House of Usher (1960) - film review

Philip Winthrop visits the house of Usher, a decaying mansion in a desolate area of misty swampland, with the intention of taking away his fiancée, Madeline.  He receives an ice-cold welcome from Madeline’s older brother, Roderick, a man who suffers from extreme hypersensitivity and an aversion to strangers.  Roderick insists that Madeline cannot leave the house and must not marry, since she, like him, is afflicted with an ancient family curse that is slowly draining away her life and driving her towards sanity.  Believing Roderick to be mad, Philip makes preparations to take Madeline from the house, but on the day of their departure she suddenly dies.  After her body has been laid to rest in the family crypt, Philip realises that she is still alive and resolves to free her.  But Madeline is no longer the sweet innocent girl he once knew...

By the late 1950s, director Roger Corman had earned a reputation as a master of the low budget horror film.  His early successes encouraged the execs at American International Pictures to up the ante and give him the time and the money to start making films that at least approximated to the standards of comparable Hollywood productions.  The gamble paid off spectacularly.  Although its budget was still modest by the standards of the major studios (just 350 thousand dollars, allowing for a 15-day shooting schedule), House of Usher was to be one of AIP’s most profitable films.  Over the decade that followed, the company derived a large chunk of its income from similar Gothic horror films, mirroring what a certain British film company named Hammer was doing in England at the time.

House of Usher was the first in a series of eight adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories to be directed by Roger Corman for AIP.  Most of these films featured Vincent Price in the kind of role (the sinister Gothic chatelain) in which he excelled.  The film is one of Corman’s best, a masterfully crafted, visually stunning spine-chiller that is laden with menace and suspense, and seasoned with more than a touch of the macabre.  The labyrinthine set, with its dark passages and shadowy baroque chambers, evokes a sense of stifling oppression which gives the evil that lurks at the heart of the story a terrifying physical presence.  The artistic highpoint is a nightmarish dream sequence, of the kind that Corman was particularly good at rendering on a miniscule budget.

Vincent Price is at his sinister best as the utterly creepy Roderick Usher.  For once, the actor eschews his usual camp histrionics and instead adopts a more subdued and measured style of acting, which gives him a more threatening and powerful screen presence than usual.  Screenwriter Richard Matheson gives Price some of his most memorable lines (including the legendary "Evil is not just a word -  it is a reality!").  It is small wonder that after this film Vincent Price would become virtually typecast in this kind of role for the rest of his career.  He played the part so damn well, and audiences loved him for it.

© James Travers 2009

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?