The Fall of the House of Usher

1950
4.7| 1h10m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 01 June 1950 Released
Producted By: Vigilant
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

A traveler arrives at the Usher mansion to visit his old friend, Roderick Usher. Upon arriving, however, he discovers that Roderick and his sister, Madeline, have been afflicted with a mysterious malady: Roderick's senses have become painfully acute, while Madeline has become nearly catatonic. That evening, Roderick tells his guest of an old Usher family curse: any time there has been more than one Usher child, all of the siblings have gone insane and died horrible deaths. As the days wear on, the effects of the curse reach their terrifying climax.

Genre

Horror

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Director

Ivan Barnett

Production Companies

Vigilant

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The Fall of the House of Usher Audience Reviews

Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place
Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.
WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
vfx3 I saw this on TCM (and I do appreciate them showing it) but I found the film unbelievably amateurish, like something made by a Kinema Club in the late forties. It seemed to be filmed over a long period of time, with gaps in continuity and actors. Probably was some home-grown experiment that someone (must have been desperate) thought could be a commercial property, and they tacked on a prologue and epilogue filmed by a different director. The scenes in the crypt have a gruesome directness that seems strangely contemporary, and my only praise is for the actress who plays the old woman: she has a nice intensity. I agree with the other reviewer that this would embarrass even Edward D. Wood, Jr! Horrible musical score.
preppy-3 VERY loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story. Jonathan (Irving Steen) pays a visit to childhood friend Roderick Usher (Kaye Tendeter). He finds Roderick terribly depressed and his sister Madeline Usher (Gwen Witford) suffering some kind of illness. And what's in that old house in the woods?They took the main characters from the book, added new ones, changed the ending of the story but it still works. It is slow-moving, static and has bad dialogue but I've seen worse. There's an eerie atmosphere throughout with spooky music and depressing dark sets. The acting isn't half bad but only Witford went on to a career in the field. It all ends on a dark and stormy night which is actually quite chilling. A pretty good unknown horror film. I give it a 7.
SSteveL This film might be worth a look for horror buffs and Poe completists, but others beware.There are a few highlights. A framing device has Poe's title story being read aloud at a modern-day men's club. The sequence in which the narrator rides to the Usher house is faithful to Poe's description of the countryside. The creeping hag (not in the original tale) could be nightmare fuel for sensitive viewers.Flaws include flat acting, terrible additional (non-Poe) dialogue, shots that drag on pointlessly, and illogical character behaviour (e.g., no search for, or even concern about, the hag intruder). Absurdly, the narrating character disappears early in the story and is absent for half the film, a 30-minute segment which consists of a silly, incongruous, gratuitous subplot cooked up by the screenwriters (and which resembles Joseph Payne Brennan's 1963 short story "The Horror at Chilton Castle", itself perhaps based on a legend of Scotland's Glamis Castle) and crudely shoehorned into Poe's narrative to explain the family curse.There were strange errors. The exterior of the house, for example, is represented by three distinct buildings, one of which is clearly revealed as a model (and which differs in appearance from the other two) in the climax by the small scale of the flames that engulf it. When Roderick Usher hammers nails into the lid of his sister's coffin, the blows are obviously without real force, and when Madeline later breaks out, the underside of the lid is devoid of nails and their holes.
Sir_SK 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?)