Synopsis
Convinced that his family’s blood is tainted by generations of evil, Roderick Usher is hell-bent on destroying his sister Madeline’s wedding to prevent the cursed Usher bloodline from extending any further. When her fiancé, Philip Winthrop, arrives at the crumbling family estate to claim his bride, Roderick goes to ruthless lengths to keep them apart.
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Cast
- Vincent PriceRoderick Usher
- Mark DamonPhilip Winthrop
- Myrna FaheyMadeline Usher
- Harry EllerbeBristol
- David AndarGhost (uncredited)
- Bill BorzageGhost (uncredited)
- Mario BelliniGhost (uncredited)
- Eleanor LeFaberGhost (uncredited)
- NadajanGhost (uncredited)
- Ruth OklanderGhost (uncredited)
Recommendations
- 100
Austin Chronicle
Corman's legendary parsimony has rarely been so inobvious; House of Usher has the look and feel of a film made for far more than its tiny $200K budget (and on a tight, 15-day shooting schedule). Its authentically creepy dream-sequence – all grasping hands and hazy blue-gelled fog swirls – is a minor surrealist masterpiece by its own right. - 80
The Dissolve
Working from a script by Richard Matheson that spins Poe’s story to feature length, Corman, cinematographer Floyd Crosby (father of David), and composer and exotica icon Les Baxter create a hallucinatory swirl of a movie that has the feel of an especially sharp nightmare. - 80
Time Out
The first of Corman's eight-film Poe cycle, and one of his most faithful adaptations. Price is his usual impressive self as the almost certainly incestuously inclined Roderick Usher who, having buried his sister alive when she falls into a cataleptic trance, becomes the victim of her ghostly revenge; but it is Corman's overall direction that lends the film its intelligence and power. - 80
The Guardian
The movie, shot in CinemaScope and colour, is punctuated by shocking moments, but is more notable for its claustrophobic, doom-laden, necrophilic atmosphere and elegant camerawork than the kind of fashionable, in-your-face horror that was launched in the same year by Psycho. - 75
Chicago Reader
Corman's filmmaking runs on unchanneled energy and apocalyptic emotions; his is an art without craft. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Price is wonderful as the spooky owner, but the other three players are merely adequate. But still a superlative Corman/AIP effort and a great beginning to a varying but always interesting series of horror films. - 70
Variety
In patronizingly romanticizing Poe's venerable prose, scenarist Richard Matheson has managed to preserve enough of the original's haunting flavor and spirit. The elaborations change the personalities of the three central characters, but not recklessly so. - 50
The New York Times
Under the low-budget circumstances, Vincent Price and Myrna Fahey should not be blamed for portraying the decadent Ushers with arch affectation, nor Mark Damon held to account for the traces of Brooklynese that creep into his stiffly costumed impersonation of the mystified interloper.
