[2] The screenplay was by Dorothy Catt and Kenneth Thompson, adapted from the 1839 short story of the same title by Edgar Allan Poe.

The film uses a framing device set in a gentlemen's club where one of the members reads to his friends from a copy of Poe's book.

A century before, a young man visits a bleak-looking mansion in the English countryside where his friend Lord Roderick Usher lives with his sister Lady Madeline.

They are both mysteriously ill and he discovers that they are suffering from a curse caused by their father which will lead to them both dying shortly, resulting in the downfall and end of the ancient family of Usher.

Despite its limited budget the film proved surprisingly successful on its release as a second feature and even topped the bill in some cinemas.