Revenge in the House of Franco

"And madness fell over the house of Usher" Edgar Allan Poe There are now at least three versions of Jess Franco's 1983 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. The one that is the most doggedly unavailable, which was loudly ridiculed by the audience when it was shown in Spain over 40 years ago, is the long lost first director's cut. This is the one the dedicated Jess Franco scholar most wants to discover. Since it's never been theatrically released anywhere, has no video or digital presentation and has virtually disappeard for four decades, hopes are slim for a reevalutation. Here's what Spanish critic Diego Galan wrote about the debut of that film at IMAGFIC on March 24, 1983: "Laughter at the horror of EL HUMDIMIENTO DE LA CASA USHER THX 1138, the 1970 George Lucas movie that has yet to open in Spain, has been the most popular film among the numerous young people who filled the hall of the Madrid international festival of Imaginary and Science Fiction Cinema. In contrast, audiences were unanimous in their rejection of a Spanish offering, EL HUMDIMIENTO DE LA CASA USHER. What initially was mild laughter increased in volume as the clumsy narrative unfolded under the direction of veteran filmmaker Jesús Franco. Prior to the showing, its lead actor, Howard Vernon, said a few words to the public. He’s an old Swiss character actor who frequently collaborates in the films of “Jess” Franco, the pseudonym used by the director to ensure his popularity abroad. “Spain and Thailand are my favourite countries,” said Vernon, who also claimed that he had not yet seen EL HUNDIMIENTO DE LA CASA USHER, but had long admired Franco since first working for him in THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF (1961). His admiration has probably diminished now. This, the latest film by the Spanish director is not only naïve, flat and astoundingly banal, but seems to regard viewers as lacking in enough common sense to accept a tourist hotel as the alleged House of Usher, or a miserable little model as the original mansion that falls along with the mysterious, pathetic man who’s inhabited it for centuries. Dialogue, location work, make-up and performances seem worthier of an amateur undertaking than the work of an expert crew of professionals. So it was understood by the public, which, in the midst of joking remarks, tried to provoke a final applause that was not taken up. This has thus been an obvious disappointment at a film that may have been the subject of some expectation. This was fueled by the festival itself which, in its official brochure, stated that Jess Franco “is one of the country’s most systematically and unjustly underrated filmmakers”. Indeed, it has been difficult to follow Franco’s career in Spain as many of his later films (erotic features that were occasionally made under another pseudonym: Clifford Brown) were blocked by the censors or the distributors. His old horror films, however, did get screened here, but there’s hardly a trace of them in the films he’s been making lately, of which EL HUNDIMIENTO DE LA CASA USHER is a clear sample." The most well-known version, with additional scenes featuring Olivier Mathot, footage from GRITOS EN LA NOCHE and produced by Eurocine, has had numerous titles and home video releases over the last 40 years. The original 1983 title:El hundimiento de la casa Usher, followed by, Alternative titles: Los crímenes de Usher: Limited Spanish theatrical release in 1986.

La Chute De La Maison Usher (French: 1993 Century VHS)

La chute de la maison Usher (FR video): this version contains scenes from the reshot LOS CRIMENES DE USHER and the EUROCINE reshot version. Revenge in the House of Usher (GBR, Eurocine version) Zombie 5 (USA) Revolt of the House of Usher (grey market version, VSOM-1991) The Fall of the House of Usher Névrose Neurosis (Blu-ray) The trouble started with the 1983 screening of the director's original cut of EL HUNDIMIENTO DE LA USHER at Imagfic in Madrid, but the project's difficulties continued. Given that was a non-starter Franco attempted to save this vision by directing a re-edited and re-shot follow up, THE CRIMES OF USHER. This iteration seems to have had a very limited Spanish release in 1986. Records show that the total number of tickets sold was 5,430. A paltry figure which is presumably a national total. At that point both the original version shown at Imagfic and the reshot version would be considered both critical and commercial failures. Before going into THE CRIMES OF USHER it is necessary to consider the film which Franco himself has stated was the inspiration for filming the story. That would be Jean Epstein's 1928 LA CHUTE DE LA MAISON USHER. Running little over an hour this silent version is heavily influence by Expressionist/Romantic Art, as were the previous silent films of Fritz Lang (DIE NIEBELUNGEN) and F.W. Murnau (NOSFERATU, FAUST). Some versions have color tinted sequences which are very atmospheric and evoke the toxic mists of Poe's original story. There are numerous superimpositions and painterly tableau throughout. Two sequences often noted by critiques include the death and final interment of Lady Usher, during which time seems to stop as the dead swamp surrounding the Usher mansion is explored. Cutaways to such dwellers as frogs, who are seen copulating in the dismal tarn, are included acting as disturbing reminders that the natural world goes about its own reproductive business. The burial in the Epstein version...

