KCL Strand Film Festival: Edgar Allan Poe on Screen

The 9th KCL Strand Film Festival are proud to present an evening of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, featuring specially selected short films and a special screening of Jean Epstein's silent adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), with a live violin score from Marika Tyler-Clark. 

The Fall in the House of Usher follows Roderick Usher, an isolated artist who believes his portrait of his wife Madeline is draining her life. As she weakens and is entombed in a deathlike state, she returns during a storm, and the Usher mansion collapses. The film emphasises gothic mood and psychological decay through dreamlike, impressionistic imagery rather than straightforward horror. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s short story of the same name, Epstein flipped its protagonists from a pair of twin siblings to two lovers. 

The story has been adapted many times since its publication, most recently into a miniseries in 2023, streaming on Netflix. There is something particularly interesting about the way the story, so focussed on issues of lineage and death, has seemed to conquer such things, adapting to new media and resonating with people in the present day. 

Introduced by Dr Michael Collins, Reader in American Studies in the English department at KCL, this one-off screening event features short film adaptations of Poe's stories, followed by Epstein's film, with a live violin score by Marika Tyler-Clark. 

Don't miss this celebration of all things dark, dreadful and macabre!

"A visually masterful film that very much retains its power today, The Fall of the House of Usher introduced many tropes of the horror genre.”  – Jennie Kermode

The KCL Strand Film Festival (25 March - 1 April 2026) is curated by students on the Film Festivals and Film Festival Studies module in the Department of Film Studies at King's College London.