# The Fall of the House of Usher (1960 film)
**The Fall of the House of Usher** (released in the United States as **House of Usher**) is a 1960 American horror film directed and produced by [Roger Corman](https://www.edgepedia.org/roger-corman), written by [Richard Matheson](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-matheson) from [Edgar Allan Poe](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgar-allan-poe)'s 1839 short story, and starring Vincent Price as Roderick Usher. It was the first of Corman's Poe adaptations and the biggest hit American International Pictures (AIP) had released up to that date, grossing 2 million dollars during the summer of 1960.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / producer | Roger Corman, for Alta Vista Productions and American International Pictures[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER) |
| Screenplay | Richard Matheson, based on Poe's short story first published in *Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and American Monthly Review* in September 1839[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER) |
| Cast | Vincent Price (Roderick Usher), Mark Damon (Philip Winthrop), Myrna Fahey (Madeline Usher), Harry Ellerbe (Bristol)[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960) |
| Budget and schedule | Shot in 15 days on a budget of $270,000, $50,000 of which went to Price; the highest budget AIP had allotted any film up to that time[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER) |
| Release | World premiere in Palm Springs, CA, 18 June 1960; Los Angeles opening 20 July 1960[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER) |
| Box office | AIP's biggest hit to that date, grossing 2 million dollars in the summer of 1960[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960) |
| Format | Color, CinemaScope, 79 or 85–87 minutes depending on the source[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER) |
| Legacy | First of eight Corman Poe adaptations (1960–1964); later deemed worthy of preservation by the Library of Congress[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER) • [3](https://apnews.com/article/b85b5fbc13184b5f8dab1e9d4b881645) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and adaptation
At the start of the 19th century, Philip Winthrop travels by horseback from Boston to the Massachusetts countryside, seeking out Madeline Usher, the woman he is engaged to, at the crumbling home of her family. The family retainer Bristol tries to turn him away because Madeline is ill, but Philip insists on speaking with her brother Roderick, who suffers from a condition that amplifies even minor sounds and asks Philip to speak softly. Roderick believes his family is cursed by incurable madness and will stop at nothing to prevent Madeline's marriage and keep the Usher bloodline from continuing.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER) • [6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_fall_of_the_house_of_usher_1960)
Matheson expanded the Poe story for feature length, most notably adding a romantic angle.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960) Contemporary reviews remarked on the differences from the source: in Poe's story, Philip is not Madeline's fiancé but Roderick's old friend, invited to the house by Roderick; the film's Philip also tries to escape the mansion, and Roderick's madness is driven by hearing the moans of the buried Madeline.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER) Scholars of the film note that this change introduces a generational conflict entirely absent from Poe's original tale.[7](https://baas.ac.uk/baas-archive/2010/05/mark-jancovich-american-horror-from-1951/)
## Production background
Through the 1950s, AIP gave Corman pre-selected titles and pre-set budgets, and the resulting black-and-white pictures played drive-ins and smaller hardtop theaters as double bills, each shot on a 10-day schedule. Market circumstances had begun to shift in 1960, so Corman proposed to AIP's owners, James Nicholson and Sam Arkoff, making a single 15-day color film instead of two 10-day black-and-white ones.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960)
Poe's gothic story was chosen for practical reasons: the title was familiar to anyone who had read the story in high school English class, and because it was in the public domain the story rights cost the studio nothing.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960) The working titles were *Mysterious House of Usher* and *Haunted House of Usher*; the onscreen title reads "Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher," though the film was also reviewed and advertised as *House of Usher*.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER) Production took place in mid-to-late January 1960 at Amco Studios.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER)
Corman had wanted to film Poe since his school days, when he wrote an essay on "The Fall of the House of Usher" and became a fan.[4](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv138426w) He later recalled that when thinking of actors for Roderick Usher, "Vincent came to mind immediately."[5](https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/roger-corman-interview) By 1960 he had assembled what he called his "Corman crew," headed by cinematographer Floyd Crosby and production designer Daniel Haller.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960) • [4](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv138426w)
