It is obvious than the work of Edgar Allan Poe is only a pretext for a film from that category. but the word pretext, in this case , it is less. first, for the plot reduced at ... nothing. second - for the awful performances. and, sure, for the worst dialogue. from beginning the expectations are not high but you believe to see a small sparkle or a symbolic connection with the text of Poe. but than is too much. so, a precise target and a reasonable end.and nothing more.

Oh. My. GOD!! We didn't expect much and we got even less. No true spoilers here because we only got through about half an hour of this pointless mess. The actors appeared to be reading from a teleprompter - complete with pauses in the middle of sentences as if they had to wait for the next set of lines to appear. There was absolutely no emotion in anything anyone said. I don't necessarily blame the actors, though. They had awful material to work with. The "softcore porn" scenes were even so incredibly bad it was painful - and they seemed to go on forever. Here's the spoiler part, if you can call it that. Even the hands of the "ghost" in the tub were badly done. Over the top bad.The sister had a little more animation in her, but it was so overdone it was also painful.Timing was awkward. Scenes that contributed nothing were scattered all over. The music was uneven, didn't fit, and was annoying.That's half an hour we'll never get back. Sadness. Tears.

I really enjoyed watching this film. It is both gay soft-core erotica & an intriguing horror film with minimal gore. This to me is a fresh approach, which gives erotica viewers a real plot, & horror viewers a rare gay take on a classic situation. If you like lots of gruesome makeup, instead of style & atmosphere, this may not be your film; I like the older Hammer & Universal films which relied on pacing, interesting camera work, & simple effects to suggest supernatural events & set a mood -- which this film does effectively IMHO. Believe it or not -- and this is aimed at the reviewer who hadn't even read Poe & still criticized the film for its lack of fidelity to the source -- it is a reasonable interpretation of the Poe story, down to plot elements, with a couple of additions. One is the explicit homo-erotic element: in the story, the narrator/visitor character and Roderick Usher are just "friends." I felt that the gay element was handled tastefully and well. The movie has some genuinely arousing scenes, but no nudity or explicit sex; the cast are uniformly handsome & flatteringly photographed; and they CAN act -- nobody stumbled over lines, or furniture, or lacked focus on their scene partners. The other added element is the twist ending, or epilogue, which is (spoiler) a tribute to the surprise ending of the great & influential German expressionist silent, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. If this sounds like the genre of film you like, it is well worth your time.

First off I have to say: Holy crap Actual gay themes and characters and not just hinting at homo-eroticismNow on to the Bad which constitutes the rest of this review after all it is another David DeCoteau cinematic bowel movement.Because I can't be bothered typing up a plot synopsis here a cut and paste from IMDb: Victor Reynolds arrives at the notorious House of Usher, whereupon he is greeted by old acquaintances Roderick and Madeline Usher and their servant, Markus. As Victor uncovers more about the history of the house and the disappearances of those that entered it previously, he begins to realize that he is in mortal danger. Written by tixylix Most unintimidating killer I've seen I actually snorted as soon as the first reveal happened and again as in the Brotherhood the baddies always wear sunglasses @ night... the Neo look went out with the Matrix, DUDE..! Claims to be Poe's house of usher though I never read Fall of the House of Usher though I can guarantee that the killer in Poe's vision did not wear a trench coat and shades Matrix-Style!The actors Playing the main characters of Usher (Ush) and Reynolds seem to rather want to film sex scenes rather then further the story by actually acting a reciting lines with anything remotely resembling not making it obvious that they would rather just read a few lines off a cue card. WHY OH WHY CAN'T DECOTEAU SPEND A FEW BUCKS ON ACTORS WITH TALENT???????Do we acutely get what the other DeCoteau films hint then tease at... some serious guy on guy action..? YES!!! In a soft-core way! Some over the undies action no full frontal... god even the nude statues have leaves over the naughty bits… and a bit of coitus interuptus over "issues"And yet another DeCoteau film with psychic character DeCoteau seems to be a director of the church of lazy writing convention #1 (see my past DeCoteau reviews to get that) this time the character Reynolds can see into the past with 100% accuracy and can see dead people (solid ghosts?) I'd ask who writes this 'Stuff' but does anyone actually care!?The make-up effects consist of some cheep Halloween horror blood that literally looks like it was applied with a finger and those cheesy dissolving blood capsules that you can get a the local dollar store. The sound track is loud and over bearing I suppose it's trying to emulate the Gothic horror of the Vincent Price Fall of The House of Usher film but falls miles short. Then there are the plot holes and missteps of this film: At least research the damn disease that a character has. "Catalepsy" is nothing like what Madeline has. Catalepsy is a nervous condition characterized by muscular rigidity and fixity of posture regardless of external stimuli, as well as decreased sensitivity to pain. Symtoms are: rigid body, rigid limbs, limbs staying in same position when moved (waxy flexibility), no response, loss of muscle control, and slowing down of bodily functions, such as breathing. Notice falling unconscious is not one of them, even though she does suffer from it in the original Poe Story.DeCoteau is to queer and based on famous fiction horror as Lomell is to based on true events horror house of usher bears as much resemblance to Poe's work as Lomell's so called based of a true story horror films like BTK Killer, Son of Sam and Zodiac Killer to name a few.And we come to the end of the Film:Look it's the same ending as The Wizard of Oz …"you where there you were there" Reynolds wakes up and he's in the loony bin the whole movie a figment of his mind using apparently the Poe books he read that are sitting on his window sill and the people and places as the characters and setting of is delusion.