Roger Corman's film of the classic Edgar Allen Poe tale was the first of his string of Gothic hits in the '60s. All low budget and glossy looks, these were training manuals in style on spare means as Corman and his cohorts worked some serious magic. They gave their mid-century audiences a near antiquity the way that Poe himself set his tales in a long forgotten Europe that his American readers could thrill in. So much could be said under the guise of distant culture that would alert the censor if set contemporaneously. Twilight Zone alumnus Richard Matheson on the typewriter helped greatly with this.
Today, you might think they look like creaky old tv shows but spare a thought for the people who first saw them. Even by 1960 colour cinema was a rarity, especially on the skid row end of the spectrum. Colour horror movies, even rarer. Chuck anamorphic widescreen into the mix and your ticket is getting you some big time value. Usher cost $300K and made three times that in its first weeks. Creepy atmosphere, Vincent Price and the bankability of the ever popular Edgar Allen Poe had the title raking it in. Did they care about the big obvious painting of the house itself and how the interiors were lit for Jane Austen rather than Poe? Not a bit, everyone was used to it. It even added to the fantasical atmosphere. When Phillip requests that Roderick light a candle in the gloom, the flames don't make even a tiny difference. But if, by that, you haven't taken your cue to imagine more than you are seeing, the way you must in live theatre, maybe you shouldn't be watching this. Corman's disturbed home is one of old order in decay, silk on its way to dust before the house itself is swallowed by the mud of its foundation.
And yet, this is a film about something as vivacious as sex. You get only the slightest suggestion of physicality from the screen but it's there. If the dark vulval fissure on the side of the outside wall doesn't make you think of sex then Myrna Faye's woozy depiction of Madeline will. But this isn't steamy, sultry seduction, it's the sex of private thoughts forbidden from action, the grimy impulses and fetishism that allow Roderick's saucer-eyed protection of his sister look like some very dark matter. Phillip in his muted Regency finery gazing up at the crack in the wall gives us a barely more acceptable form of this. It's not that his thoughts turn sexy, anyone's would, it's that he can't tell the difference between the love he professes and the possession he effectively means.
And if the decadence of all that hazy desire weren't enough, Corman reveals a secret weapon. Roderick shows Phillip a range of ancestral portraits that come with narrated bios dripping with slave trading, addiction, sex trafficking and worse. Each of the paintings seems flown in from much later in the 1960s with their distorted faces and psychedelic colouring. These extraordinary pictures were created by commercial artist and fantasy painter Burt Shonberg whose work feels like a kind of bubblegum Beksinski but no less troubling for that with the damnation and chaos of their faces and settings. This goes perfectly with the atonal lute music that Les Baxter provided to give the Usher's achievements an unsettling sound.
If the younger cast, Mark Damon and Myrna Fahey, sound like they come from the same beach as Annette Funicello and Fabian the dour turn by Vincent Price puts them in perspective. Price uses his emotional elasticity within a narrow range, less abrupt shifts than localised stretches from his dour base demeanour. He's not just fighting the youngsters' rawness but the brightness of the interiors. Then, when the Gothic gets going in the crypt and everything gets a little gloomier, he turns it down to speak matter of factly of the horror of his family. When it is time to reveal Poe's explosive finale, all that camp and affectation are squeezed off screen by the now perfect lighting, close ups on eyes wide and crazy when they should be incorporeal, works as well as anything from the past few decades and almost approaches that scene in Black Narcissus for intensity. Corman saved the gem for last.
And then set the set on fire and then used that footage in every one. Well, it was costly to shoot and by the next one and all after that, who remembers what it looked like? It's the same with the colour and the bright interiors: he paid for it and he'll flaunt it. The fire at the end is disproportionate to the scene the way that waves in a water tank never look like ocean waves. But that's the story and the glory of the audacity. Shoot small and aim high. This model continues to serve those whose movies are made with little but who dream large.
Roger Corman employed scores of creative people in his extended stable and most of them went on to careers including Scorsese, Coppola, Jack Nicholson and many more and whether the title was from Poe or seemingly generated from a theme card shuffle like Monsters of Skull Reef, it was headed for a real cinema and seen by many. As with many working on the fringes, Corman's works found a haven in late night TV and home video. His recent death (2024) left a wake of a massive filmography and waves of influence.
The House of Usher was made the way it was when the dollar for the microbudget exploitationers he'd started with dried up and he needed a new channel of inspiration. In one of those moves that made careers of Wes Craven and John Carpenter, he took a breath, retooled the workshop and changed the way his movies looked and felt. For all the stagey performances and chipboard walls he fashioned worlds that felt like themselves. There are other titles just in this Poe cycle that are held in loftier regard and I can see why. Nevertheless, it's Usher's brashness and energy that remembers when it must step back and breathe before delivering its chills, that draws me back again and again.
Viewing notes: I watched my Arrow Blu-Ray from the Six Gothic Tales box set which is a must for Corman/Poe movies (though by no means complete). Available to rent through AppleTV.
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