The first of Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe adaptations from American International Pictures, The House of Usher opens as Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon) arrives at the Usher ancestral home—a crumbling pile in an arid, foggy landscape—looking for his bride-to-be, Madeline Usher (the lovely Myrna Fahey). He is greeted there by Madeline's brother Roderick (Vincent Price), who asks him to leave. Not one to take no for an answer, Philip remains, staying for the night, determined to take Madeline away with him the next day. Roderick, however, is resolved to keeping his sister at home whatever it takes, believing his family to be under a curse that causes strange maladies, evil ways, and premature death.
House of Usher is about as Gothic as it gets, featuring a foggy landscape, an old dark house full of cobweb-strewn secret passageways, an elderly butler who knows more than he is letting on, a dusty old crypt, and a raging thunderstorm; but as atmospheric as the setting is, I didn't find myself all that engrossed in the mystery that unfolds. Instead, I found it all rather boring, Roderick's repetitious insistence that his family is cursed and Winthrop's steadfast refusal to believe what he is told becoming rather tiresome. Admittedly, the production is sumptuously mounted, with impressive sets and lovely colour cinematography (used particularly effectively during a hypnotic dream sequence), but on the whole I was left rather unimpressed by this much-loved horror 'classic'.
House of Usher is about as Gothic as it gets, featuring a foggy landscape, an old dark house full of cobweb-strewn secret passageways, an elderly butler who knows more than he is letting on, a dusty old crypt, and a raging thunderstorm; but as atmospheric as the setting is, I didn't find myself all that engrossed in the mystery that unfolds. Instead, I found it all rather boring, Roderick's repetitious insistence that his family is cursed and Winthrop's steadfast refusal to believe what he is told becoming rather tiresome. Admittedly, the production is sumptuously mounted, with impressive sets and lovely colour cinematography (used particularly effectively during a hypnotic dream sequence), but on the whole I was left rather unimpressed by this much-loved horror 'classic'.