Movie · 1960 · Horror, Drama · 1h 19m · NR · English
Curator score: 6.6/10 (17.5K ratings)
Edgar Allan Poe's demonic tale of The Ungodly... The Evil House of Usher
Overview
Convinced that his family is tainted by generations of evil, Roderick Usher is hellbent on stopping his sister Madeline’s wedding to prevent the cursed Usher bloodline from expanding. When her fiancé Philip Winthrop arrives at the crumbling estate to claim his bride, Roderick goes to ruthless—even deadly—lengths to keep them apart.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.6/10
IMDb: 6.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
Metacritic: 75
TMDB: 6.7/10
Director
Roger Corman
Production
Alta Vista Productions, American International Pictures
Cast
Vincent Price, Mark Damon, Myrna Fahey, Harry Ellerbe, David Andar, Bill Borzage, Mario Bellini, Eleanor LeFaber, Nadajan, Ruth Oklander, George Paul, Géraldine Paulette, Phil Sulvestre, John Zimeas
Where to watch
Eternal Family
Curator Review
Verdict
A compact, atmospheric Gothic horror built around crumbling architecture, family rot, and Vincent Price’s commanding performance. It’s more mood and design than plot mechanics, but that’s exactly where it excels.
Best for
Fans of classic Gothic horror
Viewers who love stylized production design and color
Edgar Allan Poe adaptations
Vincent Price enthusiasts
People in the mood for autumnal, old-dark-house atmosphere
Skip if
You want fast pacing or modern scares
You need deep character development
You dislike theatrical, stagey performances
You prefer gore-heavy horror
You’re looking for a faithful, text-heavy Poe adaptation
Overview
Roger Corman’s House of Usher is a lean, elegantly decayed piece of American Gothic. The film turns a single collapsing mansion into a pressure chamber for inherited guilt, illness, and obsession, with every corridor and portrait adding to the sense that the house is already dead before anyone arrives.
Worth noting
Vincent Price is the film’s great attraction, playing Roderick Usher as both aristocratic victim and active menace. The performance is heightened, but the movie’s visual strategy supports it: saturated color, shadowy interiors, and baroque set dressing make the estate feel like a living organism slowly giving way to rot.
Bottom line
The young lovers are less memorable than the atmosphere around them, which is part of the film’s charm and limitation. If you want a polished, moody, old-school horror film that prioritizes dread, decor, and doomed lineage over shocks, this is an easy recommendation.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Ian West (4★) · 392 likes
Corman’s Poe cycle kickstarter is an economical and atmospheric visual feast—decorated with beautiful sets, matte paintings, and gothadelic sequences to die for... plus the murderous house in this gives off major ‘ding dong you’re dead!’ vibes to any visitor stupid enough to enter. Starting off the fall season by revisiting these movies has been an excellent decision... House of Usher is an atmos heavy winner if you ask me... complete with yet another untouchable Price performance—that blonde hair!!
SilentDawn (5★) · 387 likes
97
The perennial 1960s American Gothic setting, and a mood-board for spooky, autumnal vibes. The Usher mansion itself being a monument to the fissures of familial desolation, from mental illness to egomania and the lingering, perpetual stench of Death rising from the crypt. Probably Roger Corman's most tasteful Poe adaptation, and so assured that its moments of dreamy color and swift action are both visceral and psychological. The House is constructed initially as having only two spaces, the grand entrance… more
kat🕷 (4★) · 266 likes
I find the atmosphere in this house and the art on the walls really scary in it‘s best way. Also the morbid nature of Roderick Usher played by Vincent Price, who even manages to make a simple "Good morning" sound meaningful, is excellent.
nathaxnne [goodbye <3] (5★) · 233 likes
What we know as Life is but the Larval stage of the Great Conqueror Worm. What we understand as health is but the prelude to illness. What we see as sanity is but the first symptoms of madness. There is a Vast Edifice of Negation, a Mansion with Many Rooms which descends ever deeper into the earth, farther down than even the earth can go. The vapors which weep up from the vents is but the faint stirring breath of… more What we know as Life is but the Larval stage of the Great Conqueror Worm. What we understand as health is but the prelude to illness. What we see as sanity is but the first symptoms of madness. There is a Vast Edifice of Negation, a Mansion with Many Rooms which descends ever deeper into the earth, farther down than even the earth can go. The vapors which weep up from the vents is but the faint stirring breath of… more
sakana1 (3.5★) · 172 likes
True gothic magic, anchored by Mark Damon's determinedly bland, clueless horror white guy hero Philip Winthrop, and his physical and emotional opposite, bleach-haired Vincent Price as Roderick Usher, glorying in his own noisy, performative fragility. It's wonderful to watch the two play off one another: dark and solid against pale and angular; fierce combativeness against resigned submission; bursting life against waiting death.
The whole package is just as good as you'd expect, and includes visual flourishes (the color saturated nightmare,… more