La maison des Usher

I sat down to watch this remake of the classic "The House of Usher" tale, as based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe. Sure, I am familiar with the written story, but I've never actually seen a movie adaptation of the story. So I was a little bit excited to get to watch this 1989.

Turns out that the excitement was a bit short lived, as this movie was hardly a grand cinematic masterpiece. Sure, the movie was watchable, but it hadn't aged well. And sitting down in 2021 to watch this movie was a bit toe-curling and somewhat laughable of an experience.

The storyline is good enough, of course, and the transition from penned words to live action movie is well enough. But the movie just lacks atmosphere, and the props throughout the movie were just too fake. I mean, the stone slabs passing as being a coffin was just so clearly and obviously made from Styrofoam or something like that, because the actress had no trouble moving them without breaking a sweat.

"The House of Usher" does have an interesting ensemble of casted actors and actresses, which includes Oliver Reed and Donald Pleasence, two very well-familiar names and faces. But even they could only do so much for director Alan Birkinshaw's 1989 movie.

While based on a very iconic tale, this 1989 movie is hardly a memorable movie. While it was watchable, it just didn't fully bring enough entertainment to the table.

My rating of "The House of Usher" lands on a four out of ten stars. I would suggest you read the story instead, as it has more atmosphere and entertainment value.

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

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.

There are only a few parts in the movie I liked. the rest wasn't even scary at all. The acting was good but I really didn't care for this story to be updated. I guess the gore was OK. The music was ok. It was to 80's. Over all I don't really recommend this movie to anyone cause it just wasn't worth watching. It really didn't catch my attention at all. Maybe if your board watch it but thats it.

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.