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HALLOWEEN POE-A-THON: Vincent Price in HOUSE OF USHER (1960)

October 31 : 5:00 pm 6:30 pm

“A hallucinatory swirl of a movie that has the feel of an especially sharp nightmare.” – Keith Phipps, The Dissolve

When exploitation maestro Roger Corman decided to raise his game by hiring Vincent Price to star in an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic story “The Fall of the House of Usher,” he kicked off a cycle of Poe adaptations that would redefine American horror cinema. Price stars as the mercurial Roderick Usher, who lives in a vast crumbling mansion with his sister Madeleine (Myrna Fahey). When Madeleine’s fiance (Mark Damon) comes to visit, Roderick tries to talk him out of the wedding, explaining that the Usher family is cursed and that extending its bloodline will only prolong the agony. Madeleine wants to elope with Philip, but neither of them can predict what ruthless lengths Roderick will go to in order to keep them apart. Richard Matheson’s intelligent, literate script is enhanced by Floyd Crosby’s stylish widescreen cinematography, but it’s Vincent Price’s anguished conviction in one of his signature roles that makes the film so chillingly memorable over half a century on.

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