Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 11: The Fall of the House of Usher

Thoughts: FINALLY! Although this has some of Poe's greatest hits - dead (maybe?) woman, trance-like states, live burials and things suddenly crumbling/disappearing at the end - one thing that separates this from other stories is the narrator's connection with another person who is dare I say, a friend. His concern for his doomed friend is commendable, even as Poe's usual breathless narration tells you it's gonna be a bad ending for somebody. Although it ends with a coupla dead bodies, ironically there is a little more humanity here and you want to root for Roderick Usher to get the hell outta there already....even though you know how it will end.

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “didn't you almost soil yourself watching a movie of this when you were a kid?"

Sigh. Yes I did, faithful readers. Yes I did:

I see that at 4 o 'clock today Roger Corman's The Fall of the House of Usher is coming on - both the short story and movie are Xmastime slices o'slices. But I remember coming home from church one time, I reckon near Halloween, and my brother, father and I landed on some random made-for-tv version. I believe it was 1982, which would make me ten years old.

I have never, ever been so scared in my life - I literally BEGGED my dad and brother to turn the channel - even offering them money!! Gee, what good times...apparently I had disposable income to throw around. I mean, I was terrified. And I couldn't leave - no WAY was I gonna go be by myself. And mind you, this was at about one o'clock in the afternoon. Broad daylight.

I remember going to bed later on and I was literally shaking so badly my brother yelled at me cause I was shaking the whole bunk-bed. Wow. Unreal. Would love to track down a copy of this flick. I'm sure now it's prolly laughable now, but jesus I was terrified. 

Memorable Line: "In this unnerved-in this pitiable condition --I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR." - Roderick Usher  

Score from 1 - 10: 9