It could just be me but...what?? I admit, I have my 2 kids home and they interuptted the movie a few times so HELP!!! Ok, so Maddy is not dead, she is obviously trying to self-abort her and Rodrick's baby?? Was her death just a ploy to get Jill to come to the house. Was Jill just a baby vessel for Roderick? What is the deal-eo? What is the curse? and who was the old lady to Roderick and Maddy? Sorry so lame but, WHAT???
Don't bother trying to understand. The explanation for what you saw on your screen is that this movie is just bad, bad, awful, deplorable, ridiculous.... and did I mention bad?
OK, I googled "House of Usher" and it's based on a Poe tale (in case you didn't know - I didn't). Apparently Madeline has a rare disease that makes her appear dead even though she isn't. Roderick knows this, according to the Poe tale, and he has her buried alive. So throughout the movie it's my assumption that he, and obviously Ms. Thatcher know shes alive. As for a ploy? I don't know. Could have been. Maddie may not have been pregnant but may have been trying to keep from being able to get pregnant. I believe I heard Ms. Thatcher say in the movie that Maddie was trying to break the curse. I might be wrong. But she also could have performed a self-abortion on herself to rid herself of the twins. But by then Jill was already pregnant. I'm not sure exactly what the curse is other than the fact that it's apparent that all of the parents died young. It's all one bloodline. Twins begot twins. That's what Jill discovered when she was lining up all the family portraits. "It's all one line" is what she said. In Poe's tale, Madeline and Roderick die together after Madeline appears or confronts him.
You weren't lame for asking, it's a pretty confusing, yet slow, movie. And I welcome any additions or corrections to anything I said to help any other confused people :-)
Yes, I think the secret was that the Usher family tree didn't branch, so to speak ;) Which further leads me to believe that Madeline & Roderick are, in essence, giving birth to themselves over & over again. Plus, the resemblance in each set of adults was undeniable, generation after generation.
You got it !!!!!! There must have been some curse upon these Ushers that they should have sex with each other (brother and sister) and it appeared that Maddy was trying to break this curse. I believe Maddy was pregnant by Roderick and was aborting the baby. In the original story, Madeline was buried alive and got out of her coffin and went completely mad. Lots of stuff was left out of this film and I had to see it over again to get some sense of it, if you can call it sense.......LOL. Anyway, so Jill is pregnant with twins, and let us hope that she raises them separately so they don't get together if you know what I mean.!!!!!!!!!!! I think I posted that I saw The Fall of the House of Usher with Vincent Price and pretty much couldn't understand that one either. Maybe I should read the story ! Years ago, films pretty much did not show incest.
I'm in agreeance with all...this movie is hilariously bad. The cut away editing was AWESOME (sarcasm).
Ok, so I'm going to answer your questions:
-No, Maddy is not dead. I'm actually not sure if Roderick knows this, but I'm assuming he does know his sister is very much alive.
-Yes, she self-aborted the babies that were conceived with her twin brother. That was Maddy's method of "ending the curse".
-Yes, Maddy's death was just a ploy to get Jill to come to the house and act as a baby vessel for the Usher line.
-I assume the curse is that the twins will inevitably become sexual partners and bore a new set of Usher twins. Because of this inbreeding process, they all die at around the age of 30.
-The old lady was apparently Maddy and Rick's caretaker.
I hope I was able to answer your questions. And no you aren't lame...this movie was!!!
Roderick & Madeline are reborn in each new generation of twins.
The curse could be one of two things: 1. the perpetual rebirth of the twins, or 2. the illness, which may be responsible for the early deaths (?) of each set of twins -- I'm not completely sure, but I'm guessing it must have been one or the other, though I don't think the movie was very clear on this point
If "the curse" is the immortality of the twins through their rebirth, I'm guessing Madeline was alone in thinking of it as a curse, because Roderick lured Jill there to impregnate her as he was aware that Madeline was trying to put a stop to the cycle. I don't know if Jill was intended as a back-up in case Madeline stopped her pregnancy or if Madeline had already aborted, and that's when Roderick decided to employ Jill as the surrogate.
As for her kissing him in the tank, though... Madeline & Roderick were so close as to almost be inseparable. They have, after all, gone through who knows how many generations of death & rebirth together. I'm guessing you could maybe even think of them almost as one soul in two bodies. I think it was just kind of like... a uniting of those two souls, maybe? Like a completion of the cycle, things coming full circle, ouroboros. Also, it sets the viewer up for the next scene, in which *SPOILER* we see the babies in Jill's womb in an embrace, the same as when Madeline & Roderick died, and also as they were born before, as Roderick states.
