31 Days of Horror: The Fall of the House of Usher

Roger Corman is the master of the low budget quickie. Over the years he has as a producer produced some of the cheapest pieces of crap to grace the screen. But he also helped start the careers of several of biggest names in Hollywood (Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson). And as a director he has made some very entertaining films. When Corman teamed up with novelist Richard Matheson (I am Legend) and actor Vincent Price in the 1960's to adapt some Edgar Allen Poe's stories- it created some of the best Poe adaptations to hit the big screen.

The first collaboration resulted in this film The Fall of the House of Usher (or just House of Usher) which is easily the best of the eight films that Corman made (or seven if you consider The Haunted Palace to be a name only connection to Poe - the story was from H.P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.) Corman and Matheson would only collaborate on four of these films.

There has been at least thirteen adaptations of The Fall of the House of Usher. Most of them are terrible - but Corman and Price have managed to create a stylish and creepy film.

Price's Usher is a demented shell of a man who is obsessed with his sister(Myrna Fahey). And when Mark Damon shows up at the House of Usher to marry Fahey - Price doesn't takes the news to well. Price informs him that the line of Usher is cursed - that they all go mad eventually. Damon doesn't believe him. And then the fun really begins.