Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher is so scary and disturbing that it’s difficult to watch more than once. With the premiere of The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix in 2018, Mike Flanagan delivered a miniseries that took the horror world by storm, but he didn’t stop there.
Flanagan’s take on Shirley Jackson’s iconic novel remains one of the best horror miniseries of all time, and he followed it up with more terrifying miniseries based on well-known horror stories. After The Haunting of Hill House, Flanagan made The Haunting of Bly Manor, which was inspired by Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.
But arguably Flanagan’s most horrifying miniseries was his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. With many of the same cast members as Flanagan’s other horror miniseries, House of Usher draws from several of Poe’s works to tell the disturbing story of a wealthy family’s fall from grace.
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Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher centers on the Usher family and the events that led to the gruesome deaths of all six of the children of Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood, Zach Gilford). This miniseries evokes a different kind of horror than Flanagan’s other stories, relying more on gore and disturbing deaths than jump scares and hidden ghosts.
Each episode of the series is titled after an Edgar Allan Poe story or poem, many of the character names come from Poe’s stories, and most of the deaths are directly inspired by Poe’s works.
Over the course of the series’ eight episodes, Roderick reveals the unsavory truth about his family and his original rise to power alongside his sister, Madeline (Mary McDonnell, Willa Fitzgerald ). The story checks in on Roderick and Madeline’s journey, while also following Roderick’s six children in the present day, as they’re plagued by a mysterious woman named Verna (Carla Gugino).
The Usher family is mostly made up of Mike Flanagan’s regulars and includes Henry Thomas as Frederick, Kate Siegel as Camille, Rahul Kohli as Leo, Samantha Sloyan as Tamerlane, T’Nia Miller as Victorine, and Sauriyan Sapkota as Perry. The series is full of incredible performances, with Bruce Greenwood and Carla Gugino as particular standouts.
Flanagan Outdid Himself With How Scary The Fall Of The House Of Usher Is
The Show Is Full Of Frightening Imagery & Shocking Gore That Sticks With You
While all of Mike Flanagan’s Netflix miniseries have their fair share of scares, The Fall of the House of Usher reaches another level of disturbing. Every member of the Usher family is corrupt or depraved in their own way (although some are far worse than others), and all of their deaths are horrific in unique ways.
Every episode of The Fall Of The House Of Usher delivers something awful, from the acid rain in episode 2, “The Masque of the Red Death,” to the black cat in episode 4, “The Black Cat,” to Frederick’s slow death via pendulum in episode 7, “The Pit and the Pendulum.”
All of the deaths throughout the series stick with you, but the scene I can’t get out of my head didn’t even involve a death. After Frederick’s wife, Morella (Crystal Balint), survives the acid attack in episode 2, Frederick continues to brutally torture her as she tries to recover.
No one emerges unscathed at the end of The Fall of the House of Usher, and the show pushes the limits of even devoted horror fans. Still, like every Mike Flanagan Netflix series, The Fall of the House of Usher has a certain haunting beauty to it, even as it’s hard to imagine watching it all the way through more than once.