## Style
The film's visual approach fuses the dark Romantic tradition to which Poe belongs with an expressionist horror aesthetic, in which the mise-en-scène functions not naturalistically but as a vehicle for subjective states of mind. Corman told his crew, "I never want to see 'reality' in any of these scenes"; the décor of the Usher mansion is designed to give the audience a glimpse of the fear in Roderick's psyche rather than to achieve verisimilitude.[8](https://academic.oup.com/liverpool-scholarship-online/book/38522/chapter-abstract/333608181) The sets, dominated by a putrid, bloody crimson, were praised alongside Floyd Crosby's CinemaScope photography.[9](https://theyshootzombies.com/films/house-of-usher/)
The memorable opening footage of Mark Damon on horseback riding through the barren countryside near the mansion came about by chance: one day after Corman read in the *Los Angeles Times* that a wildfire had broken out in the [Hollywood Hills](https://www.edgepedia.org/hollywood-hills), he showed up at the burned site with Damon and a minimal crew to film there.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960)
## Reception and legacy
*House of Usher* was the biggest hit AIP had seen up to that date, grossing 2 million dollars during the summer of 1960.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960) Corman, Price, Matheson, and most of the crew reunited the following year for *Pit and the Pendulum* (1961), kicking off the "Poe cycle" of the early 1960s.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960) AFI records that Corman produced seven more Poe films by 1965, ending with *[The Tomb of Ligeia](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-tomb-of-ligeia)*.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER) The cycle has been described as an American answer to the contemporary wave of British Hammer gothic horror.[10](https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2024/05/12/roger-corman-le-roi-de-la-serie-b-est-mort_6232776_3382.html)
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 83% Tomatometer from 53 reviews, with a critics' consensus calling it "an early high mark for Vincent Price and a career triumph for director Roger Corman."[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_fall_of_the_house_of_usher_1960) The Associated Press notes that the film was later deemed worthy of preservation by the Library of Congress.[3](https://apnews.com/article/b85b5fbc13184b5f8dab1e9d4b881645) A new 4K restoration from the 35mm original negative was screened at BFI Southbank, where the film was billed as the first of Corman's Poe cycle and credited with setting the standard for what followed.[11](https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle%3A%3Acontext_id=&BOparam%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle%3A%3Apermalink=house-of-usher-intro)
## References
1. [John M. Miller, "House of Usher (1960)," Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/114211/house-of-usher-1960)
2. ["The Fall of the House of Usher (1960)," AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/53181-THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-OF-USHER)
3. ["Roger Corman, Hollywood mentor and 'King of the Bs,' dies at 98," Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/b85b5fbc13184b5f8dab1e9d4b881645)
4. [Evert Jan van Leeuwen, *House of Usher*, Liverpool University Press, via JSTOR](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv138426w)
5. ["'I don't know if auteur's the right word': a career interview with Roger Corman," BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/roger-corman-interview)
6. ["House of Usher (1960)," Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_fall_of_the_house_of_usher_1960)
7. [Mark Jancovich, *American Horror from 1951*, British Association for American Studies](https://baas.ac.uk/baas-archive/2010/05/mark-jancovich-american-horror-from-1951/)
8. [Evert Jan van Leeuwen, "The Look of Usher: Picturing a Story of Death," in *House of Usher*, Oxford Academic](https://academic.oup.com/liverpool-scholarship-online/book/38522/chapter-abstract/333608181)
9. ["House of Usher (1960)," They Shoot Zombies, Don't They?](https://theyshootzombies.com/films/house-of-usher/)
10. ["Roger Corman, surnommé « le roi de la série B », est mort," *Le Monde*](https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2024/05/12/roger-corman-le-roi-de-la-serie-b-est-mort_6232776_3382.html)
11. [House of Usher screening with intro by Julie Corman, BFI Southbank](https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle%3A%3Acontext_id=&BOparam%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle%3A%3Apermalink=house-of-usher-intro)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Horror films (individual works) › Gothic horror films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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