Franco commented on Epstein's version, "I'd like to see what they'd (critics) have to say about the first FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER by Jean Epstein or Murnau's NOSFERATU, which are both expressionist films, with all that stands for." [OBSESSION: THE FILMS OF JESS FRANCO, p.244]. In the same interview Franco continued, reflecting on the later Eurocine produced version, "Once the film was finished, the idea of including scenes from GRITOS EN LA NOCHE turned me on... so I added some scenes in flashback. I find the result very interesting." Interesting or not, this final version of USHER isn't as immersive or tonally consistent as his first redo, LOS CRIMENES DE USHER. Usher as a vampire works better in this context than the shots of a grotesque Morpho and Usher's comatose daughter (Francoise Blanchard)

In all the Franco versions Eric Usher is, according to his own account, a 175 year old crumbling human monument. One immediately gets the overwhelming impression of an ancient living statue in a bone crushing vision of the classic story. Vernon couldn't be more aptly cast. Shooting in a Spanish Parador, a "bed and breakfast" near Jaen, Franco rediscovers Usher, as he says in the above videos, a man living in ruins, who is himself far beyond the reaches of sanity and is totally dominated by the past which has become a perpetually haunted present. Roger Corman once reflected that the monster of his version or USHER, and most of his other Poe films, was the house itself. This is an idea which Jess Franco expands in his version(s). Filmed in and around the Castle of Santa Catalina, a 13th Century castle built by Ferdinand III as a Castilian fortazela, it becomes a potent visual and atmospheric representation of Eric Usher's ruined soul and desperate state of mind. Corman states in his audio commentary on the DVD of his USHER that he did not want to show the audience any reality whatsoever in the opening shots as if the narrative were talking place in another world. That world is nothing less than the unconscious mind in the original Poe story. Holding it all together in that version are Vincent Price's uncanny presence as Usher and Corman's ingenious use of modular sets, paintings and color.

Once again returning to Poe's initial sentences in the story: "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was — but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit"

One thing for certain to the viewer is that in all the Franco versions this is not the "singularly dreary tract of country" of the story. The sunlight of Spain cannot be extinguised or disguised. The opening of the arrival of Harker was shot around Madrid and the castle-hotel was located in Jaen, a remote are of Andalusia in Southern Spain. The towers and planes of the restored castle were still impressive in 1983. Harker focuses on some breaches in the stone walls but Poe's "dull, dark" atmosphere is located in the castle's interiors. In THE CRIMES OF USHER the interior houses an aged vampire who, in three added sequences murders and sucks the blood of three young women to refresh his dried out body. These scenes and the name Harker evoke the Bram Stoker novel DRACULA and Franco's own 1969 EL CONDE DRACULA adaptation. In Franco's adaptation Dracula, played with authority by Christopher Lee, was also aged and declining at first but regained youthful features after engorging himself.

Eric Usher differs from Stoker's vampires and the vampires in Hammer Horror films. He has no fangs and stabs his victims to death and then laps their blood off his knife blade with his tongue. It's a rather disgusting display but it makes clear that he's not a supernatural vampire, merely a human parasite who murders and manually exsanguinates his victims with his tongue. The second murder, of prostitute, sexualizes the attack after Usher has a fetishistic encounter with the victim's bare foot, which in this context is more macabre than erotic. Vernon's vampire Usher doesn't regain any semblance of youth and is simply crushed to death as the castle crumbles around him. The most impressive sequence in CRIMES is perhaps the opening scene where Eric Usher seems to float through a wall to enter the room of his first victim. The fall of the house at the end is crudely achieved by simply shaking the camera and a few rocks and stones tumbling as Harker escapes. There is no tarn for the house to sink into as it did so memorably in the 1960 Corman film.

So what we have left are a Blu-ray edition of the radically reedited Eurocine version, which is far from the director's original intent. A number of nearly unwatchable videos of LOS CRIMENES DE USHER, sans credits or proper English subtitles, while the director's original version, heckled to death during its debut over 40 years ago, seems forever lost. It remains doubtful if Franco's first reedit, LOS CRIMENES... will ever appear in a restored HD edition. The supposedly haunted Castillo de Santa Catalina still stands and does business as a parador in Jaen. Franco did return to his Dr. Orloff mythology in his 1988 larger budgeted gorefest, FACELESS. Perhaps REVENGE IN THE HOUSE OF USHER, as hopelessly compromised as it is, can be viewed as the director's last desperate attempt to expand and evolve his original version into something approaching critical analysis. It must be remembered that he still had nearly 30 years ahead of him to continue to film various comedies, horror, war films, neo-noirs and outright experimental videos during his final digital era.

Thanks to Nzoog for his invaluable assitance. (C) Robert Monell 2025 (New Version)