The Fall of the House of Usher Review: Poe Meets the Sacklers for Some Very Human Horror

The post The Fall of the House of Usher Review: Poe Meets the Sacklers for Some Very Human Horror appeared first on Consequence.

The Pitch: At the end of a long and not-exactly-noble life, the time has come for wealthy businessman Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) to confess his crimes. Not just his own, as the figurehead of a company whose success comes from an allegedly non-addictive opioid, but the crimes of his six children, who at the beginning of the series have all passed away from unnatural causes.

So Roderick tells their stories, as well as the events that shaped the Ushers into a twisted parody of a happy family, to C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly), the government prosecutor who has been trying to prove the Usher family’s malfeasance for decades. And if you at any point in your life studied American literature, and were doing a shot every time The Fall of the House of Usher dropped a reference to Edgar Allen Poe as you watched this… please go to the hospital now, and get your stomach pumped.

Once Upon a Midnight Dreary: Writer/director Mike Flanagan has developed a nice niche for himself on Netflix, and The Fall of the House of Usher might be his best effort yet. While his now-annual run of limited series have received their fair share of acclaim, “What would Edgar Allen Poe have thought of the Sackler family?” proves to be a meaty pitch, elevated by a cast that in some cases has never been better.

While past Flanagan series inspired by famous authors have never hidden their inspiration, House of Usher puts the writing of Poe front and center, with a deliberate emphasis on the author’s actual words, especially his poetry. These familiar lines are blended into the show’s actual dialogue at times, and used for emphasis in voice-over at others: Greenwood wasn’t necessarily cast for his rich speaking voice, but listening to him recite familiar passages from poems like “The Raven” is a deeply-felt pleasure.

In fact, the entire cast all gets a chance to intone some of Poe’s most famous verses. This is no poetry recital, though, as each episode explains how each brick of the House of Usher came to crumble, in gruesome fashion. Flanagan has a great deal of fun adapting Poe’s most disturbing fictions for today in both expected and unexpected ways — from the episode titles, you might expect to know how “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” might play out… but you also might be mistaken.

Those Who Dream by Day: Flanagan, like many creators, has developed a strong in-house ensemble of actors he keeps bringing back for projects, and regulars like T’Nia Miller, Rahul Kohli, Kate Siegel, and Zach Gilford all turn in solid work. But Usher‘s shining star is Carla Gugino, as a mysterious woman deeply involved in the Usher family’s fate. Gugino has always been a joy to witness as an actress, but here Flanagan gives her so much to play, her character’s frequent darting between identities a true showcase for the full range of her talents. It’s a tremendous performance, worthy of whatever awards you could throw at it — its scope is hard to sum up in words (spoiler-free ones, anyway).

The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)

Mary McDonnell also proves staggering, as Roderick’s arguably more vicious sister, while Mark Hamill plays Arthur Pym, the Usher family lawyer with a complicated history of his own, and proves to be a real surprise. Famous both for Star Wars as well as his later-in-life voice acting work, there aren’t a lot of nuanced characters like this on his resume, but he proves more than capable of bringing the necessary menace without overplaying it; one of his later scenes, opposite Gugino, is a delicate, sad, and maybe even slightly beautiful moment captured for the screen.

Meanwhile, the vastly under-appreciated Carl Lumbly gets to serve as the show’s moral compass, while sparring mostly with Greenwood. The latter, known best for Thirteen Days and Star Trek, was brought in to replace Frank Langella, who was fired during production for “unacceptable conduct.” However, you’d never know he was pinch-hitting, bringing all the necessary gravitas to the role.

The Verdict: HBO’s Succession has always been seen as more of a Murdoch family pastiche than the Sacklers, but the way it explores how power struggles within a family warp its foundations has a broader application, and that show’s influence is definitely felt here. (If this was a comparison Flanagan and his collaborators wanted to avoid, for the record, they might have reconsidered casting Sarah Snook doppelganger Samantha Sloyan as Tamerlane Usher, whose persona and relationship with her husband might draw some additional comparisons to Shiv.)

Still, this is a feature, not a bug — if nothing else, viewers these days aren’t particularly inclined towards sympathy for rich and unpleasant people. So House of Usher hits just the right balance between embracing the Usher family’s lack of likability, and resulting catharsis when they eventually meet their fate… without reducing these characters to caricature, and losing their innate humanity.

Speaking as someone who tends to be skittish about horror, House of Usher didn’t prove too tough to take — there are a few instances of graphic animal cruelty, as you might expect from a show that includes an extended tribute to Poe’s “Murder in the Rue Morgue,” and some of these deaths get pretty extreme. However, it’s all very much in keeping with the power of Poe’s work and why it’s endured throughout the years: the beauty of man’s language, in sharp contrast to man’s potential for evil.

Poe was a complicated person in addition to being an elegant writer, but what stands out the most about his work is how both sides of his prose and poetry — the horror and the beauty, entwined — are rooted in a deeply felt understanding of humanity at its worst and its best. Mostly its worst, but it’s his understanding of both sides, as much as any of his wild murder scenes, which has enabled his words to endure this long. 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.

Where to Watch: The Fall of the House of Usher premiered at this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX, and will arrive on Netflix Thursday, October 12th.

Trailer:

The Fall of the House of Usher Review: Poe Meets the Sacklers for Some Very Human Horror
Liz Shannon Miller

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