As Madeleine Usher (Marguerite Gance) wastes away from a puzzling ailment, her artist husband, Roderick (Jean Debucourt), works to immortalize her on canvas. The more vivid her portrait becomes, however, the more Madeline's strength wanes. When she succumbs to her illness, Roderick slips into madness, believing she's buried alive. But nothing is as it appears in French auteur Jean Epstein's silent classic based on Edgar Allan Poe's tale.