Rainey Dawn An amazing short film from 1928. Simply brilliant. The cinematography is is artful - extremely, brilliantly artful. This Gothic short film will leave lasting images in the viewers mind.The Poe's short story is told so elegantly well in this short silent film - it's something one has to actually see for yourself in order to appreciate it because no words can describe it.This a masterpiece in short silent films. This is a film that fans of all (or most) Gothic horror stories, Edgar Allan Poe and of silent film buffs should see at least once in their lifetime. It is not disappointing.10/10

Polaris_DiB Watson's and Webber's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is not necessarily a film meant to be consumed as that particular form and medium, but actually a showcase of their technological experiments. At heart, it is a straight-forward German Expressionist film: stage quality is emphasized, enormous love of chiaroscuro, and both set design and costume is marked by sharp black and white contrast. The two add to the effect by dislocating the viewer through the use of split-screens, prisms, and elliptical editing, effects that were popular among experimentalists of the silent era, but which unfortunately did not find popular response enough to turn into a normal mode of representation today--which is unfortunate because it does fit well into the Gothic style of horror Edgar Allen Poe is most famous for, and because Watson and Webber were both involved with poetry and were basically making a quite poetic cinematic form. The best I can tell, cinepoems died soon after the coming of sound, once dialog helped reinforce the desire in most audiences to really understand characters and narrative plots and stylistic explorations became special effects. However, the fascination with the fragmentation of reality (even Gothicly or Romantically) persisted in underground film-making, eventually leading the way to the likes of Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage. And of course, it's still fascinating to watch today.--PolarisDiB

MartinHafer The film may be one you will enjoy, but this really is strongly dependent on the type of person you are. If you CAN allow yourself to see a strange Avant Garde-style film that is reminiscent of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, then you might just enjoy this film. Otherwise, it will probably be a very confusing film that only superficially seems like the Poe story. It's really all a matter of just "turning off your brain" and enjoying the strange imagery and bizarre camera-work. It IS very inventive and almost hypnotic at times and looks like a film I would expect to see being played in a gallery of modern art or in a strange little coffee house where everyone wears berets and listens to free-form jazz.

culliton This film is a wonderful impressionistic condensation of the major themes of Poe's story. I have used it in class (11th grade), and many students have been enthralled and entrances (a difficult result to produce from teens for from a silent film)! Although the costuming and much of the general appearance is seemingly Art-Deco, the film retains many of the important elements of the story. It seems to portray the interpretation that Roderick poisoned Madeline, as one of may possible interpretations of the story. Because it is so impressionistic it -- like Poe's original story-- contains many levels of meaning and lends itself to many interpretations.