In this lifetime, one can be certain of some things: that the sky is blue, that tigers and zebras have stripes, and that writer-director Mike Flanagan keeps streaming giant Netflix afloat with the release of a groundbreaking horror series every year. This year’s title, which premiered last October to keep with the Halloween spirit, is a novel take on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and it shocks, moves, and thrills its audience in every conceivable way.
Photo credit: netflix.com
Following the success of the somber Midnight Mass (2021) and the touching but short-lived Midnight Club (2022), Flanagan was eager to deliver a narrative that would turn the works (yup, plural “works”) of Edgar Allan Poe on their heads. While The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) is titled after just one of Poe’s short stories, it encapsulates and cleverly adapts many more of his published pieces, including his poems. Horror fans in general would definitely recognize references to “The Raven,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” while Poe aficionados might spot easter eggs that pay homage to “The Cask of Amontillado” and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Indeed, the series as a whole is a fascinating hodge-podge of a tribute to Poe, all while keeping its viewers on edge with a haunting, horrifying story housing several more stories in its fold.
In The Fall of the House of Usher, the multi-million-dollar empire of the illustrious Usher family descends into peril when Roderick Usher’s sons and daughters fall victim to a string of mysterious and violent deaths. With his physical and mental health failing and with his life and fortune in shambles, the elderly Roderick confides in a long-lost acquaintance, Auguste Dupin, in the shoddy remains of his childhood home and tells him why and how these horrible events have come to be—none of them coincidental, all orchestrated by a dark figure from his troubled past.
Each episode of the series references (and is titled after) one of Poe’s famous horror stories, and the events tied to these stories mirror those that lead up to the dismal fates of Usher’s heirs. For instance, “The Masque of the Red Death” narrates how the recalcitrant Prospero Usher, the youngest son of the family, meets his demise in a factory-turned-nightclub lit dimly in red, while in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” daughter and surgeon Victorine is haunted by the relentless ticking of an experimental artificial heart right until her death. Some episodes perfectly mimic their literary namesakes, while others show different (yet no less creative, gruesome, and faithful to Poe) ways that some of the Usher siblings pass from this world to the next.
Prior to the Netflix series’ release, horror fans were treated with various listicles of references to the works of Edgar Allan Poe that would appear in Flanagan’s newest title, in case any of them would indulge in reading some of these classic pieces before watching the anticipated show. It turns out that The Fall of the House of Usher contains more tributes to Poe than any of these listicles might have guessed or predicted, as grand as an entire episode dedicated to a particular story or even as subtle as a name mentioned in one of Poe’s more obscure poems. These witty homages to Poe are as prolific and integrated into the series as the various ghosts hidden in the scene backgrounds of Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House, and this would be expected from such an avid horror fan as Flanagan himself.
Still, regardless of a viewer’s prior knowledge (or lack of knowledge) of Edgar Allan Poe and his mark in gothic literature, The Fall of the House of Usher can stand alone as a masterfully crafted, often eccentric horror story that takes its viewers on a thrilling ride with barely any lulls. The wealthy characters, even with their overbearing attitudes and mean streaks (or, in some cases, because of them?), are entertaining to watch, and each episode does an excellent job of casting a damning lens on each Usher family member—their thoughts, their fears, their guilt—up until their untimely demise. It’s a tragic story overall, but in true Poe fashion, it holds the viewer’s hand throughout the experience—firmly, not painfully, cold but everlasting—with its themes of grief, sorrow, family, love, and what drives a person to perform horrid acts before they suffer from all-consuming guilt for the rest of their miserable days.
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