Mike Flanagan has paved his own path in the horror genre, specifically on Netflix. He’s created multiple iconic horror series for the popular streaming service such as A Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and my personal favorite of the bunch Midnight Mass. He also made a few films as well such as Doctor Sleep. With The Fall of the House of Usher, he channels his inner fan of the HBO sensation of the family drama Succession. Throw in some of Edgar Alan Poe’s literature, and you have his latest horror series. 

The show starts with a framing sequence where a district attorney, C Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly), gets a request to come see Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) at his childhood home. Which is overrun by weeds and ramshackle. Weather mold and mildew have done a number on this once-palatial estate.  This is the perfect location to tell the story of the death of his six children and how he has become who he is at the present time in this world.

Greenwood’s Usher, played by Zach Gilford is a younger man who is very close to his sister Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald, Lulu Wilson)) They witnessed the slow and painful death of their mother Eliza (Annabeth Gish). They couldn’t get any help to save her even from their neighbor, who was her boss and had money to help her. Since that moment, they vowed to be successful in the pharmaceutical industry by buying their neighbors’ company and making it their own. They are driven to be leaders, and they want to help those who can’t help themselves. The flashbacks are very helpful in telling this part of the story.

There is a modern-day story in which Lumbly’s character is a major part of as well. There is a courtroom drama aspect to this series. Mark Hamill of Star Wars fame plays the lawyer of the Usher family, Arthur Pym, and at this time in their history, they are being taken to court for the deaths of thousands from becoming addicted to various drugs that they have created for their company, Fortunato Pharma. This is the reason for Lumbly’s character to go to Usher’s childhood House for a confession from Roderick Usher himself.

Flanagan uses the first two episodes of the show, eight in total, to introduce all of the players or rather family members of the Ushers. That being said the horror aspects are put on the back burner until the end of the second episode, Athens the end of episode two the real horror starts, and viewers start to see what is truly going on with this family. It all comes full circle regarding the framing sequence. This is a true framing sequence.

The question of how Edgar Alan Poe fits into the series besides its title is that the episodes are named after popular stories from the macabre writer. The first episode is named Midnight Dreary and each subsequent episode is named after his works starting with  Rue Morgue,  which ironically is the name of the company founded by Roderick Usher, another episode is called The Black Cat referring to one of the supporting characters, cat, and so forth and so on. Flanagan fits these stories into the overall series very nicely. With Poe’s works, we know they are dark and somewhat disturbing so they lend themselves to a dark show such as this.

As the episodes keep going there is death and blood and guts. There are some nasty happenings in the show and as it goes further and further along nastiness and blood and guts gets worse and worse. Flanagan infuses all of Poe’s dark stories into this series but he uses a real-world story to tell it to the world. There is a whole drug and opioid epidemic in this country and oxycontin is the main drug that has killed thousands of people in recent years. This company and family featured in the show are easily similar to the Sacklers. So the series has some real-world similarities. 

Carla Cugino is an actress who has been around for a while. She’s worked with a lot of big-name directors like Robert Rodriguez and Zach Snyder. She even worked with Flanagan in the past in Gerald’s Game based on the Steven King novel of the same name. This is a reunion between her and Flanagan. He cast her as a pretty dark character who has multiple roles within this complex story. She is a key player in the overall story but I don’t want to give away too many spoilers in this review. Suffice it to say Cugino is very good at being very bad in this show.

Mike Flanagan has a knack for creating dark and macabre shows. A lot of people like these kinds of series. They have blood and guts nature to them. He combined the older works of legendary horror writer Poe to a more modern take on the stories. He channeled some hot button topics in the news today with another successful show Succession and he has another winner on his hands. The cast is vast and they all play their roles perfectly. The story has multiple layers and the modern day stuff combined with the flashbacks make for a great series. Horror is the key element that are sprinkled through the show and we wait with bated breath for our Jaws to drop with whatever horrible thing happens from episode to episode.  Each episode ups the ante on the next.

(8 Episodes Reviewed Series Premiers on Netflix October 12th 2023)

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen