Critics reviews

I have long considered La Chute de la maison Usher interesting for its use of German Expressionist-inspired sets, but the fuzzy, incomplete prints that for decades were the only available versions made it difficult to enjoy. The restored version on the complete DVD set of Epstein’s works, which I discussed here, makes it far more interesting.

Based on two Edgar Allan Poe stories—the second is "The Oval Portrait"—"The Fall of the House of Usher" contains such unforgettable images as burning tapers floating over a moody landscape as a coffin is carried to a crypt. It also makes powerful use of slow motion.

As psychological horror, the film is effective, with Roderick Usher's gradual descent into madness vividly suggested through the film's dreamy setting. The film emphasizes sadness above scares, but the deep sense of longing for the dead makes for a disconcerting experience. Among the most effective of all silent horror, The Fall of the House of Usher channels Poe's own overwhelming melancholy.

The early surrealists worked most naturally with the themes and motifs of horror. Dalí frequently painted dreamscapes or fantastic images of the locked-away mind. Buñuel's most memorable images behave like phantasmagorical nightmares — eyes sliced open, ants dominating bodies. Epstein tapped into this potential withThe Fall of the House of Usher, picking apart Poe's already-dreamlike narrative and interior prose like only someone seeking to redefine art could do.

As [Schreck] works on the painting that is killing his wife, he gazes straight into the camera. Much is made of how cinema directs and manipulates the viewer's gaze, but I have never felt so strongly that I was the object of a gaze from the screen as in these transfixing close-ups of Roderick's beautiful, solemnly and ecstatically crazy eyes, which froze my spine to the back of my chair.

Co-written by Luis Buñuel, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER remains just as eerie today as it was over eighty years ago. Epstein's use of chiaroscuro lighting and deep space lend the film a haunting, atmospheric quality and the actors involved (including Abel Gance's wife) give suitably hypnotic performances.