This reminds me of Morella, in which, as I understood it, the narrator's wife dies only to live again through their child.
Or maybe... in order to be born again, of course, Madeline & Roderick must first die. Maybe, then, their illness is unique to this particular incarnation. To be free from the illness, it would be necessary to die & be born again, hopefully free from disease this time around.
Or MAYBE each time they are reborn, the disease is more degenerative. This could also be the reason Madeline wishes to stop the cycle of birth/death. Roderick, however, may not be willing to let go quite yet.
In the end, I'm guessing Madeline is half mad, & thus never shows any awareness of her long-lost friend's presence. Knowing she has successfully aborted the next generation of twins, the death of herself & Roderick ensures that the cycle comes to an end-- of course she has no idea that Jill is already pregant.
Or MAYBE Madeline aborts the new twins because they suspect (or know) the disease is passed from mother to child in utero. For this reason, they need a third party to carry the new incarnation of the twins and hatch a plan to get the unsuspecting Jill to be the surrogate. Once she is pregnant, Madeline & Roderick drown themselves in the tank; their souls now inhabit the new twins Jill is carrying.
I don't know. There really are a few ways it can be interpreted, I think. But I kind of liked it for this very reason.
In Poe's short story, Madeline suffered from catalepsy and Roderic from light sensitivity. In the end of this story, the house caved in on them, thus, The Fall of the House of Usher. This was a film back, I believe, in the 60s with Vincent Price. BTW, what's really scarey is to be buried alive, and then get out of your coffin with superhuman strength and really be insane.
Well, the ending to Poe's short story also suggests that Madeline's escape from the coffin was imagined. The main character seems to grow more and more paranoid through the atmosphere and Roderic's insanity, so it's possible he just took Roderic's word, and imagined all of it. Still a creepy story though x] Poe rules
•¤ What can the damned really say to the damned? ¤•
She too had a disease just as Roderick. They were both going to die young because of it, just as the rest of their family. So in that moment, she died from it (the original story explains this a bit more), and he also died from shock of her being alive. I think the kiss was just to put forth some kind of symbolism to the story---the fact that they were twins, yet also lovers.
•¤ What can the damned really say to the damned? ¤•
Lol don't worry, I had to rewind a few times to understand the movie myself. But I ended up understanding everything, so here we go:
1. No, Maddy is not dead. Roderick was trying to impregnate her to continue the Usher lineage. She didn't want it (no sane person would), so she would abort each of the babies. The fact that there are several scenes with blood on the floor tells us there was more than one pregnancy, due to her self-abortions.
2. Her death was a ploy to get Jill to come to the house---but Roderick didn't know she was alive. Mrs. Thatcher was trying to put a stop to it, so she made it seem as if Maddy had died. So, since (to Roderick) Maddy was dead, he needed someone else to carry out the Usher lineage---which would be Jill.
3. The curse is being an Usher. The Ushers had an incestual lineage---twins get together and have their own twins, those twins have twins, and so forth. And with this same lineage, came birth defects. or diseases. In this case, Roderick had high sensitivity problems, and Maddy had something to that effect that supposively "killed" her (in Poe's short story, she had catalepsy). Since all of the family before them had died young because of these diseases, it was obvious this would happen to both Roderick and Maddy, eventually, as well. There's no logical reason to WHY the family continued their lineage through incest---it's just apart of the Usher curse. This is obviously the paranormal part of the story.
4. The old lady, Mrs. Thatcher, was the caretaker of the family. She didn't want to continue the curse of the Usher lineage, so she tried to abort Jill's babies (if you remember her giving Jill an injection in her stomach towards the end). And obviously, she hid the fact that Maddy was alive.
And just to add, just in case you're wondering---Jill isn't related to Roderick (I'm getting there), but she doesn't have to be in order to continue the Usher curse. I think what both this film and the original story mean to say is that it doesn't matter what you do---if you are an Usher, the curse will live on. The only solution is to discontinue the lineage, even if it isn't through incest. That's what Maddy was trying to do when she killed herself and Roderick in the water in the end. Obviously it didn't matter, because Jill ended up being pregnant anyway x-/
•¤ What can the damned really say to the damned? ¤•
Just another take: This family would have no problems keeping Maddie restrained during pregnancy if they knew after the first time she would self-abort. She had to know that. The coat hanger is definitely suggestive. I also wondered if, during the first abortion, Maddie intentionally used the coat hanger to damage her womb so badly she would never be able to conceive again. Just a thought.
Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.