House of Usher (1960) by Roger Corman

Director: Roger Corman

Year: 1960

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: The Fall of the House of Usher

Genre: Supernatural

Plot:

Arriving at his fiancée's mansion, a man looking to retrieve her so that they can be married together finds that her controlling brother is trying to remove him before a terrible family curse takes hold of them, and tries to ensure her safety before it can come to pass.

Review:

This is one of the best in the Corman/Price/Poe series. Being the official start of the series, the Gothic atmosphere surrounding the film is completely overwhelming and at times can suffocate with its dread. There are numerous encounters here filled with old, creaky caskets, a long, winding staircase into the darkness, and cobwebbed decor surrounding the rooms, while featuring candle-lit lighting and large, opulent splendor that's bright and spacey, which solidifies its true Gothic mindset. That goes hand-in-hand with the fact that the castle grounds are in the traditional Victorian style on fog-covered grounds, dark, dead trees, and musky swamplands, and it makes the sequences showing it pretty spooky.

Likewise, the curse befalling the family is quite chilling, with the line of history and how it's doomed to repeat itself, making for a great revelation that jumps off quite fittingly from the house's location and surroundings into the big plot point about her being accidentally buried alive to fulfill the family curse. That also leads into the film's great action scenes, where their first trip in the basement is a great set-piece that has a great shock, effectively using a skeleton in the casket, while a dream sequence also comes off rather well, as it's pretty creepy for the time and actually came as a surprise.

Still, it's the final half hour that scores so well here, as that is one continuous Gothic set-piece with the banging doors, the blaring thunderstorm in the background, and the thrilling resurrection that is cleverly done showing a close-up following of a blood-trail along the floor out of the crypt back into the house and leading into the big final fight that makes this a spectacular series of events. The conflagration at the end is an only more than appropriate ending, as it's action-packed and suspenseful in its own way, serves itself well with the great brawl for the Gothic-styled revenge, which is a great ending to the series of events and ends it on a high note. Perhaps the best part, though, is Price's creepy performance as Roderick Usher. He gives one of his best performances, being creepy, mysterious, and fun to watch as well, and it is certainly a career highlight in that respect.

These here make this quite a spectacular effort that does have more than enough to overcome the one minor flaw in here. There is really only one thing that holds this back, as every now and then, Price's constant speeches about not understanding the Usher curse got old. It wouldn't take up that much to officially explain what happened, and it would take away from the speeches and get to the story, so that kind of sticks out here. Though some may have a problem about how close it is to Poe's story, that's a viewer-discrepancy issue rather than anything to do with the actual film itself, and really isn't a detriment like the other factor is.

Overview: *****/5

A true Price/Corman/Poe gothic classic, there's quite a lot of standout elements here that make this one of the finest Gothic horror efforts not just in the period but the genre as a whole. Those with an appreciation for this era of filmmaking, who are curious about it, or who are fans of the creative crew, will have a lot to like here, as most others might want to heed caution.