Friday, April 8, 2011

The Fall Of The House Of Usher (1928) aka La Chute De La Maison Usher

3.5 / 5 Apr '11
Tagline: N/A
Directed by: James Sibley Watson, Melville Webber
Written by: Edgar Allan Poe
Actors include: Herbert Stern, Hildegarde Watson, Melville Webber
Genre: Horror, Surrealism
Length: 14 minutes
Banned: Nope




Review:
Even though I've seen other versions of this tale, I've got to say that this was incomprehensible. Maybe I'm a moron, or maybe it's just entirely unclear, and they got carried away with surrealism. It's spectacular as far as the visuals go, the interplay of light and dark and shadows and movement are impressive. The technics used with the layering and reverse cinematography and so forth are also very notable for the time. It's elegant and even creepy, perhaps the not knowing helps this. Still I couldn't help but want more from the actual story, even for a short film. It's something to see on an artistic level most definitely but I thought it was lacking in some departments.

Availability:  On DVD as part of this set:

No comments:

Post a Comment