uncle Donald Pleasenxe, but it will take a very slow-witted audience member not to spoth him as an incipient bd guy Other than some interesting sets that recall the Robert Fuest-helmed "Doctor Phibes" pictures of two decades ago, this remake offers no suspense and a very weak cast. Windsor, who previously went to South Africa to film "Howling IV", is unscintillating as the oppressed heroine, and little sympathy is generated for the family of servants who see to Reed's needs.

Unnecessarily sleazy in several scenes of torture, pic does not reward the patient viewer since the ending is a fakearoo that undermines all that's come before. Tech credits, with South Africa doubling for a British setting, are minor.