When it comes to family, there’s a saying that’s always felt particularly relevant: you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. It’s a poetic way of saying family is for life, which, depending on what sort of family you have, can be seen as a blessing or a curse.
The family in Netflix’s 2023 horror series from creator Mike Flanagan (Midnight Mass, The Haunting of the Hill House) is absolutely the latter, and in eight delightfully disturbing episodes, they each get what’s coming to them. With each entry tackling a different trope drawn from the work of one of horror’s greatest and most influential writers, the show is arguably one of Flanagan’s greatest achievements to date. It’s also the perfect binge that will keep you up all night wondering what horrors will befall the Usher family next.
Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher is a delightfully messy horror miniseries. It combines several short stories and other works by Edgar Allan Poe, the most famous author and critic of all time, with hard-hitting subjects like the opioid epidemic and, much like the Gothic literature that inspired it, stitches them together into a wonderful and horrific tapestry. While Flanagan’s best works are often cited as The Haunting of Hill House or The Haunting of Bly Manor, there is a level of fury at the greed of corporations and the people behind them that makes this horror-drama deeply complex and timely, even several years later.
The series follows a non-linear timeline, tracing the rise of the Usher twins, Roderick (Zach Gilford in his younger years, Bruce Greenwood as an aging patriarch) and Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald as the younger, worldwise go-getter, Mary McDonnell as a cynical, older woman), from barely scraping by twenty-somethings to the absurdly wealthy owners of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, known for its miracle opioid, Ligodone.
The first time we meet Roderick, he’s holed up in his crumbling mansion and convinced of his doom after the death of all six of his children. He then recounts his life story to Dupin (Carl Lumbly as the eager young detective, Malcolm Goodwin as the world-weary attorney), an old friend turned rival who has dedicated his career to exposing Fortunato’s corruption.
Despite Flanagan’s heavy rewriting of Poe’s work for a modern adaptation, the gothic underpinnings that make Poe one of the most famous literary darlings of all time still shine through. The Fall of the House of Usher is rich in clever, gothic visuals. Whether it’s the harsh lighting that highlights the terror in the whites of a character’s eyes or the visage of a skull mask in a sea of normal, everyday people, Flanagan’s commitment to bringing Poe’s horror into the everyday world is as beautiful as it is macabre.
However, it’s the star-factor of Flanagan’s gothic horror-thriller that elevates The Fall of the House of Usher from enjoyable romp to sinister masterpiece. It’s not unusual for Flanagan to reuse cast members of his previous work — his wife, Kate Siegel, as well as Rahul Kohli, Zach Gilford, Samantha Sloyan, T’Nia Miller, Carla Gugino and Ruth Codd have all starred in multiple Flanagan projects — but The Fall of the House of Usher is easily some of the troupe’s best work, bringing nuanced performances to some of the most deplorable characters you’ve ever met.
Yet with as much talent as there is, Gugino as Verna, a mysterious woman who plagues the Usher twins’ past and present, is undoubtedly the star of the show. Much like how the appearance of the raven in Poe’s famous poem is used as a symbol of death, it’s difficult not to have your heart drop into your stomach the moment Verna is on the scene. Gugino’s range as both a sympathetic and a tormenting figure means that you’re never quite sure what to expect. But regardless of whether she brings carnage or care, Verna and the mystery surrounding her will have you smashing that Play Next Episode button as soon as the credits start to roll.
Flanagan’s works are equal amounts thought-provoking and cathartic, but none have quite felt so satisfactory to watch awful things happen as The Fall of House Usher. It is a tale that begins with you knowing the ending, but like all great Gothic stories, it is the telling that will pull you in and leave you hungry for more.
