The Ghoulish Plot: a man from Boston travels to visit his fiancee at her spooky mansion, only to find that her gaslighting brother Roderick (played by a blond-dyed Vincent Price) would rather his sister not get married, have kids, or be happy in general. In 2024 Price’s character would probably be classified as a neurodivergent empath and spend the entire movie wearing Anime and MAGA t-shirts while posting on incel subreddits, but in 1960 he’s just a weirdo who likes to whisper and wear velvet jackets and says the house he lives in is evil, so his sister can never leave — clearly a very logical and reasonable request.

Eventually when Mr. Beantown decides to take his fiancee whether her brother likes it or not, Roderick opts to fake her death and bury her alive. But because he is eager to get back to playing his lute and drinking sherry, he does a bad job and she eventually gets free and may finally cause the ultimate demise of the House of Usher. Ends with a big flaming setpiece that director Roger Corman liked so much he used footage from in multiple movies. Will our lead character escape with his life and go found Dunkin’? Or will he himself be trapped forever in a dysfunctional family?

The Scariest Part of the Movie: The Usher’s manservant has been working in a house of sociopaths for 60 years. Talk about a toxic work environment!

Spookiness Factor: The movie LOOKS very spooky, lots of mist and fog and cobwebs and creaky old mansion shots. And Vincent Price is always reliably creepy, even with dyed hair and asking everybody to tiptoe and whisper at him.

Rating: 6 out of 10 Japanese Kit-Kats