If there is one thing I intended to do with my life, it was to not have children. I have been successful in that goal, though many might think that was a dubious achievement. By withholding my genes from the pool, it’s like I committed a genocide of one.
For better or worse, it puts me in the company of Vincent Price’s character in 1960’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Then again, he is mentally unstable here, and he also has blonde hair, which is not a good look for him. He’s also a sensitive lad, saying three-quarters of his family suffers “from a morbid acuteness of the senses.” Because of this (well, supposedly because of this), the dark, dreary mansion always has the curtains closed, so as to block out the sun. So, I guess he’s the prototype emo boy then.
Myrna Fahey is his sister and she doesn’t seem to suffer like he does. Mark Damon is her fiancée, and he doesn’t see anything wrong with her when he comes to take her away. You can already tell Price is not happy with that possibility, but he becomes terrified at the thought of them continuing the family bloodline.
This is one wacky family. Similar to other films of this type, the relationship between brother and sister scans unnervingly closer to husband and wife. Price occasionally entertains them (or, at least, himself), with his lute playing, which is truly magical, as it sure sounds to me like a harpsichord is playing on the soundtrack.
The titular house and grounds have some issues as well. It isn’t a spoiler to say the house is subjected to earth tremors, as that is advertised in the title. What struck me as odd is Price isn’t tormented by the sound of those, given his super-sensitive hearing. As for the grounds, the lack of vegetation is attributed by Price to a “plague of evil”, when it looks more likely to have been the work of a plague of weevils.
He is insistent generations of his family were evil, and it is hard to argue that when you see the portraits of them. I wonder if they gave specific instructions to their portrait artists to give each of them red eyes. And then there’s the expressions of each. If I didn’t know any better, these are either Stanley Donwood artworks rejected by Radiohead or caricatures of the members of a goth band.
Damon is determined to keep Fahey upbeat, or at least to get her to eat. At least, that’s what I assume he was trying to do when he tells her, “Now to fill you with hot gruel and good cheer!” That, or he has a really weird word he uses for his jizz.
But then Fahey ends up dead and her brother is determined to have her interred in the family crypt as fast as possible. As this is an adaptation of a Poe story, one should have in mind from the beginning the potential for a premature burial. Also, why did castles and old mansions always seem to have a crypt and a torture chamber? I like to imagine asking for directions to where she’s buried and being told to just hang a left at the dungeon. I also wonder what those places do nowadays if they want to remodel. My guess is these become bourbon basements.
The Fall of the House of Usher is another of the Poe adaptations Roger Corman directed for American International. It is a solid film, and recommended for those who are predisposed to such fare, though this isn’t as good as either The Pit and the Pendulum or The Masque of the Red Death. Still, it can teach you a valuable lesson about not having children and, if you do, to be careful naming them if you do have any. Fahey character is named Madeiline, which can be shortened to “Mad”, and a name can sometimes determine a person’s destiny.
Dir: Roger Corman
Starring Vincent Price, Mark Damon, Myrna Fahey
Watched as part of Shout Factory’s blu-ray box set The Vincent Price Collection