[Andrew999]

I don't think we've ever discussed the best Edgar Allan Poe movies which is a bit remiss of us. Everyone knows the Vincent Price movies (my favourite of those being Masque of the Red Death) but there is a panoply of choice:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe_in_television_and_film

Which would your top three be?

I've never seen Eliza Graves/Stonehearst Asylum - should I seek it out?

[bowers]

 This is, indeed, a long overdue topic, Andrew. Good call! I like most of them and my favorites are constantly changing. My current favorites are "The Raven", 2012 w/ John Cusack, of course "The Pit and the Pendulum", 1961 w/ Vincent Price and two versions of "Murder in the Rue Morgue" 1986 w/ George C. Scott and 1971 w/ Herbert Lom. I love mysteries and am a HUGE fan of C. Auguste Dupin. I have been looking for a copy of "Mystery of Marie Roget" to no avail. Anybody know where I can find one? Cheers, Bowers

[gregjh]

I really hope a good House of Usher film will be made one day. The story itself might not offer enough to fill one film but with the writing writing and editing, it could be the foundation of an excellent thriller.

[profh0011]

Would you believe, there are at least 46 different comics versions of "The Fall of the House of Usher"?  46 !!!!!  Outragious.

At the moment, I have 16 of them up at my blog.  Starting with the 1944 Charlton one with Gus Schrotter art...  (You can read them all in sequence!  Follow the links.)

http://professorhswaybackmachine.blogspot.com/2018/05/poe-1944-pt-9.html

[Andrew999]

Sorry to hear of the death of Romy Walthall, 57:

https://deadline.com/2021/05/romy-walthall-dead-face-off-house-of-usher-1234766891/

She featured in the Oliver Reed version of Usher (way over the top performances from all involved - goes best with a bottle of Chablis). Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kioc7wkFN5o

We all to start a thead someday on what was Olly Reed's most memorable performance.

[The Australian Panther]

Olly Reed's most memorable performance was playing Olly Reed. 

[Captain Audio]

Many years ago I read a novel , the title escapes me for the moment,with the premise of the family of the house of Usher having been a real family, loosely based on the Dupont family. The Duponts were well known for the eccentricity and outright madness that cropped up now and then in their bloodline.
Like the Duponts the family fortune was based on selling the latest in explosives and propellants, for centuries  turning the battlefields of yore into truly horrific slaughterhouses.
This was due to the family being genetically adapted to eating only human blood and tissue. While battles raged all over the world their agents collected fresh body parts from the slain to feed their craving. Those killed in battle best suited their needs due to the adrenaline and other biochemicals released into the bloodstream by anger, fear and hopelessness.

The setting for the tale was exceptional. In a mountainous region many of the most wealthy men in the world built huge mansions, almost all who built there died on the Titanic leaving these huge structures abandoned. This part is based on fact.
I've read of this place before. There are abandoned railways and other infrastructure there as well. It was meant to be a refuge of the super rich.

[Andrew999]

Although it is decades since I read it, this sounds like Usher's Passing by Robert McCammon - could it have been that?

[Captain Audio]

Although it is decades since I read it, this sounds like Usher's Passing by Robert McCammon - could it have been that?

The title doesn't sound familiar.
Was there a ghastly figure called the Pumkinhead or Jack O' Lantern, which turned out to be one of the Usher's human servants wearing a orange inflated rubber hood that acted as a gas mask when he used various nerve gases to paralyse his prey.
The novel I read started with a young man who had been at various boarding schools all his life, having never met a family member being called to come to the mansion to claim his birthright and take over control of the financial empire.
He had never been able to eat any normal foods, only specially prepared meals served by agents of the family, which he later learned were processed human tissues.

[Andrew999]

Can't remember - but here's the Goodreads link - and yes, there is a pumpkin on the front cover of at least one edition - not sure if that's significant:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11550.Usher_s_Passing

[Captain Audio]

Can't remember - but here's the Goodreads link - and yes, there is a pumpkin on the front cover of at least one edition - not sure if that's significant:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11550.Usher_s_Passing

From a review I found on Amazon I'm certain that is the book I read.
I remember thinking at the time it would have made a good TV movie. Back in the days of the "Movie of the Week " they made some really edgy way out there horror and science fiction films. They usually filmed these in both the milder TV version and a longer more adult version for theatrical release in Europe.
Another book I felt should have been filmed was "All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By". A book that so impressed me when I read it 30+ years ago that I ordered a hardback version I found on Ebay a few months back to replace my paperback long loaned out and lost. Its a difficult book to put down and one not easily forgotten.