Mike Flanagan Serves Up A Gruesomely Gothic Family Drama In The Fall of the House of Usher
Since the release of 2018’s brilliant The Haunting of Hill House, Mike Flanagan has secured himself as a master of horror. Now in his final collaboration with Netflix, Flanagan delivers an Gothic horror Succession meets Edgar Allen Poe tale in The Fall of the House of Usher.
The story centers around Roderick Usher, played by Bruce Greenwood, the patriarch of a billion-dollar empire. Alongside his twin sister Madeleine (Mary McDonnell), he made his money by taking advantage of the opioid epidemic. The show opens with Usher in an old abandoned house confessing its his fault his kids are dead. Each episode, narrated by Roderick, is a reimagining of a different Poe work that follows each of the Usher children’s deaths. We learn exactly what happened to his six children and how it all connects back to a mysterious woman (Carla Gugino) he made a deal with in 1980. While Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is the foundation for this series, you’ll get to see many of his stories brought to life — including “The Raven,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and more.
The cast is full of our Flana-faves from his past works like Doctor Sleep, The Midnight Club, and The Haunting of Bly Manor. You’ve got Roderick’s direct heirs Frederick (Henry Thomas) and Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan) and then the children he had out of wedlock: PR expert Camille (Kate Siegel), game mogul and drug addict Napoleon (Rahul Kohli), experimental scientist Victorine (T’Nia Miller), and party boy Prospero (Sauriyan Sapkota). There’s also Roderick’s way-too-young wife Juno (Ruth Codd), prosecutor Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly), the fixer Arthur Pym (Mark Hamill), and Roderick’s precious granddaughter Lenore (Kyliegh Curran). You read that right, it’s a lot of characters to explore. Because of that, while the performances are top tier, it can take some time for get a sense of who everyone really is and how they fit into the story before people start dying. Greenwood is a commanding presence as Roderick Usher, delivering compelling and thought-provoking monologues. This is particularly noteworthy because he stepped into the role flawlessly, replacing another actor halfway through production. Carla Gugino proves time and time again what a chameleon of an actress she is, with Mark Hamill and Kyliegh Curran also delivering stand out performances. Unfortunately Samantha Sloyan is easy to forget as her character doesn’t get much time in the front half of the season, while Sauriyan Sapkota feels miscast as the youngest Usher.
The show really shines in the dark themes it explores and it offers a lot for viewers to discuss as they watch. It tackles everything from the opioid epidemic to AI, family legacy to how far you’ll go for power and wealth. Is there anything good that can come out of this unlikeable elite family? Perhaps through the lens of Gugino’s character we see there is a circle of life where this sort of balance is necessary to keep the world spinning. It is always darkest before the dawn after all. Like Poe did with his works, Flanagan tells a story that goes beyond the mystery and macabre to offer commentary on the way we live. While this show explores many of the themes Flanagan is known for like family trauma and haunted homes, this is also the filmmakers goriest project to date. There are violent and sinister kills each episode in these self contained stories of the children’s deaths that also advance the overarching narrative that ties back to Roderick’s past. If you’re a fan of Poe, you will already know many of these stories, but Flanagan manages to take them to darker and more complicated places. You won’t be able to stop thinking about The Fall of the House of Usher.
All in all, Flanagan wraps up his tenure at Netflix with a hauntingly twisted cautionary tale of pride, wealth, and legacy. Poe's stories are woven seamlessly and violently together in a series that will leave you mesmerized.
Stream the horrors of The Fall of the House of Usher, now out on Netflix.
