290: The Macabre of the House of Usher

Movie Meltdown - Episode 290

This episode we're coming to you "live" from the second annual "Meltdown Macabre", our own horror and Halloween celebration. We kick things off with some creepy cartoons and then we head into our Project: Poe feature - the 1928, French, silent version of "The Fall of the House of Usher". Then we sit down for our usual movie discussion, only this time we are joined by Bermudan, the band who provided us with a live performance of an original score to accompany the film. Plus we round out this year's Halloween episodes as we talk about some of our favorite movies to watch this time of year.

And while we go over the shuffling around of some of our favorite silent films, we also mention… Max Fleischer, studio tampering, senses are very overwhelming, Persona, really desolate face, burning alive, discerning the strobe effect, Ed Wood, all of our music is weirdo stuff, extreme areas of the screen, Salvador Dalí, Birth of a Nation, F.W. Murnau, I’m watching a horror story in my childhood, The Adventures of Mark Twain in Hell, I’m not scared ever… but I just feel unsettled for the next six days, Grady from Sanford and Son, is it a mental illness or is it paranormal, this wall of sound, cinematography derived from photography style, Tod Browning, progressive European style, Hour of the Wolf, the fairies are coming to get you, At the Mountains of Madness, Carl Theodor Dreyer, body horror, John Carpenter’s Halloween, homo floresiensis, Usher and Honey Nut Cheerios bee, sister vs. wife, catatonic glances, sounds have certain colors, Ian MacKaye, The Keep, shooting unconventionally, surrealism, the Universal monsters, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, Prometheus, The Unholy Three, that’s just France, hazy guitar effects, reappears all ghostly, it’s like you hear something in another room, witchcraft and demons ensue, having a large tool set, the enormous train, D.W. Griffith, From Beyond, Guillermo del Toro, The Exorcist, Blood on Satan’s Claw, it’s the nondescript Edgar Allen Poe, in times past, when people had names like Roderick and lived in castles, vintage clothing, Robert Fripp, Ingmar Bergman, skinny pipe jeans, Jean Epstein and fuzzy eyeballs.

“It’s an experience. I’m going to suspend you upside down in this really unusual world for a while, until you sort of lose your sense of perspective and that gradually makes you a little crazy as you’re watching the movie.”

For more on Bermudan, go to: http://bermudan.bandcamp.com/