Roderick Usher is the last surviving male member of his family, living as a recluse in the ancestral home with his twin sister, Madeline. She is slowly dying of a disease for which her doctor seems unable or unwilling to find a cause or a cure. Roderick begs an old friend to visit. Shortly after the friend’s arrival, Madeline is found dead and is buried in a vault beneath the house. In an attempt to calm the increasingly distracted Roderick, his friend reads to him a medieval romance. As the cl...