The Fall of the House of Usher, review: Netflix update Edgar Allen Poe to death
Netflix has unleashed many horrors upon humanity: some of us are still getting over 2021’s Cooking with Paris Hilton. But when it comes to unsettling audiences by design, Mike Flanagan is the acknowledged maestro of streaming horror. Alas, after the goosebumps-inducing delights of Midnight Mass, Flanagan has turned in a rare terror turkey with an over-ambitious, under-cooked take on Edgar Allan Poe.
The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix) isn’t a straight adaptation of Poe’s 1839 short story about the restless dead, familial trauma and iffy architecture. Flanagan has instead remixed Poe’s entire oeuvre into an over-stuffed paranormal pudding, bursting with charred corpses, inane apes, orgiastic parties and Faustian double-dealings.
Yet its true inspiration is more modern than Poe’s pioneering shocker. Flanagan has reimagined Roderick Usher, the original’s doomed protagonist, as the ageing head of a business empire. Usher (Bruce Greenwood) is surrounded by spoiled, squabbling children – one played by a ponytailed Henry Thomas, aka Elliott from ET.
Flanagan attempts to add a note of social commentary by having the Ushers make their millions from an Oxycontin-type opioid. He has thus given Poe the heave-ho and chained together the restless spirit of Succession’s Logan Roy and Emmy-winning opioid drama Dopesick.
You have to applaud the chutzpah. Unfortunately, The Fall of the House of Usher strains under the dead weight of Flanagan’s ambitions. The action begins with Roderick recounting to a suspicious police detective (Carl Lumbly) the circumstances surrounding the mysterious deaths of his six children.
Yet the characters are too bluntly drawn to elicit any of the sympathy we felt for the tragically awful Roys. The opiate plot feels tacked on, if not opportunistic. Nor does it help that the story is gory rather than frightening.
Poe’s influence is largely a matter of atmosphere. The eight episodes are each named after – and very vaguely inspired by – one of the author’s short stories. These range from The Murders in the Rue Morgue to The Pit and the Pendulum and The Masque of the Red Death.
Flanagan further winks at Poe in his character names. An early adversary of Roderick and his ambitious sister, Madeline, is inspired by Rufus Griswold, a literary foe of Poe’s. Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, plays the Ushers’ legal fixer Arthur Pym – another moniker pinched from Poe.
Those familiar with his classic poem The Raven will meanwhile know the provenance of Lenore. Here, she becomes Roderick’s granddaughter. Speaking of large, scary birds, you don’t have to be a Wordle champion to work out the inspiration for Verna. She’s the mysterious figure who pops up at various points in the life and times of Roderick and Madeline (Battlestar Galactica’s Mary McDonnell).
Poe is the acknowledged father of modern horror. But The Fall of the House of Usher displays a surface-level appreciation for the writer. His genius is ultimately sacrificed on the altar of the Flanagan’s desire to give us a spooky Succession.
Die-hard Flanagan fans may slog through all eight instalments. With a cry of Nevermore!, more discerning horror buffs will turn to those wonderful Poe adaptations Vincent Price made in the 1960s, leaving The Fall of the House of Usher to gather dust in the dark.
