HOUSE OF USHER
(1960; d. Roger Corman, w. Richard Matheson)

Similar to Matheson’s earlier I AM LEGEND + (Incredible) SHRINKING MAN, about post-holocaust end of patriarchy, title "house" family line as well as architecture.

Classical Gothic formula as hero Philip traverses similarly unregenerate landscape to liberate betrothed Madeline (as in "mad line"; cf ’58 Vertigo’s similarly-named [+ sim'y doomed] heroine) from her supersensitive brother Roderick (cf Corman’s similar Dr X, both self-destructive visionaries "fall"ing), castle’s scorched-earth terrain as after battle (cf RC’s ’54 Highway Dragnet, w/ character newly "separated" from services, as Philip from university [+ child at birth]), hero postwar man freeing feminine self imprisoned in rigid (tho crumbling) structure ("The house is the monster" RC’s famous rejoinder to producer Sam Arkoff’s query as to exploitation quotient: familiar Corman antiestablishmentarianism, i.e. the system is corrupt); his failure reason RC-Poe series continued, RC still wrasslin’ w/ specter of fem exploitation.

Madeline’s premature-burial screech Roderick/Philip’s own coffined anima as well as wmn’s contemporary awakening to entrapment, similarly ready to explode (cf same-yr Black Sunday’s literal coffin-combustion), hero’s repeated warnings to Rod about cracking foundation (in psyche as well as patriarchal establishment) going unheard (Corman’s legendary difficulties w/ shortsighted studios).

Title "fall" as of ruined Eden/house, due not to Original Sin (again, original thinker Corman bucking System) but Rod’s insanity + inherited (social, institutional) disease, he omniscient (hypersensitive, tho classically devoid of insight) God condemning Eve/Madeline while proscribing marriage/union to Adam/Phil, his incestuous protection (à la similar sister-lust in similary themed Undying Monster, amplified in Usher art dir Dan Haller’s crypto-Usher ’65 Die, Monster, Die + Hammer’s sim’y titled [+ Matheson-scripted] fem corollary, Die, Die, My Darling!, as well as ’64 Terror in the Crypt + Stroheim’s Unnatural daughter-lust) Rod the (not-)Father (or, child's psychological construct permitting harmless playing out of oedipal drama)’s monopoly over M/other (knowledge), Philip’s solo Eden-eviction RC’s prophetic Hollywood-maverick walk from studios to be fruitful + start own co. (cf also Shrinking Man’s finale-escape from homesite apocalypse).

Rod’s lute-playing masturbation (further unregeneracy + mother-connection, Boy never betraying Mom-attachment by knowing sex) for similarly insular, abstracted, directionless (+ effeminate) non-patriarch whose legacy is to nearly take hero w/ him. Latter’s intrusion on Rod+Madeline’s family romance as son w/ dad + mom, leaving both figures boy’s resolution of motherlove + father-hatred, trapped Mad archaic mother-attachment to be left in past à la Outer Limits "Guests" episode, Journey to the 7th Planet, She, Mole People, etc; cf also structural + thematic similarities to Corman’s Crabsters, w/ sinking house deteriorating island (as Not of This Earth’s dying planet) + hero’s similar proxy-dealing w/ crypto-mom in isolated setting.