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Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Brilliant and touching

As Good As It Gets

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

With a quarter of a million dollar budget from AIP, a surprisingly decent adaptation (by Richard Matheson)of the well-known and well-worn Edgar Allen Poe tale. An almost perfect cast except for a too-young male lead; it is spellbinding. As noted by many other reviewers, "The House" is one of the major characters in the film as it groans, moans, and creaks its way toward the horrific fire and destruction that is inevitable. There is a depressing "tone" of melancholy throughout, especially expressed by the "heroine" of the piece. Highly recommended and that's quite rich praise for anything that Roger Corman ever produced and directed! It revived Vincent Price's career for a second time. Almost "out of print" and therefore overpriced as a collectable, so look for it on Turner Classic Movies which now shows AIP releases.

Arriving at his fiancee's mansion, a man looking to retrieve her to be married together finds that her controlling brother is trying to remove him before a terrible family curse takes hold of them and tries to ensure her safety before it can come to pass.This is one of the best in the Corman/Price/Poe series. Being the official start of the series, the Gothic atmosphere surrounding the film is completely overwhelming and at times can suffocate with it's dread. There's numerous encounters here filled with old, creaky caskets, a long, winding staircase into the darkness and cob-webbed decor surrounding the rooms while featuring candle-lit lighting and large, opulent splendor that's bright and spacey that solidifies its true Gothic mindset. That goes hand-in-hand with the fact that the castle grounds are in the traditional Victorian style on a fog- covered grounds, dark dead trees, musky swamplands and it makes the sequences showing it pretty spooky. Likewise, the curse befalling the family is quite chilling with the line of history and how it's doomed to repeat itself makes for a great revelation that jumps off quite fittingly from the house's location and surroundings into the big plot-point about her being accidentally buried alive in order to fulfill the family curse. That as well leads into the film's great action scenes, where their first trip in the basement is a great set-piece that has a great shock effectively using a skeleton in the casket while a dream sequence also comes off rather well as it's pretty creepy for the time and actually came as a surprise. Still, it's the final half hour which scores so well here as that is one continuous Gothic set-piece with the banging doors, the blaring thunderstorm in the background and the thrilling resurrection that is cleverly done showing a close-up following of a blood-trail along the floor out of the crypt back into the house and leading into the big final fight that make this a spectacular series of events. The conflagration at the end is an only more than appropriate ending, as it's action-packed and suspenseful in its own way, serves itself well with the great brawl for the Gothic-styled revenge which is a great ending to the series of events and ends it on a high note. Perhaps the best part, though, is Price's creepy performance as Roderick Usher. He gives one of his best performances, being creepy, mysterious and fun to watch as well and is certainly a career highlight in that respect. These here make this quite a spectacular effort that does have more than enough to overcome the one minor flaw in here. There is really only one thing that holds this back as every new and then, Price's constant speeches about not understanding the Usher curse got old. It wouldn't take up that much to officially explain what happened, and it would take away from the speeches and get to the story, so that kind of sticks out here. Though some may have a problem about how close it is to Poe's story, that's of a viewer-discrepancy issue rather than anything to do with the actual film itself and really isn't a detriment like the other factor is.Today's Rating/PG: Mild Violence.

I wouldn't call this a strict horror film, although it has some small elements of horror, but the atmosphere alone, plus the performance of the great Vincent Price(Roderick Usher)is worthy enough to recommend this film. You know the story by now, and even though it takes a little time to progress, it's worth the wait, and you don't need to be a horror fan to enjoy. My personal highlight is the performance of Harry Ellerbe, who portrayed Bristol the butler, as he tried his best to appease all the parties involved, and was very proper and respectful, and it's easy "root" for him, so to speak. The color schemes worked very well, as it was also a fine movie to look at visually, even though the exterior of the castle's many shots were obviously fake, and even some of Price's lines were pretentious, but still charming. Mark Damon(Philip Winthrop)and Myrna Fahey(Madeline Usher)were both solid in their prospective roles, even though at times their dialog was a tad mushy. The conclusion of this film was better than I remembered it being, and that adds to what is a solid film which boasts the talents of one Vincent Price.

Overtime the horror genre has really grown on me, and Vincent Price, one of my favourite actors has been a big part of why. The Fall of the House of Usher was the film that spawned a series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, and is up there with the best of them like The Pit and the Pendulum and The Raven. Whether it is completely faithful to Poe's writing I am not entirely sure, whatever way it makes little difference to me. All that matters for a film is how good it is on its own merits, and The Fall of The House of Usher in my mind is more than good, it's great. The settings, costumes and the way the film are shot is both Gothic and gorgeous to look at in their lavishness, and the music is suitably spooky. The script is very literate and quite intelligent, while the story is always compelling and delivers its spooky scares with not an ounce of predictability or hamminess. The ending really convinces in its creepiness and in its tragic undercurrent, making it moving as well. The acting is fine, Mark Damon gets better throughout the film and by the end he really comes to life but to start with I did find him a little too wooden for my tastes. Myrna Fahey and Harry Ellerbe characterise splendidly, but the film belongs to Roger Corman's lively direction and especially to Vincent Price, who is always great but gives one of his best ever performances here, with his ever commanding presence, his distinctive voice, Skakespearean-like line delivery, droll sense of humour and a sense of melancholy, every single of those are here and make for one memorable performance indeed. In conclusion, a great film worth seeing for Price alone though the production values, the atmosphere and how intelligently it's written also are fine attributes. 9/10 Bethany Cox