The Fall of the House of Usher: A Unique Take on Poe’s Tales

The Fall of the House of Usher premieres on Netflix October 12. This spoiler-free review is part of our Fantastic Fest 2023 coverage.

The first thing you need to know about Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher is that it’s not the story you’re expecting. Don’t take that to mean that reverence for Edgar Allan Poe isn’t front and center, though: Every minute of this series worships Poe. But rather than directly translating the author’s tale of a man whose internal rot is symbolized by his crumbling abode, Flanagan uses the short story as what could almost be described as the wraparound segment in an anthology, with each chapter tackling another one of Poe’s fables while mummified in the wrappings of “The Fall of the House of Usher.” What comes out of that mummification is some of Flanagan’s best work.

Which isn’t to say that the show’s story comes off as disjointed. What Flanagan and his team of writers did wasn’t just develop individual odes to “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Black Cat,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and more – they married them together to create what is one of the most impeccable shows in recent memory. What makes this House of Usher decidedly not an anthology is the way that the writers intricately weave the main players’ stories throughout each episode.

The Usher family is quite big. This is thanks largely to Roderick Usher’s (Bruce Greenwood), well, let’s just say “appetite.” Only some of the mothers of his children are seen, but the matriarchs that matter to the story are Roderick’s sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell), and much-younger wife Juno (Ruth Codd), who you’ll hear called “child bride” quite often. Much of our attention is focused on the children, who fall into one of two camps: Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan) and Frederick (Henry Thomas) are the only two direct Usher heirs born in wedlock, while media mogul and sex addict Camille (Kate Siegel), game developer and drug addict Napoleon (Rahul Kohli), surgeon Victorine (T’Nia Miller), and screwup Prospero (Sauriyan Sapkota) are “The Bastards.” There’s also a granddaughter in the mix: Lenore (Kyliegh Curran). Joining the Effed-up Family of the Year in their complicated and messy lives are Mark Hamill as Arthur Pim, Carla Gugino as Verna, and Carl Lumbly as Auguste Dupin.

The point of prattling off all of these names is twofold. First, they offer hints for those with a keen eye for Poe’s work. And second? Every single performance listed above – and even some that are saved for later – is perfect. Without an ounce of sarcasm, hyperbole, or figurative speech, they are all just… perfect.

Over the years, Flanagan has cultivated a stable of actors – the “Flanafam,” as they’re known to fans – many of whom are showcased in The Fall of the House of Usher. What’s kept things from getting stale as the company has moved with the filmmaker through the works of Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Henry James, Christopher Pike, Hasbro, and now Poe is that none of them are ever typecast. Sloyan and Kohli are oceans apart from their Midnight Mass characters here, while The Haunting of Hill House’s Theodora Crain would have smacked Camille into oblivion. The Fall of the House of Usher gives the entire cast a brand new playground, and everyone is having the time of their lives. (Or time of their deaths? You get the idea.)

Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher: New Images

The Haunting of Hill House set the bar for scares in Flanagan’s filmography, and The Fall of the Usher meets those expectations with ease thanks to the work of cinematographer Michael Fimognari (Flanagan and Fimognari have enjoyed a long partnership, dating back to 2013’s Oculus). Like Hill House before it, House of Usher features a good blend of slow, spooky scares and outright shrieks as Roderick recounts his complicated tale to Auguste in the musty carcass of his childhood home. Both the past and present timelines are filled with the kind of horrors you’ve come to expect from Flanagan, but he really flexes in the methodology of murder as tragedy barrels its way through the Usher family.

Of course, that tragedy is more for the patriarch than it is for us, and their deaths, while instrumental to the story, aren’t really what it’s about. Though their respective demises come in varying degrees and patterns of awful, almost every member of the House of Usher is despicable in their own way. Imagine watching Succession and seeing each of the series’ miserable players get what they deserve in the most lethal way possible? That’s the type of delicious schadenfreude that The Fall of the House of Usher offers. We watch on as each victim – Usher or otherwise – makes their proverbial bed despite the grace of the literal warnings offered. After all, hubris, like any of the fine products from the Roderick-run Fortunato, is a hell of a drug.

The Usher empire is propped up by both. In bringing Poe’s fables to the contemporary world, Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher centers on some of today’s greatest evils. Fortunato – the Usher’s pharmaceutical company and a name plucked from Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” – is the core driver behind all of Roderick and Madeline Usher’s actions. Meanwhile, the latter’s obsession with immortality is constantly playing on the fringes, only brought to the forefront to appropriately mock AI and any place it has in storytelling or the human experience as a whole.

There’s not a moment where The Fall of the House of Usher doesn’t shine, whether it’s in the gloss of Louboutins or the pools of blood. From Susan Davis’ costume department to the extensive visual effects team, each crew came together to deliver their absolute A-game. The new entry into the Mike Flanagan pantheon is always firing on all cylinders, and it’s sure to join many a fan’s annual rotation of spooky time traditions.