The Fall of the House of Usher

Mike Flanagan returns to form in The Fall of the House of Usher, delivering a deliciously macabre and contemporary reimagining of the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Classic tales marry with modern commentary in a limited series that delivers at every turn. You’ll scream, you’ll cry, and once it’s over you might just start it all over from the beginning again.

Flanagan hasn’t just used the writer as inspiration; he’s created a vibrant testament to his greatness. Annabel Lee may forever be in her tomb by the sounding sea, but Poe lives on… on Netflix.

Iit is, much like his other works, about so much more than simple jump scares or overt violence. A story of the long tail impact of trauma, it is a darkly funny and emotionally rich tragedy that grounds itself in our universal longing for love and human connection.

The series proves similarly compelling throughout its dual timelines, but its finest pleasures lie in the present, when Roderick and Auguste interrupt the flashbacks with personal and philosophical asides.

Despite its somewhat bloated plot at times, The Fall of the House of Usher is suitably creepy, with Flanagan once again showing off his chops as a horror storyteller and ultimately hinging the story on strong, complex emotions that do more than just get your heart pounding.

A good adaptation is faithful to the essence of the original material. A great adaptation manages to be faithful while using the original to build something new. In Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher, the preservation of mood pays proper homage to the author’s words. The show’s social commentary, in turn, allows a retelling of an old story to resonate powerfully in our current moment.

But with his latest Netflix limited series, The Fall of the House of Usher (streaming Oct. 13), Flanagan has outdone himself at almost every turn. The teleplays are tighter, his directorial eye is sharper, and the entire eight-episode affair is more expansive and exciting than anything Flanagan has taken on in years.

Flanagan’s ability to weave this story is helped by the fact that he has regulars like Greenwood, Gugino, Thomas and others in prominent roles, and pros like McDonnell and Lumbly joining his family of players. They know what’s required in a show like this and they make the most of what Flanagan gives them.

It’s excellent in many ways, and fairly engrossing throughout. But in one notable way, it’s the first Flanagan project to not feel entirely at home on Netflix, because it would likely play much better as a weekly series than as a binge.

Flanagan finishes his Netflix contract on a high, gleefully capturing Poe’s magic, eerie romance and sense of dread.

The Fall of the House of Usher serves up contempt for the wealthy, disgust with their selfishness, and glee at their increasingly gnarly demises, and that unexpected-for-Flanagan feast is bloody delicious.

The framework of the Usher legacy is most poignant when Flanagan shines a light on the twins’ ambitions, even as teens and young adults, as well as their unbridled loyalty to one another. A stunning use of Poe’s work as the Cliffs Notes to his own majestic, intricate brand of storytelling.

The miniseries is markedly uninterested in that competition or the psychodynamics thereof. It lingers, instead — like a gruesome “Christmas Story” — on how things got to this point, and on the price the billionaire (and his no less complicit sister) must pay.

The series is, in its eight-episode run, sometimes an exhausting sit. Yet it’s engrossing throughout, shifting from the gothic to the baroque as miserable punishment befalls each Usher—one by bloody one.

Before the House Of Usher comes crumbling down, Mike Flanagan builds a towering, dark-hearted horror story that’s horribly good fun.

It's clever and gripping even if the course it will follow is made clear by its second episode: Each kid gets an episode in the spotlight before meeting a violent end. But even if it takes on a slasher-like predictability by pushing characters toward inventive kills, one by one, Usher also grows darker and more somber as it progresses.

It’s a great ensemble, brought together by the boundless potential of what a creative personality like Mike Flanagan could do with Edgar Allen Poe. That some of that potential feels too unbridled and shapeless is something that Poe didn’t often allow his characters: forgivable.

A series that goes over the top at times and stops the momentum dead in its tracks on a handful of occasions with preachy social/political monologues — but this also is a great-looking slice of horror entertainment with brilliant performances from an extended ensemble that includes a number of Flanagan regulars, including Henry Thomas, T’Nia Miller, Rahul Kohli, Samantha Sloyan and Kate Siegel.

The tonal difference between the books and the series? The makers of “The Fall of the House of Usher” are having way more fun.

Campy, acted with flair, and boasting lush, operatic death sequences (bravo Michael Fimognari), Usher is sparkly but not deep, more box Merlot than Amontillado.

Usher is a Gothic-tinged horror lark that's more superficial than Flanagan's previous work but still delivers some creepy chills.

You have a pretty good idea from the first couple where things are headed. It’s a journey-is-the-reward situation. That journey works better as stand-alone chapters rather than as a build-up to a final destination.

“Usher” saves almost all its big revelations, emotionality and its most biting humor for its last episode — which explains all that’s come before as the pieces fall into place as surely as the house of Usher must also fall, given the show’s title. It’s a satisfying ending, even if the series as a whole doesn’t quite live up to Flanagan’s previous, better efforts.

As a whole, The Fall of the House of Usher is monumentally ambitious and a resounding success by and large. Opinion may vary on whether or not it really is Flanagan’s episodic magnum opus, but one thing that can’t be denied by the time the credits come up on the eighth and final entry is that Netflix’s loss is about to become Prime Video’s gain.

A bluntly entertaining exercise. It’s easily the most specifically topical of Flanagan’s Netflix minis, fueled by an often palpable anger. But that anger frequently gets in the way of the thematic richness that gave The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass their mournful charge. For eight hours, instead of rooting for people, you’re rooting for payback, leading to a satisfying, but surface-level experience.

With Greenwood channeling Sam Neill in “Event Horizon” and Gugino exuding irrefutable authority, “The Fall of the House of Usher” strikes a fine balance between batshit energy and grounded validity.

Long drawn out and sagging hard in the middle, ‘House Of Usher’ is still a captivating fable about aspirational dreams turned nightmare, tragedies and trauma, and the heaviest of tolls extracted when the bill comes due.

Flanagan (who directed half the episodes, with Michael Fimognari handling the rest) has more resources at his disposal, and rewards Netflix with another watchable title just in time for Halloween – if not, Fortunato’s corporate sins notwithstanding, one that’s not as addictive as it could or should be.

A predictable if creepy death march. .... Still, with bodies in the wall and in the basement, with ticking heart sounds and a fiendishly resilient black cat conjuring Poe's most haunting inventions, you'll be hooked to the last scream. [16 Oct - 5 Nov 2023, p.9]

Maybe for mega-fans of Poe, there will be more to embrace here, and they will come away loving every second of The Fall of the House of Usher. I myself came away feeling it was very much a mixed bag - impressive for its ambition, its performances, its horror and its staging, but trying to do both too much and not enough within its inflated runtime.

While "House of Usher" begins to sag under its own weight, it still occasionally delivers, and the "Succession" meets Poe scenario might be enough to thrill you this Halloween season. If not, you can always revisit "Hill House" instead.

The Fall of the House of Usher, frustratingly, once more shackles him to source material that’s simply incompatible with his own gifts. .... Flanagan has taken works that are fundamentally about the horror of loneliness and turned them into occasions for florid family melodrama.