The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002)

Much like the advent of VHS and the affordability of the home video camera in the 80's made it possible for virtually anybody to make a movie, the digital revolution and the increased availability of camcorders that came along in the late 90's and early 2000's led to even more opportunities for people to realize their filmmaking ambitions. Just as the 80's saw a glut of shot-on-video productions, the new millennium led to an innumerable amount of digitally lensed features, a fair amount by amateurs, but what digital cameras also offered was the chance for already established directors to work with total creative control away from studio interference as well as smaller crews. Jess Franco would be a prime example of a veteran director who dove head first into the digital sea, shooting a plethora of highly personal, experimental features on digital video. David Lynch was also a vocal proponent of shooting digitally, his epic Inland Empire (2006) being shot on a consumer grade Sony PD-150 camera. Ken Russell was yet another director to embrace the freedom digital video offered with Russell's later works consisting of several homemade digital shorts but the film that would become his final feature, 2002's The Fall of the Louse of Usher, has the distinction of not only being the crown jewel of his digital works but also one of the most outlandish titles in Russell's entire oeuvre.

After being convicted of murdering his wife Annabel Lee, rock star Roderick Usher is committed to an insane asylum under the watchful eye of Dr. Calahari (played by Russell himself). Almost immediately, Usher soon discovers that Calahari, along with his eccentric nurse ABC Smith, are just as if not more insane than their patients as he struggles to uncover the truth about his wife's death while being subjugated to Calahari's bizarre forms of treatment turning his already confused mind into a nonstop surreal waking nightmare.

Subtitled "A Gothic Tale for the 21^st Century", The Fall of the Louse of Usher is Russell completely unfiltered. Not that he ever let any producer hold him back, but even by Russell standards, Louse is a relentless barrage of lunacy from beginning to end. Stuck somewhere between a home movie and a music video, with the film fully becoming the later in parts, Russell's biggest influence as the title suggests is Edgar Allan Poe but not just The Fall of the House of Usher and Annabel Lee, as Russell mentions Poe by name throughout the film, even using plot points from Murders in the Rue Morgue to suggest possible clues to the mystery surrounding Usher's wife's death. That's of course if anyone isn't utterly lost by the time the film gets to the Rue Morgue references as the plot often takes a backseat to Russell's over-the-top visuals, all done on the most shoestring of budgets, including everything from a mummy, a gorilla, an orgy featuring blow-up dolls and an inflatable dinosaur and even a massive inflatable castle. While most humorless types will be quick to dismiss the film solely on its look, the film is actually rather interesting in that its almost as if Russell an co. were relishing in the artifice, purposefully making every aspect of the film look as cheap as possible and yet there is an ingenuity to all the homemade effects and costumes, the punk rock, DIY spirit of the production making the film all the more endearing.

The film was very much a labor of love from Russell and his wife Lisi Tribble, with Russell not only writing, directing and starring in the film (and hamming it up marvelously complete with a hilariously exaggerated German accent) but also acting as the cinematographer, producer and editor while Tribble pulled quadruple duties in the acting department playing four different roles. The film was again the product of a time of immense creativity for Russell who would follow it with several shorts, including a segment in the horror anthology films Trapped Ashes (2006) titled “The Girl With the Golden Breasts” as well as a hysterically incendiary Christmas themed internet short A Kitten for Hitler (2007). Prior to Louse, Russell had been working pretty much exclusively in television after his final theatrical feature Whore (1991) was unceremoniously slapped with an NC-17 rating, resulting in a limited release. It's perhaps safe to assume that The Fall of the Louse of Usher was the type of movie Russell was clamoring to make during his made-for-TV years, the advent of digital video finally giving him the resources. It's the product of legend effectively telling the filmmaking establishment he didn't need them anymore. Although some may run away in horror at the rough aesthetics of it, The Fall of the Louse of Usher is without question 100% pure Ken Russell and that in itself is something to admire.