I’ve been to plenty of glitzy screenings in my time (and by ‘glitzy’ I mean ‘free cheese and pickle sandwiches’), but few have been as much fun as a recent showing of new erotic horror House of Usher, which was presented by the film’s writer Simon Savory.

The venue was a Highgate flat (complete with paper red carpet and industrial-strength punch), and a selection of horror fans crammed around a TV to watch the micro-budget extravaganza. There was an intimate touch to proceedings sorely lacking in the gargantuan Leicester Square screenings.

Talking of intimate touches, there were plenty of those in the film itself, which turned out to be an ultra-softcore gay-themed take on Edgar Allen Poe’s classic story directed by David DeCoteau (Puppetmaster III, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama).

The movie sees young Victor arrive at a crumbling gothic mansion (with double glazing, natch) belonging to the perma-brooding “Ush”. Soon the pair are engaged in some serious hanky panky, before Victor finds himself mercilessly haunted by gay ghosts dressed in NOTHING BUT THEIR UNDERPANTS. Christopher Lambert’s ex-wife Jaimyse Haft hilariously pops up as Ush’s unbalanced sister.

Featuring some of the least terrifying hauntings ever put to film and relentlessly awkward sex scenes that consist of characters pulling their boxer shorts down at the back to reveal their bottoms (apparently no one had agreed to reveal their bits in their contracts), House of Usher isn’t exactly a horror masterpiece. But it does contain plenty of campy chuckles, made all the funnier by the cast treating it with deadly earnestness, and at least it’s never dull. God only knows what Edgar Allen Poe would have made of it all.

A “reimagining” of The Pit and the Pendulum is on its way apparently.

You can visit the official website at www.houseofusher-themovie.com

Posted by Matt McAllister