Rent The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002)

Tragical History Tour - The Fall of the Louse of Usher review by Count Otto Black

Oh my God!!! Here we have the ultimate evidence that whoever writes the synopses for this website really needs to consult a dictionary regarding the meaning of the word "classic". Seriously, if you just want a word that often applies to movies because something has to go in that box, you might as well type "visible". Or "inedible". Because if this is a classic, "Battlefield Earth" is a masterpiece, and "Reefer Madness" is a documentary.

Once the Golden Boy of British cinema, the visibly decrepit Ken Russell directs numerous friends and relatives, none of whom can act, plus the Mediaeval Baebes, who can't act either, and himself, attempting to act with a ludicrous German accent and more visible nasal hair than I've ever seen in any other movie, in the grounds of his palatial residence. Hey, the guy really was good once - he deserved a palatial residence more than some! But not for this.

Mark Kermode likes this film because he's a pretentious half-smart fool who thinks he ought to. I hate it because it's obviously terrible. Even the video quality is poor, and if the camera we see about 50 minutes in is one of the two they were using to shoot the whole thing, it would explain a lot. Referencing everything from "The Magical Mystery Tour" to Kenneth Anger's "The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome", by way of "Shock Treatment", the deservedly obscure sequel to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", this abomination completely misunderstands the concepts of both parody and "so bad it's good" in the worst possible way. More discerning viewers wanting that kind of thing would be far better advised to rent the films of Larry Blamire.

Less discerning viewers may fall about in stitches at the not necessarily deliberately awful acting from people with terrible teeth and skin (which are weirdly often shown in extreme close-up), the white woman giving a hilariously retro darkie blackface performance, and the general air of Z-movie incoherence which was in 2002 at least 40 years out of date, but personally I didn't. There's not enough genuinely funny material in this entire movie for a half-hour episode of a second-rate TV sitcom, and even that would have involved people who could genuinely act, as opposed to the director's talentless buddies. This is just horrible. Don't bother.