The House of Usher

Plot synopsis:
Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon) travels to the House of Usher, a desolate mansion surrounded by a murky swamp, to meet his fiancée Madeline Usher (Myrna Fahey). Madeline's brother Roderick (Vincent Price) opposes Philip's intentions, telling the young man that the Usher family is afflicted by a cursed bloodline which has driven all their ancestors to madness. Roderick foresees the family evils being propagated into future generations with a marriage to Madeline and vehemently discourages the union. Philip becomes increasingly desperate to take Madeline away; she agrees to leave with him, desperate to get away from her brother.
During a heated argument with her brother, Madeline suddenly dies and is laid to rest in the family crypt beneath the house. As Philip is preparing to leave following the entombment, the butler, Bristol (Harry Ellerbe), lets slip that Madeline suffered from catalepsy, a condition which can make its sufferers appear dead.
Philip rips open Madeline's coffin and finds it empty. He desperately searches for her in the winding passages of the crypt but she eludes him and confronts her brother. Now completely insane, Madeline avenges herself upon the brother who knowingly buried her alive. Both die as a fire breaks out, ending the Usher bloodline, and Philip escapes and watches the burning house sink into the swampy land surrounding it. The film ends with the final words of Poe: "...and the deep and dank tarn closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the 'House of Usher'".

Tags: insanity, gothic

Review:
good sets, lame ghosts.
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..
Producer Harry Alan Towers is so cheap he didn't pay for THE FALL OF for the title!.
Ryan Usher (Rufus Swart) and his girlfriend Molly (Romy Windsor) head to his uncle's isolated estate after receiving a letter from him.
Before arriving they crash their car when they see two ghost children on the road.
Molly makes it to the home and is told Ryan has already been picked up and is being cared for.
She then meets uncle Roderick (Oliver Reed), who assures her all is fine despite his reluctance to let her visit Ryan and the fact he won't let her leave.
Yup, ol' Roderick is a perv and, after burying the still-alive Ryan, forces himself onto Molly to carry on the family line.
Also, in a nod to THE OLD DARK HOUSE, a crazy brother named Walter (Donald Pleasence) lives up in the attic.
As you can see, this barely has any connection to the Poe short story outside of a few events and character names.
Filmed in South Africa, producer Towers at least got his monies worth with some nice looking sets.
And leads Reed and Pleasence are total pros, although I suspect Reed enjoyed his moments feeling up the attractive Windsor (who was already accustomed to primordial beasts as she just survived HOWLING IV).
Director Alan Birkinshaw can't be bothered with things like suspense or terror though.
He does throw in a few gore scenes for good measure.
Towers' two other Poe "adaptations" were MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1989; with Frank Stallone and Herbert Lom!) and BURIED ALIVE (1990)..
Surprisingly, not boring....
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.
this wasn't all that great.
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.
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..
very bad.
This depiction of Edgar Allen Poe's classic tale is a big joke.
I never bash movies but this film had unrealistic acting and came off to me a just plain humorous.
Retro 80's music is great, but fails to tell a valid story without seeming comical.
Tries to maintain seriousness but ultimately fails.
All of Oliver Reed's reaction scenes towards smells are too funny.
Possible conception of the house "settling" and falling apart may symbolize how Usher's decomposition in health is apparent.
The only reason you should consider viewing this film is the great Donald Pleasence plays Usher's brother.
Terrible looking fake sets combined with boring visuals leaves this film to be a yawner.
Unnecessary ending...Viewer beware!.
Dire adaptation of classic horror.
Harry ALan Towers' produced this, another remake of Poe's classic tale.
Oliver Reed does a lot of whispering and Donald Pleasence runs around a lot with his chainsaw.
Not really a very good film but worth a look for it's two stars, who are again lumbered with a none too bright script.The youngsters Rufus Swart and Romy Windsor are positively dire, but scenes like a hungry rat being placed on a man's privates are quite fun to watch..
House of Idiot.
Comment title paraphrases French & Saunders' skit on the 'The House of Elliot'.
But here, it's application is unquestionably adroit.A rare directorial effort from the man responsible for 1978's video-nasty-that-never-was, 'Killer's Moon', produced by soft-porn Eurotrash (ie TRASH, as in rubbish, junk) magnate Harry Alan Towers.A slightly modernised version of Poe's Gothic saga; due to the complete technical incompetence of the above pair all this has to offer, in the way of thrills, is shaking furniture and fires.
Pleasance jobs as the 'sinister' butler, which is at least a plot twist that affords him the opportunity to do something interestingly nasty (an off-screen incident involving an in-subservient maid's hand, and a meat mincer).An experience akin to scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel - only, from beneath..
Beyond awful.
This movies starts put okay, gets bad about a quarter of the way through, and just keeps getting worse and worse as it goes on.
Unless you are into really bad '80s horror I definitely suggest skipping this really horrible movie.
The only upside is Oliver Reed gives a pretty good (though disturbing) performance.
Pleasence really hams it up though.
This is a complete butchering of Poe's story.