“During the whole dull, dark, and soundless day in autumn of the year when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I have been passing alone, on horseback, though a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.”
In the majority of horror films that are made, it is the female body that is shown with a sense of eroticism or even disgust and revulsion. However, with AIP’s productions this was not the case. In The Fall of the House of Usher (Corman 1960), we see a man who is hysterical at times and dangling at the whim of his own fears for his family’s bloody history and behaving in a manner that would suggest that his masculinity is threatened. The role of Roderick Usher was played by Vincent Price and he pulled of a magnificent performance as an eccentric in his manner of acting. Although the name of the story come from another famous story by Edgar Allen Poe, the film does not stay true to the Poe story but veers from it to bring its own subplot with it own twists and turns creating more entertainment for the viewers.
Just like the story, the movie is very words and descriptive yet, the major difference is that it has its own subplots that propel the plot forward. In House of Usher, Roderick Usher is one of the two surviving members of an old family, which the word corrupt does not even begin to describe. They have been living in a decaying mansion for generations. Roderick is overly sensitive to every physical sensation, to the point where even footsteps on the carpet hurt his ears. Roderick calls it a “morbid acuteness of senses,” declaring that three quarters of the Usher family have fallen onto madness, and in their madness have acquired super human strength. His younger sister Madeline (Myrna Fahey), lives with him and their Butler Bristol, (Harry Ellerbe). They are all obviously more than a little peculiar and would live out their lives peacefully that way if it were not for the sister somehow being engaged to a normal person named Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon). This engagement is an addition to the Poe story that Corman did not bother to explain. The fiancé comes to the house one gloomy afternoon to take away his bride to be, but Roderick would not allow it. Roderick tells Philip, “You must leave this house now. It is not a healthy place for you to be.” And correct he is, as a falling chandelier almost levels the lovesick Philip on the first evening.
The over the top performance by Price shows something else in Roderick, a strangeness that puzzles the viewer giving a sense of some underling sinister feeling. In an article by Heffernan (Time, Sept 1st, 1961, P.50) he includes Price is one of his explanations when he calls him a “sort of sissified Bella Lugosi.” In a manner of speaking, it does describe his performance which is a bit stylized and exaggerated. This style of acting becomes so exaggerated and so predicable that a viewer will know what to expect if they are watching of the eight Poe adaptations by Corman. In Fall of the House of Usher we see Roderick with his many ailments doing and acting in such a way that makes him increasing feminine. There are times when he does behave like a man and that is to his sister which leaves the viewer noticing something awkward. In fact, there is a sort of love triangle that is set up and manages to draw out the original story’s incestuous implications. This may explain why Roderick has such a strong hold over Madeline. When confronted by Philip, Roderick’s manhood stands no chance against a ‘real’ man of the world without the ailments and tragedy that has him bound. In the last few minutes of the film there is a scene where Roderick grasps a gun, a symbol of the phallus for him. The gun was supposed to make him appear even more masculine but the location of the gun made the scene even stranger. It was inside a velvet red box. It is almost unthinkable for a man to be in possession of such a box to house a gun. The general scene was supposed to show that he takes hold of the gun; the symbol of his manhood in order to prove to his now deranged and absolutely insane sister Madeline that he is still a man. She was buried alive by him in the family vaults while in a cataleptic trance, and when the confronts him in her maddened state, his fear overwhelms him and he drops his phallus in the sight of his sister.
