lonchaney20 I checked this obscure British horror film out after reading that it's a personal favorite of French critic Alain Petit (an early champion of and collaborator with Jess Franco). Despite it barely running over an hour, Barnett opens his film with a banal and unnecessary wraparound segment in which a bunch of snobs at a "Gentlemen's Club" start arguing about the merits of horror stories. A doctor (played by the utterly forgettable Vernon Charles) mentions that his favorite horror story is Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," then grabs a Poe collection off of a nearby shelf and begins to read it to the other club members. Evidently he gets bored with Poe's original story, because he starts making up a bunch of crazy nonsense about torture chambers, old hags, and demonic severed heads that can only be killed with fire - all things that Poe was famous for.Admittedly I was extremely tired and may or may not have dreamed half of this, but the story (or what fraction of it I could make out through the muffled audio) concerns a curse put on Roderick and Madeline Usher after their father beheads his wife's lover, having caught them making whoopee in the local torture chamber. The curse, as the family butler tells Roderick in the exposition-heavy opening, can only be ended by setting the head on fire, but it's guarded by a deadly hag - none other than their long lost mother! If they fail to burn the head, then Roderick and his sister will die when they turn thirty. The first half hour or so thus deals with attempts by the butler and Roderick to get the head, which predictably end with a family friend getting brutally murdered while Roderick and his faithful butler flee like the cowards they are. After this the butler claims that the only other way for Roderick to save his own life is to murder his sister (the logic of this completely eludes me), to which end they start poisoning her nightly milk, Hitchcock-style. Only in the last twenty minutes or so do we finally get to a reasonably faithful adaptation of Poe's story.There is a lot to recommend about this film: the moody, low-key cinematography by director Barnett is often stunning, evoking both German Expressionism and Carl Dreyer's Vampyr. I was also intrigued by Barnett's unconventional, almost somnambulistic handling of the film's action scenes, which largely play out in wide shots and without any music, anticipating Jean Rollin by almost two decades. Speaking of Rollin, I feel this film gave me greater insight into why his films are better appreciated outside of France. As I noted, Petit was a huge fan of this film, blown away by its strange visuals and dreamlike horror. As an English-speaking viewer, however, I found my enjoyment somewhat hindered by the wooden dialogue and even more wooden performances. French viewers frequently complain about these things in Rollin's work, so I felt this gave me a taste of how his work might play to the average French viewer. That said, there is a poetic vision at work in Rollin that I didn't detect here; it's beautifully photographed, yes, but ultimately rather hollow and lacking in sincerity. While I appreciate the oddball touches that Barnett and company add to Poe's story, it's not nearly enough for me to recommend this as some lost classic. If you can only bring yourself to watch one obscure Usher adaptation, check out the Spanish version of Jess Franco's El hundimiento de la casa Usher (1983) instead.(It should be noted this film occasionally plays on TCM, but I watched a mediocre bootleg copy which may have been missing about ten minutes. It was already too long at one hour and two minutes, so I can only imagine what excitement I missed out on.)

Lee Eisenberg This 1949 British version of Edgar Allan Poe's story isn't as fun as Roger Corman's version starring Vincent Price but it still has its charms. It goes more for cheap shocks than atmosphere. They gave it an interesting angle with the framing device of a gentleman's club, although it's not until towards the end that the movie really gets going. Basically, "The Fall of the House of Usher" is an OK movie to watch around Halloween. I don't know most of the cast, but it turns out that Gwen Watford (Madeline) played Wendy's mother in Richard Attenborough's "Cry Freedom" (about anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko).Corny, but fun.

Hitchcoc This is an adequate psychological ghost story. There are similarities between it and the Poe story. But there are so many additional distractions that one has a hard time seeing the general point. Roderick and Madeline Usher are the last in line and they are as cracked at the building in which they live (if you can call it live). Roderick's friend Jonathan comes to visit and I guess his only reason for being there is to tell the story. People get murdered. There are agendas that weren't in the original. There are lots of good atmospheric shots. But the pacing of this movie is so slow. If someone walks to the old temple, we see every footstep. When the old lady leaves the temple and goes to the house, she plods along, on step at a time. If this film had been edited properly, it would have lasted about forty minutes. Still, perhaps the effort was worthwhile.

Jamie O'Halleron (lynchboy2001) I stayed up the other night until 2am so I could see The Fall of the House of Usher, believing it to be the Vincent Price/Roger Corman classic. When I found out it wasn't I gave this film a try, being an Edgar Allan Poe fan. For my troubles I got this tripe, a boring film with a skewered storyline, cardboard acting (especially the actors in the gentlemen's club!), & a cheap imitation on a literary classic (note daylight in the night scenes!). This kind of film would make Edward Wood Jr. blush, and makes films like the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series look lavish & expensive. Please, if you ever think of watching this, don't, it is pure rubbish!