It is estimated that, to buy a house in the early twenty-first century, in the first of the third millennium (maybe people are reading this in the future, who knows), you should expect a median home to cost around five hundred thousand dollars, depending on what part of the country you live in (and how much wood costs on average). So, maybe it’s better to build a house, yet even then it costs you somewhere around four hundred thousand dollars or more, depending on supply and demand of materials (and how much you can get for your firstborn and your left arm). With all this in mind, plus if it rains, the shelter made out of Amazon boxes will turn into a flare rate, it might be best to pretend to live in a house, because dreams are free. However, let’s make sure it’s a dream home and not an omnipresent nightmare, because if the imaginary house you concoct (in your sick little mind) looks like a ghastly brick house, covered in rotting vines and spalling due to the efflorescence in the middle of a matte-painted forest, you might not want to sign the illusory mortgage (unless you get a fanciful .02% interest rate, then quill away on the dotted line). Festering mansions and shady abodes have haunted the horror stories since Ugg was too afraid to venture into the dark cave yonder, no other house has ever creaked in the hideous hearts of evil men (studio executives) like Edgar Allan Poe’s House of Usher from his 1839 tiny (home) terror story, but one such director was brave enough to move into the daunting residence, and that was Roger Corman for his 1960 ever so faithful (umm…) adaptation of House of Usher, a chimerical for all involved which would prove Poe was right when he (un)happily wrote “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream… of box office receipts!”
To locate the exact source of what inspired Edgar Allan Poe to build this maniac mansion of psychological (and foundational) breakdowns, (familiar) love triangles, and catalepsy is hard to pinpoint to one exact thing, but upon studying the author’s work, there does tend to be a relatable theme to the works of Corman: both men never had a dime! Truthfully, Corman was in reality the complete opposite of his oft-go-to penman, having erected many fine houses with the wealth these movies brought him, whereas Poe died in the middle of the street without a penny forth to his mystical name. For having their two names forever bound in the eternal foundation of Hollyweird lore, the only reason Corman even approached to adapt this story for his first collaboration was that the tale resided in the old folks home of Public Domain Village (terrible location, but affordable property taxes). Having convinced the producers at American International Pictures to give Corman a decent budget to get a worthy actor (the legendary Gothic actor Vincent Price) and some decent sets lensed with the picturesque aid of Technicolor film stock, the only issue producer Samuel Z. Arkoff felt was that Corman’s pitch had no physical monster. Corman looked him dead in the eye and said, “The house is the monster!” Sold (and above asking price)! Not knowing if the Drive-In teeny-boppers used to viewing (or hearing in the background as they made out) killer crabs and teenage werewolves would go for a movie based on English homework they let their dog eat, Corman put together a crack (better tuckpoint soon) team along with Price, including Golden-Globe winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby (High Noon), composer Les Baxter (who would conduct the scores for several Corman pictures, including a few of his other Poe projects), and for the screenplay, he hired a best-selling novelist who had never done a screenplay before but was familiar with houses of the unholy, Richard Matheson (I Am Legend and Stir of Echoes). Pushing everyone to new levels (four levels and an attic), and taking his time instead of quickly moving on to other shots, Corman’s risk on Poe was a staging success, bringing in one-and-a-half million dollars on a budget the mere cost of a modern home (back then). If AIP and Corman were worried the deep, dank tarn at their feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher, then the weekend box-office receipts made an insufferable joy pervading their money-grubbing hearts (and property values).
“I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results,” Roderick Usher (diabolically played by a blonde Price) laments to his sister Madeline Usher’s betrothed boy-toy Winthrop (Mark Damon), who has come upon the House of the Ushers to take her hand in marriage. However, Roderick must apologize for his sister’s delusion of ever being happy, as there is a curse upon the very foundation of the Usher name and humble home. Indeed, as the house’s soul rots away, so do their own. Ever determined, Winthrop poo-poos these wildish ideas of nonsense and tries to steal her away… until she unexpectedly dies… or does she? Fever-dreamed with vivid colors, some of the best acting in Corman’s career, and a true document of early practical effects done well on the cheap, the first of the Corman/Poe adaptations should be appraised for its fair market value.
Investing equity at a ranch-style seventy-nine minutes, this film, along with several of the adaptations, has had overs passed on because of the filmmaker’s liberal use of turning short ten-page stories into feature-length films (talk about floatable mortgages). You can find most of these on home video and streaming, but take a free flyer at the open house that details the fantastic special features on the Blu-ray editions from Shout! Factory’s Vincent Price collections. So, if you’re in the mood to relocate to a spacious dwelling in the countryside, be like Poe when he (might have) written, “Dreams are only memories of the plans I had back then. Dreams are eraser dust, and now I use a pen to sign the foreclosure documents.”
