What Is the Story About?
Loosely based on the short story of the same name and other works by Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ follows the Usher family centered around the CEO of Fortunado – a corrupt pharmaceutical company who faces unproven charges and allegations of his questionable and sketchy past when his 6 children start dying one after the other in mysterious and brutal ways in a span of 2 weeks.
Performances?
Like any Mike Flanagan horror, The Fall of the house of Usher has a cast that’s not just impeccable but mostly with faces very similar to the Flagan-verse.
Bruce Greenwood as Roderick Usher commands his space and glues in the guilt, ambition, greed and pathos of a rich man who did unforgivable things to reach where he is and has his gruesome fate following him one after the other. Mary Mcdonell’s Madeline Usher is a genuinely creepy character, someone who’d stop nowhere to get what she wants even if that means murdering people, & the actor fully immerses in the role.
Analysis
Based on the short story by Edgar Allen Poe that goes by the same name, The Fall Of the House of Usher, contemporary Horror auteur Mike Flanagan’s latest outing is an unapologetic and creepy gothic horror that portrays horror in most ways that reflect poetic justice.
Flanagan has not only adapted the short story, but also incorporated characters and sub-texts from some of Poe’s other celebrated works like Murder in the Rue Morgue, The Black Cat, The Pendulum, The Masque of the Read Death etc. All this by retaining the juice of Poe’s dark humour.
The Fall of the House of Usher is being called as the Succession equivalent of the flanagan-verse and we have no choice but to agree because here we have a huge pharmaceutical conglomerate, helmed by siblings Roderick Usher and Madeline Usher. A powerful corporate that rose to prominence by doing some unjustifiable and nasty deeds, whose price is being paid by the equally despicable children of Roderick Usher.
The film opens to Roderick Usher mourning the demise of his 6 children from 5 different women at their joint funeral. Here’s the catch! All 6 children passed away within a span of 2 weeks and had the most brutal ends ever. This is when Roderick decides to confess all his misdoings to Attorney Dupin, who also happens to have a history with the Usher family.
The current generation Usher Family (basically the dead generation) has drug addicts, creeps, hedonists and what more. The Usher siblings also have a mole within them who the family wants dead. The Ushers are a family with unspoken secrets and nasty roots. The air of horror thickens when a generation of rotten apples from a foul tree gets wiped out in no time and that’s when Roderick Usher goes back in time and the viewer sees glimpses of his and Madeline’s childhood.
Without further spoilers, The Fall of the House of Usher is unlike previous spookoctober Netflix outings from Flanagan, but also quite more mainstream in more ways than one. We have a lot of bad characters, who pay for their crimes and the way they meet their ends create an atmosphere of harrowing dread coupled by the music and exceptional performances from the cast.
Some of the vfx work in the show is so outdated. Repeated flashbacks act as fillers and tamper the momentum as well. Nevertheless, Flanagan’s direction and editing is flaw-less and his ensemble cast delivers like their rents were due. The Fall Of The House of Usher is one of Flanagan’s finest and most engaging works if not as good as The Haunting of Hill House or Midnight Mass.
If you’re one of Flanagan’s fans, you definitely should watch it. If you’re a horror fanatic you would definitely watch it. Even if you’re neither, The Fall of the House of Usher is worth your time and you need to make time for it.
Other Artists?
The Fall of the House of Usher doesn’t falter a bit when it comes to casting. Be it Carl Lumbly’s Lupin who adds the Poe dark humour to the narrative effectively or Mark Hamill’s attorney or even the starkly different but equally problematic and unforgivable Usher children like Henry Thomas’s Frederick Usher, Kate Siegel’s sharp-spoken Camille L’Espanaye, Rahul Kohli’s drug addict Napoleon Usher or the rest of the cast, everyone’s equally at their best form in the show.
Music and Other Departments?
Michael Fimognari’s camera work is an essential character of The Fall of the House of Usher much like its sinister and atmospheric music. The technical team behind the show is tight-knit in delivering a goth-horror with finesse. Brett Bachman’s editing deserves his flowers despite the narrative having too many fillers to pack the run-time.
Highlights?
Core Story
Performances
Writing
Music & Editing
Drawbacks?
Filler episodes
Flashback sequences
Not as psychological as Flanagan’s previous works
Did I Enjoy It?
Yes.
Will You Recommend It?
Yes. Definitely.
The Fall of the House of Usher Series Review by Binged Bureau
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