It wouldn't be Horrorfest without a visit from
Vincent Price and Roger Corman, so here we go with HOUSE OF USHER. This film
has the distinction of being the only Horrorfest movie that I have personally
made a version of. That's right, back in my high school days my friends and I
made a short adaptation of Poe's story for English class. Needless to say, it
was a masterpiece. So I was curious how Corman's version turned out. You know,
from one director to another.
One thing this version has over my version is
Vincent Price. Sorry Dan, but he's a better Usher than you. I'm sure you'd
agree. After all, it's not like you considered yourself a great actor. You were
just kind enough to let me force you be in the movie. It's not your fault.
Also, Price is among the best. So take heart.
The sets and locations are also better. Due to
budget constraints (I didn't have any money), my version was set in
contemporary times. We did get some good shots of some dreary, swampy fields
and barren trees, but other than that we were forced to have Usher live in a
90s housing development. It's not as scary as the fog shrouded, period
appropriate locations and sets Corman uses.
Since I wrote the script, I'll go ahead and
say mine was better. Really, it was just more faithful to the source material,
to a fault. Mine featured pages and pages of Usher monologueing straight out of
Poe. Needless to say, it was boring. But it was faithful! Here, Usher's sister
(Myrna Fahey) is sick and all, but the guy coming to visit (Mark Damon) is not
Usher's buddy arriving to cheer Usher up – he's the sister's concerned fiancé,
hoping to rescue her from the dark house and her weird brother. I like the
friend angle better.
Damon gets kind of a raw deal in a pretty
thankless role. These Corman and Hammer and even Universal horrors usually had
one character who was the straight/handsome guy, and it was almost always a
boring character. I gave that role to my buddy, Levi, who does at least as well
as Damon does, but I think had more to work with, since we retained the
"friends" angle.
Anyway, I'm just kidding around. Obviously my
"movie" has nothing on this, yet another Corman miracle, a movie
thrown together for little money in almost no time at all, that comes off
looking professional and even contains one bonafide great performance by Price.
I don't know how Corman did it, even though I've seen a documentary that
explains how Corman did it. He was just a born filmmaker, I guess. And Price
was a born star. And Poe was no slouch at writing.
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