La chute de la maison Usher

Director Roger Corman does his thing with a classic piece from Edgar Allan Poe. A visually fantastic production. A tense and moody horror tale of a young Bostonian (Mark Damon)traveling to the Usher family mansion to collect his beautiful bride-to-be(Myrna Fahey). The eager suitor is told by her brother(Vincent Price)that the family's blood has been cursed and he should rethink a marriage.

The mansion, surroundings and atmosphere bring a chill. The evasive Price is very convincing in his role as doting brother and master of the house. Great spooky movie to watch on a rainy night.

The first of Roger Corman's adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories stars Vincent Price as the head of the Usher house; Roderick Usher. Roderick Usher believes that there is an evil curse on his family, a curse that is also the reason for his and his sister's affliction. Because of this curse of evil, he doesn't want the Usher family line to continue and so he has decided to do all in his power to stop it. However, his sister, Madeline's fiancé has come to the Usher house to take her back with him, but Roderick knows that this will mean that the Usher family line will continue and he cannot allow the evil to spread across the world....

Roger Corman is often seen as a 'cheap' director because of the vast amount of films that he has made. Although this is certainly somewhat true as a few of them aren't particularly good; if you take a look at his Poe films, this couldn't be further from then truth. Here, Corman creates a constantly morbid and foreboding atmosphere; not with shocks or other cheap methods, but by simple things such as smoke, an old house and it's creepy inhabitants that utter the most malevolent of lines, some of which are truly bone chilling. Of course, this movie benefits implicitly from the presence of a man that is maybe horror's purest actor; Vincent Price. Price was born to play roles like Roderick Usher, and anyone that sees this film wont find it hard to see why. Vincent Price delivers his lines with just the right tone in order to make him obviously evil, but yet pathetic at the same time; just how the character should be played. When it comes to the 'greatest actor of all time' awards, Vincent Price never gets mentioned, but this is a great injustice; as anyone who has seen a number of films will know.

Corman also succeeds in creating a constant sense of intrigue, and the audience is left hanging on every moment, as we can't wait to see what happens next. Of course, Edgar Allen Poe can take much of the credit for this as the great man did write the story that it was based on, but Corman comes off looking good as well as it is his direction that makes the story so consistently thrilling. The movie also benefits from some very lavish sets, which gives the movie it's upper class dinosaur feel. The house itself is a great piece of horror imagery; it is responsible for most of the atmosphere that is present in the movie.

Roger Corman's brilliant adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's chilling tale is one of the greatest achievements in cinematic horror. It's hard to pick one of Corman's Poe adaptations as the best, but this, the first, might be it.

The movie is fairly faithful to the story, but extremely faithful to the tone of Poe's writing. No one but the team of Corman and writer Richard Matheson could pull it off like this. Poe's deranged sense of dread and sardonic humor are all here, in every shot.

Vincent Price turns in one of his finest performances as Roderick Usher, a man who is glad that he and his sister, Madeline (the wonderful Myrna Fahey) are the last of their bloodline, as he believes the family is doomed to all eventually go mad. He also suffers from hyper-sensitivity, and must have quiet, dim light, soft clothing and bland food, otherwise he suffers extreme pain. Whether this is a physical or psychological anomaly is never confirmed.

Madeline's fiance Philip (Mark Damon) comes to the house to claim Madeline as his wife. Roderick forbids it, believing he and his sister should die together, thus ending the Usher line of insanity. But it may be too late, as Madeline is already showing signs of flipping out, and Roderick has some pretty twisted ideas of how to stop that from happening.

The movie leads up to a spine-tingling finale that's as intense and scary a climax as anything I've seen. HOUSE OF USHER is a great horror movie, and perhaps the most faithful adaptation of Poe, both in content and style, ever filmed.

Corman's first Poe film (out of eight) is one of the best adaptations of the familiar story (rivaled only by French director Jean Epstein's superb, yet completely different, 1928 version) and was a critical and commercial success in its day on a meager $125,000 budget. Vincent Price is superb as Roderick Usher, an eternally tortured soul who lives in a crumbling castle with his sister Madeline (Myrna Fahey) and faithful butler Bristol (nicely etched by Harry Ellerbe). When Philip Winthrop (bland Mark Damon) shows up to take Madeline away, Roderick's incestuous feelings come to surface and the terror begins. Highlights include Damon's colorful nightmare sequence and Price's explanation of the Usher family history.

HOUSE OF USHER is intelligent, subtle and effective, with good sets and costumes and excellent work from scripter Richard Matheson, composer Les Baxter, cameraman Floyd Crosby and art director Daniel Haller--all united by Corman's smart, stylish, fluent direction. Truly deserving of it's reputation as horror classic.

Overtime the horror genre has really grown on me, and Vincent Price, one of my favourite actors has been a big part of why. The Fall of the House of Usher was the film that spawned a series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, and is up there with the best of them like The Pit and the Pendulum and The Raven. Whether it is completely faithful to Poe's writing I am not entirely sure, whatever way it makes little difference to me. All that matters for a film is how good it is on its own merits, and The Fall of The House of Usher in my mind is more than good, it's great. The settings, costumes and the way the film are shot is both Gothic and gorgeous to look at in their lavishness, and the music is suitably spooky. The script is very literate and quite intelligent, while the story is always compelling and delivers its spooky scares with not an ounce of predictability or hamminess. The ending really convinces in its creepiness and in its tragic undercurrent, making it moving as well. The acting is fine, Mark Damon gets better throughout the film and by the end he really comes to life but to start with I did find him a little too wooden for my tastes. Myrna Fahey and Harry Ellerbe characterise splendidly, but the film belongs to Roger Corman's lively direction and especially to Vincent Price, who is always great but gives one of his best ever performances here, with his ever commanding presence, his distinctive voice, Skakespearean-like line delivery, droll sense of humour and a sense of melancholy, every single of those are here and make for one memorable performance indeed. In conclusion, a great film worth seeing for Price alone though the production values, the atmosphere and how intelligently it's written also are fine attributes. 9/10 Bethany Cox