SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

nzswanny Why is this even called House Of Usher??? It's barely got anything to do with the original! Being a fan of the original The House Of Usher movie, I decided to watch this remake, which I thought was going to be decent. But, oh my god, this was terrible! The dialogue was god-awful, the story barely had a connection to House Of Usher and there was too much scenes with men in their underwear that were completely UNNECESSARY! Those scenes wouldn't even be that bad if they were actually needed! But it's not really those scenes that are bad...it's the dialogue and acting that are terrible. These two things annoyed me so much through out the film, and their were no redeeming features to fix those two flaws. This film also had no scares, and I'm glad that it only got 1000$ at the box office.Overall, I'd rate this a 2.1/10!

Hubert 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.

QueerNightmare 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.

opiaterein After reading a one star review and looking over some of the actors' not surprisingly limited other work, I went into this knowing I shouldn't expect anything profound. As a gay man, the movie being described as softcore gay porn made me slightly curious. I thought maybe some eye candy would help make up for the low points. I was thinking it might just be another one of those films that had been written with some good potential but had missed the mark with too many awkward man-kiss moments. Only partly true...Well... I will say that even with almost no expectations, this one still managed to disappoint me. The two male leads are, truth told, quite easy to look at and really their deliverance of their lines wasn't really that bad - just plain. The actress, however... was so god-awful I can't even bring myself to describe it, though I may possess the necessary skills of description.To keep myself from going on and on about how bad it all was, I'll try to summarize in a little list.* Script & dialogue - terrible. Tries to be modern and Poe at the same time... odd juxtapositioning of teenage relationship issues with "deep" conversations and really 5-dollar-word vocabulary. * Acting - Can't blame the actors for however bad it was, but still the male leads SHINE compared to the female. * Sex scenes - no actual sex. Not even hidden. Underwear are always on during sex scenes. Just lots of kissing and rubbing everywhere except where it counts. These scenes are very long and awkward. There are a couple of weird points where bare butts try to mix with spoooky surroundings, it just doesn't work unless you're *literally* homophobic, in which case I would think these scenes would be truly terrifying. * Plot - The writer has never heard of such a thing. * The "Twist" - While you may not see it coming, you have seen it before.There are a couple of scenes or just shots where the lighting is nice, but the music is all really irritating and cheesy, and the leads are at their best in their scenes together, but there are only a couple of these. Unfortunately not even the erotic bits could save this one.A warning to those like me: If you're looking for the homo-erotic, try something that makes no attempt to be anything other than a gay interest film. They haven't yet found a way to mix the profound with the homo.