Review: Lady Usher

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2021
Images from the Internet

Lady Usher
Directed by George Adams
Filminginc; Indican Pictures
80 minutes, 2021
www.filminginc.com/
www.indicanpictures.com

There is no denying that Edgar Allen Poe’s infamous 1839, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” is one of his better-known gothic short stories. There have been numerous films based upon it, from the surrealistic The Fall of the House of Usher in 1928, to the Vincent Price-starring classic House of Usher (screenplay by the late, great Richard Matheson) in 1960, and arguably the base material for The Terror in 1963, the latter two both directed by Roger Corman.

For this latest incarnation, director and writer George Adams has reimagined the story, setting it in the present and switching gender roles in some cases. That is an interesting premise.

In the opening, which takes place in the here and now, we meet Texas college lovebirds Roderick Usher (tall and lanky John Tupy) and his girlfriend, Morgan (Billie D. Merritt) filling in for the unnamed (male) narrator of the original story, during the credits montage.

Therese Santiago

Wisely, Adams has adapted the story rather than maintaining the well-worn tropes, while still retaining the feel and some of the motifs. For example, instead of being the twin brother of the titular Lady Usher, Roderick is her son. She is also married to Roderick’s much-older father, who does not appear in the Poe version.

The father (John Furguson) is ill, so Roderick has returned home as the story starts in earnest. Being the dutiful girlfriend and since classes have ended, Morgan shows up at the Oklahoma Usher manse despite Roderick’s reluctance over the phone, and she crosses the threshold into, well, a totally different world.

Here is where the film starts getting a bit playful and fun. Life and time inside the mansion seems to have stopped in a non-literal way, with the inhabitants, including cheeky manservant Vincent (Michael Gibbons, who gets to say the first “The House of Usher” line), dress and act like it is the 1830s, with ruffles and ankle-length dress-jackets.

Rife with 19 Century manner codes and decorum, Lady Usher (Therese Santiago) greets Morgan in a startling custom of stiffness mixed with false invitation that is bound to go south pretty fast. She is an odd sort of a passive-aggressive mix of Lady Usher and Lady Macbeth. One might almost be expecting a Ready or Not (2019) vibe, but again, cleverly, Adams takes his own route, making this more psychological than physical.

Billie D. Merritt

Rounding out the party, both missing from the source, is Mr. Usher’s caretaker, the obvious alcoholic Dr. Philips (Kim Titus), and Roderick’s older and mysterious, nearly mute brother who dresses like the Elephant Man with cloth hood, Gordon (Peter Anthony Seay).

As in the original, the physical house is also a character, with its furniture style from two-centuries ago (I would love to see the kitchen) and a morbid (i.e., Gothic) darkness with windows covered in plush, velvety curtains that let in little light. Even electricity is seen in extremely rare glimpses, mostly just out of camera range.

An extended end of the first act is set around a dinner table where we get to learn more about the attitudes within the family unit and their guests. It goes from terse to tense, to worse. Prodding matriarchical questioning and reluctance of responses make the viewer as uncomfortable as its participants (psychological, remember?).

Like the short story, the underlying theme of the plot is death. In the original, if focuses on Roderick’s sister Madeline, but here it is the patriarch (again, employing those gender mash-ups), though in both, the afflicted has a “morbid acuteness of the senses.” While not the focus, it is the undercurrent that this boat floats upon. There is also an air of privilege that hangs over everything, as Morgan comes from a working-class background. One sign of the Usher snootiness is when Lady Usher asked Vincent to “pass the asparagus” which is less than a foot away from her, as he slides the plate about four inches (and I was amused, assuming this was a continuity error, when she asks Morgan to pass the salt, and she gets the pepper without change of expression; yes, I pay attention to movies I review, so sue me).

It is wonderful that the two main characters are strong women, with the men being the weaker, only pawns in game of life. As for the big reveal at the end, even those unfamiliar with some of the read-between-the-lines suggestions of the Poe tale, should not have to struggle too hard to figure out the family structure by the halfway point.

In my opinion, to paraphrase the words of the television series “Monk,” the blessing and the curse of the film is the costuming. It wildly jumps around over the past two centuries from modern heels to the cinematic antebellum south. Roderick, whose wardrobe is the most egregious, jumps from European dandy to Elvis-period snake-skin designed jacket. And don’t get me started on what he wears during the dinner scene. That being said, it’s also incredibly imaginative and I happily was in anticipation to see what they would wear next, even though it was a bit of a distraction and took away from the events onscreen.

John Tupy and Merritt

Though somewhat predictable, the film easily lives up to its gothic tone and I wonder if it would have been served better in black and white or at least monotone. Or not. Just a musing.

The cast is nicely diverse, and the acting is a bit stiff here and there, but mostly effective for the tone of the film. It is a strong tale with some possible trigger warnings for some, especially those with monsters-in-law of their own. The film does a decent job of weaving the source material, such as characters reading poems and from books (though, again, through role reversals), but stretching it enough to have enough originality to keep the interest up.

Stick around during the credits and enjoy a music video of sorts of the excellent song “Wrecked,” by Rachel Lynch and the Daydrinkers.

The film is now on disc, and available on platforms such as Apple TV, DirecTV, Google Play, Prime Video, and FandangoNOW.