Creator Mike Flannagan’s latest spooky Netflix series, “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a darkly atmospheric treat for this Halloween season.
Premiering Thursday, Oct. 12, it’s loosely based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name (as well as his other works) – but it also takes several more modern creative leaps, such as weaving in a fictional billionaire family dynasty that seems inspired by the infamous Sackler family (who have also inspired shows such as Hulu’s “Dopestick” and Netflix’s “Painkiller”).
The result should please fans of Flannagan’s past works (“The Haunting of Hill House,” “Midnight Mass”), and it also has a dash of “Succession” thrown in.
Dripping with Gothic atmosphere (and episode titles with nods to Poe, such as “The Masque of the Red Death” and “A Midnight Dreary”), “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a bloody saga about the Ushers, who helm the powerful empire, Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, which many people blame for the opioid crisis (even though they’ve avoided courtroom consequences, thus far).
There’s patriarch Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood as an older man, Zach Gilford when he’s younger), his sister Madeline (Mary McDonell when she’s older, Willa Fitzgerald when she’s younger), and Roderick’s six kids from various past relationships, including Frederick (Henry Thomas), Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan), Victorine (T’Nia Miller), Napoleon (Rahul Kohli), Camille (Kate Siegel, who is Flanagan’s wife in real life), and Prospero (Sauriyan Sapkota).
Roderick also has a granddaughter, Lenore (Kyliegh Curran).
There’s the shady family lawyer, Arthur Pym (Mark Hamill, clearly having fun hamming it up with his own pseudo Darth Vader voice for the role), and the mysterious and sinister Verna (Carla Gugino) too.
At the beginning of the series, newspaper clippings inform us that most of their family members have suffered mysterious and bizarre deaths at young ages.
Roderick, who is still alive in fall of 2023, begins telling investigator C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly) his sad and strange tale, as flashbacks chronicle his childhood, starting in the 1950s.
These jumps to the past ultimately clue us in on how he rose to power, how his kids died as young adults, and why an investigator has 72 charges against Roderick in the present day – including a charge of defrauding the U.S. government.
Because this is a Flannagan show, soon it spirals into supernatural territory, with the “ghosts of the past” and “personal demons” becoming literal.
Although the present day is rooted in the modern era, the story is brimming with Poe references, with character names like Lenore and Annabell Lee, and plot elements mined from stories such as “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” At times, there’s even lines from his poems said aloud.
Some viewers might find the parts about the opioid crisis to be a little too “ripped from the headlines.”
“The Fall of the House of Usher” also has less complexity than “The Haunting of Hill House,” since these characters are more overtly repugnant.
But, that makes it fun to watch them meet their ends in elaborate ways — at times with startling artistic gruesomeness that brings to mind NBC’s “Hannibal.” (It’s also cathartic, since the Usher family’s apparent real-life counterpart has faced few consequences for their alleged link to the opioid crisis).
Additionally, the characters still do have some psychological depth, as the story digs into paranoia, guilt, and Roderick’s adult kids’ desire for his elusive approval.
The mystery isn’t who dies, but how and why it happens.
Like most of Flanagan’s work, even when the show gets messy, it’s thoughtful horror with a lot on its mind. It demonstrates that the genre can be a lot more than gore and jump-scares.
But, there’s plenty of that stuff to be found here, too.
