REVENGE
IN THE HOUSE OF USHER (1982)Director: Jess Franco
Image Entertainment
REVENGE
IN THE HOUSE OF USHER (1982)In Jess Franco's "loose" adaptation of Poe's "Fall Of The House Of Usher," the hairy Dr. Alan Harker (Franco regular Antonio Mayans -- aka Robert Foster) pays visit to the castle of his former university professor, Dr. Eric Usher (doctor?), played by the incredible Howard Vernon--who here resembles the 80-something Tony Randall of today. Said to be hundreds of years old, Usher is paranoid and has constant hallucinations. Harker tries to help, but he encounters lots of strange occurrences in the castle including some young girls being drained of blood to revive the old man's comatose daughter.
The film is padded with choice scenes from the black & white THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF, made by Franco 20 years earlier, and attempts to rework the younger Vernon's Orlof character as Usher. Used as a flashback to recount Usher's past, the film's character of Morpho (an ugly robotic stooge servant) is played by a different actor (Olivier Mathot) in the newer footage. He now has exaggerated makeup exhibiting one hideous eye widely open while the other is shut, not to mention a silver Andy Warhol-type wig. The new Morpho doesn't do much except hover over Usher's barely breathing daughter.
Other attractions include Franco's wife Lina Romay as Usher's unfaithful lover/servant, his wife roaming around as a bloodthirsty apparition, and a fatal game of "Ring Around the Rosie" (I kid you not!). Even Franco's main film composer Daniel White gets to act as Dr. Seward.
Definitely the kind of film you might have to watch in installments (because you'll become as comatose as Usher's daughter while viewing), Franco reverts back to gothic inspiration and it owes a lot to several other Poe stories (Morpho's unsightly pupil recalls "The Tell Tale Heart"), and even a bit of Stoker's Dracula. It's pretty tame overall, especially when you consider how obsessed Franco was with zooming into female crotches during this period in numerous other efforts.
The dubbing is horrendous (Mayans' Harker sounds amazingly like Canadian comedian Harold Ramis), with laughable dialog (when a servant asks if there's anything else he can do, Usher replies, "Yes, you can drop dead") and although the period castle setting is lavish, an electric meter lazily remains in an outdoor shot. Watch as the finale--the fall of the house--is depicted through shaky camera motions and unconvincing props dropping from above.
Previously available on VHS from the now defunct Wizard video, Image's DVD is letterboxed in the film's original 1.78:1 aspect ratio, and it's 16x9 enhanced. The picture composition is now rectified, and the colors look rich for a cheap film. Image's transfer is culled from the original Eurocine negative source (the onscreen title reads "Neurosis") Besides the English one, there is an alternate French language track. Also included is the European theatrical trailer (the film never made it to U.S. theaters). (George R. Reis)