AniInterview
Sorry, this movie sucks
Greenes
Please don't spend money on this.
Guillelmina
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
framptonhollis
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is definitely my favorite story by the great American write Edgar Allan Poe due to its legitimate creepiness and heavy atmosphere. With this 15 minute long stop motion animated short film, the master filmmaker Jan Svankmajer attempts to translate Poe's beautifully atmospheric writing to the language of cinema, and does so with much success.I would like to note that the animation in this film is fantastic, as it is in all of Svankmajer's works. You can tell that a lot of effort was put into the stop motion, and it looks absolutely spectacular and adds to the eeriness of the short.Other than the animation and haunting atmosphere, this short is really just a reading of the original Poe story. None of the characters appear on screen, and there is only one narrator. It works quite well, but I do admit that more creativity could have been inserted into the project. However, I'm not necessarily complaining, because the animation and moodiness of this film are enough for me to highly recommend it.
MARIO GAUCI
An abstract claymation version of Edgar Allan Poe's famous horror tale. The lack of a proper narrative here ultimately makes one appreciate the original intent more readily than admire – or enjoy – the obvious effort involved. Admittedly, my low estimation of this short film has much to do with the fact that the verbose Czech narration was not supplied in an English-friendly form (being solely accompanied by Spanish subtitles). The original source material is among the tormented American author's most famous works which, consequently, has had innumerable adaptations for both the big and small screens; I have three of the latter planned for future viewing during this ongoing Halloween marathon. Again, the seminal Corman/Poe film version from 1960 is the most popular but one should not forget that the narrative can lend itself equally to Art – Jean Epstein's 1928 avant-garde classic – and Trash – Jesus Franco's REVENGE IN THE HOUSE OF USHER (1982)!
MartinHafer
This version of "The Fall of the House of Usher" is amazingly strange--which shouldn't be much of a surprise since it's by the surrealist stop-motion filmmaker, Jan Svankmajer. Only he would make such an odd film. Think about it--the Poe story with absolutely no actors in it whatsoever! Instead, there is a narrator while all kids of weird things occur in a very old home which looks abandoned. You'll see closeups of walls, lumps of clay that mold themselves and a coffin that drags itself to an interment. None of it makes any sense--though that is exactly the point in a surrealist film. But, because it is so strange and difficult to approach, I can't see this art film appealing to most--just lovers of Svankmajer's work and people who like artsy-fartsy stuff. As for me, I can respect what he did, but I certainly didn't enjoy it very much.
Yxklyx
Couldn't really enjoy this as much as I'd like to. It seems that the entire poem is recited here - problem is I don't understand Czech and the visuals while good don't really stand on their own. This is one case where subtitles don't really work because they prevent the visuals from being appreciated. Someone should redo this with the poem recited in English. I don't think Mr Svankmajer would object. For a better Poe work by Svankmajer check out The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope. Actually, that movie's the best Poe adaptation I've ever seen. Both of these films can be found on the recently released two DVD set of Svankmajer short films called Collected Shorts Of Jan Svankmajer.
