The Fall of the House of Usher

I caught up with this on TCM as part of their October 2012 schedule. It's really not that bad, given that it was made on a budget of about two shillings thruppence and someone decided to tack on that ghastly footage in the gentlemen's club to pad the length. Granted, it's not quite the story Poe wrote, but taken as an old-dark-house thriller that just happens to be about the House of Usher... Anyway, I've seen worse photography in higher budget films, the amateur actors in the story proper were reasonably competent (especially young Gwen Watford, who went on from this film debut to better things in film, on stage, and on the Beeb), and the climax closeups were quite convincing--as well they should be, since many of the closeups came from WWII newsreel footage carefully edited.

I watched this one night by myself after coming across it by chance. I thought I might as well give it a go and kill some time. I was actually quite impressed by the film. It wasn't some amazingly famous movie with an all-star cast. It was a small and fairly amateur film that won me over with its quiet but definitely present unease. It's ever-present darkness, both physically and mentally, sets the mood for a bleak and unsettling movie that uses visuals more than dialogue. It's an obscure and relatively unknown movie, but it's one of the best amateur thrillers I've ever seen.

This film is one of my favorite versions of "House of Usher." Unlike the Roger Corman version, this film treats the viewer with a variety of sets and locations with unique concepts and ideas not widely known. This film was a great effort for its day, with beautiful black and white cinematography and a gothic mood. This film is probably one of the closest to the original story, with some great new ideas thrown in, like the hag in the woods and further explaining the family curse. The music is really cute and catchy, further giving a feeling of the renaissance time, and it's quite catchy (by the end of the movie I was humming the main theme, as it was repetitive throughout the film). Through the brilliant (and realistic) thunderstorm sequence we are led up to a great climax, and I love the ending. The originality of the whole film, and the last words must've left people talking about the film as they left the theatre, discussing what they thought really happened. I was surprised that this film had so little success (if it did, I know not about it, it's quite rare you see). I wonder if it had international distribution, or if it was made by a very small company and didn't get the attention it deserved? This is definitely an excellent film and I highly recommend it to anyone, except perhaps some of today's modern youth(what is the world coming to? Can't they recognize fine art when they see it?)

The plot of this curious version of the Poe classic differs considerably from the original story, including a number of plot elements and characters that are not in Poe's story at all. Some of the acting seems almost amateurish at times, and the entire production was clearly carried out on a very small budget.

However, where this film excels is in its' sense of creepy atmosphere. Indeed, in that respect it reminded me of Carl Theodore Dryer's 1932 film, "Vampyr". Those who have seen that most peculiar horror film will understand to what I refer. In that film, as well as in this one, style and atmosphere completely dominate character and story to the point where the latter two elements almost cease to matter at all. Both "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Vampyr" are prime examples of how much a creative director can achieve even without benefit of special effects or a large budget.

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER is a low budget British adaptation of the storyline that has been somewhat eclipsed by the lush and colourful Roger Corman/Vincent Price version of the tale. That's a shame, because this is an interesting little movie in its own right, a film where every penny of the budget has been put on screen.

The film has a disjointed, almost dream-like atmosphere to it which reminded me of the horror classic VAMPYR. The set design is absolutely wonderful and the film as a whole is packed with creepy and atmospheric locales which really add to the experience. Some aspects of the Poe tale have been altered, and the acting from the unknown cast members is nothing to get excited about, but the quality of the direction and script helps make up for these shortcomings. The addition of the hag character for a number of jump scares is a good one too, although the make-up job is a little crude by modern standards.