House of Usher (1960) October 10th, 2022

House of Usher is padded with 45 extraneous minutes of repetitive dialogue and faux dramatic tension. Vincent Price reluctantly welcomes his sister’s suitor into their gothic estate and spends half of the movie repeatedly explaining their family’s curse, their medical conditions, and insisting his sister must stay in the house while it crumbles around them. You would have a better and expedited time reading the short story instead of sitting through House of Usher.

Besides being exhaustingly overlong (79 minutes that feel like an eternity), House of Usher is horror eye candy. The sets and costumes are amazing and the dungeon is to die for. Unfortunately nothing stands out more than the runtime not even Vincent Price’s horrible bleached blonde hair. The savvy could save time by watching it on x1.5 speed but the wise would skip it altogether.

This reviewer won’t make the same mistakes as his subject matter and extend this review out longer than necessary with pad and repetitive language so I’ll say this in conclusion. The movie was too long, the gothic motif looked nice, and Vincent Price has blonde hair. That’s it, there’s nothing more to say. Nothing more than House of Usher‘s run time exceeded the enjoyment threshold. The crumbling gothic manor never looked better and the set designer and costumer should’ve been handsomely paid. And Vincent Price’s blonde hair hopefully never appears on screen again. You’d have to bury me in a castle dungeon before I’d write any more about House of Usher, a movie cursed with a expanded runtime that deteriorated the audiences experience like an old but beautiful gothic mansion owned by a freakishly blonde Vincent Price and his creepy sister whose majordomo feeds them only broth.