ThiefHott Too much of everything

Nonureva Really Surprised!

Micitype Pretty Good

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

kosmasp First of all, due to the age of the film it does feel a bit dated in some respects. And it's not about the fact, that there is no audio dialog, rather written text box slided every now and then (if you've seen a few older "silent" movies, you know what I mean), but the film itself, the pictures. All that is down to pictures per second, which make movies seem "akward" nowadays (you can find articles about that if you search for them).Setting all that aside, it's a powerful story and therefor a powerful movie. I did attend a screening though that was a modernized version. They put modern music over the whole music which not only felt wrong, but was wrong. That particular screening/movie would've gotten a maximum of 3 points from me, but I'm not letting that influence my voting as you can see. I'm just warning you not to watch that version yourself, because it is really horrible and out of tune ... literally. Watch the original, even if it has edits and pictures that you are used to by know, because they have been done so many times ... remember: this is (one of the examples) where they set the blueprints for things to come

Coventry First and foremost: I love the tale of "House of Usher", regardless of which film version, and I try to encourage as many people as humanly possible to check out this haunting story of agony and Gothic damnation … So, I swear, if one more person replies me with: "Usher? … Oh, you mean the R&B singer? Yeah, he's cool", then I swear I will go Edgar Allan Poe on his/her ass! Thank you. Admittedly I'm not much of an art connoisseur, but I reckon this silent classic is pure and genuine art! It's a stunningly beautiful, haunting, surreal and absorbing impressionistic interpretation of Poe's short story. The plot is undeniably subsequent to the atmosphere and choreography, and I actually don't recognize the storyline from the other versions I've seen. In the other versions, for example the awesome Roger Corman production starring the almighty Vincent Price, the Usher kinship is cursed and continuously being punished for the crimes committed by their evil ancestors. Here, it's actually just Sir Roderick Usher who's obsessed with painting a portrait of his lovely wife Madeleine, only … The nearer the painting comes to completion, the more his wife weakens due to a strange illness. After her death and burial service, Sir Roderick becomes increasingly mad with the restless ghost of his Madeleine still prowling through the house. The story is often confusion and open for various interpretations, but the wholesome is just downright visually stunning! Director Jean Epstein, with the more than noticeable influence of his young and upcoming assistant director Louis Buñuel, generates an atmosphere that is morbid, depressing and hypnotic from start to finish and multiple sequences are hauntingly surreal; like the funeral march and the storm. I watched the 1997 restored version, during a special film festival where there was a professional pianist providing live musical guidance, and it was one of the most culturally engaged moments of my life. Art like this will surely survive for yet another hundred years.

Helbodk My expectations were soaring as I pressed play on my DVD-player, and when Epstein's vision came to life I knew this would become one of my favorite movies. But why? Well first of all it opened up the door to a phantasmagorial universe of beauty and gloom, which I have only witnessed in one more movie; namely Vampyr by Carl Th. Dreyer. It is difficult to explain, but the beauty of horror has a dimension which transcends the beauty of the normal world. A beauty trapped inside a nightmare, so to speak. Lady Madeline is the embodiment of this idea, being trapped inside a crypt, buried alive! I will keep on searching for more of these black diamonds, but I fear that I have already found the most precious ones...

Lechuguilla Predictably morbid and grim, this early cinematic tribute to Poe offers some interesting images and beautifully haunting music. I liked the sequence showing the lace-draped coffin, as it was carried out of that cavernous room.More stylistic than substantive, the overall effect of the film is to engender a sense of suffocating gloom, rather than to tell an interesting story. It's very much like what one would expect in a nightmare. Space seems strung-out. People are not quite real. Pacing is so slow as to render time suspended between two swings of the clock pendulum.I don't recall a film that conveyed such an overwhelming sense of introverted bleakness, oppression, and ubiquitous death. Even the trees were dead.A lot of viewers will find this film lifeless ... so to speak. But for those interested in the antiquity of the occult, or Poe in particular, this film will excite like no other.