The Fall Of The House Of Usher Review: Mike Flanagan's Latest Is Succession Meets Edgar Allan Poe
What if Edgar Allan Poe had penned "Succession"? The result might be "The Fall of the House of Usher," the latest streaming terror from Mike Flanagan ("Midnight Mass"). Flanagan, once again working with his usual stable of players, takes a "shut up and play the hits" approach to Poe here, dipping into the legendary author's work to reference nearly everything you can think of — "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Masque of the Red Death," "Murders in the Rue Morgue," and on and on. Even Poe's famous detective character C. Auguste Dupin has a part to play, only now he's been upgraded from a sleuth to a crusading district attorney, played with calm gravitas by Carl Lumbly.
At the center of it all is an obscenely wealthy, and morally corrupt family of siblings, all of whom are under the thumb of their ruthless patriarch, Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood). Flanagan attempts to bring humor to this brood of vipers, and it's impossible to look at the Ushers and all of their backstabbing and not think of the Roys from "Succession." I say "attempts to bring humor" because the comedy falls somewhat flat. Indeed, it feels forced and at odds with the brooding, gothic nature of Poe's work. Tone is a serious problem here; the show is never as scary as it should be, nor is ever as funny as it wants to be.
Still, there are plenty of great grand guignol joys to be had from what Flanagan and company are offering, although "Usher" can't compare with Flanagan's previous, better Netflix sagas, particularly the excellent "The Haunting of Hill House" and "Midnight Mass."
Once upon a midnight dreary
Roderick Usher and his twin sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell) are the heads of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, a billion-dollar pharma company with some seriously shady business dealings and a hefty body count thanks to their pushing of opioids. It's clear that Flanagan is invoking the Sacklers, the famous family who owned Purdue Pharma and played a major part in America's opioid crisis.
Roderick has fathered six children with six different wives, and as "The Fall of the House of Usher" begins, all six kids are kaput. It's not a spoiler to learn that the Usher children are dead, but how they all meet their outlandish, ghoulish deaths is best kept secret. Grieving and haunted, Roderick has summoned his nemesis Dupin, a man trying to prosecute him, to his crumbling childhood home. There, they sit by a flickering fire as a storm rages outside, complete with cinematic thunder and lightning. Usher is about to tell Dupin a scary story — the story of how his children died, and how his family became so damn cursed.
It's a great set-up, but "The Fall of the House of Usher" struggles with this scenario. The story jumps around in time, not just to show us the ways the Usher kids met their grisly ends, but also to give us a look at Roderick and Madeline's earlier years, where they're played by Zach Gilford and Willa Fitzgerald, respectively. As for the Usher kids, they're a gaggle of goons, a silly bunch who embrace their vices and have no sympathy for anyone, not even each other.
There's eldest daughter Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan), who runs a wellness brand; eldest son Frederick (Henry Thomas), who is part of the family business; Victorine (T'Nia Miller), a doctor in the midst of medical trials for the company; Napoleon (Rahul Kohli), who doesn't seem to even have the pretense of a profession; Camille (Kate Siegel), who is in charge of communications and PR for the company; and Prospero (Sauriyan Sapkota), who is trying to open a nightclub with his family's money. As for sister Madeline, she's working on some sort of AI algorithm that's never fully defined. Then there's Frederick's daughter and Roderick's granddaughter Lenore (Kyleigh Curran), who seems to be the only non-awful member of the family. Rounding things out is the family's ruthless lawyer Arthur Pym, played with just the right amount of creepiness by Mark Hamill.
Nevermore
Years ago, Roderick and Madeline encountered a mysterious woman, played by Carla Gugino. Now, that woman is back, and she seemingly hasn't aged a day — although she does have the uncanny ability to change her appearance from scene to scene, moment to moment. What does Gugino's mystery woman want? And why is she targeting the Usher children one by one? That's a mystery whose answer I won't spoil, reader. But Gugino brings her usual charm to the part, making her character both alluring and menacing all at once.
Poe's material is rife for adaptation — Roger Corman made a whole bunch of movies loosely using Poe's work as a springboard. But "The Fall of the House of Usher" seems to not quite get what makes Poe so iconic. It only wants to scratch the surface, name-dropping a ton of references to the author's work to the point where those familiar with Poe will be pointing at the TV like Leonardo DiCaprio in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Perhaps the flaw is the show's ultra-modern setting — Poe's stories always work better in the past. As a result, "The Fall of the House of Usher" is never as gothic nor as atmospheric as it should be. There are bursts of gruesomeness, true, but not enough to invoke the proper amount of melancholy dread.
Ever-present through it all: a seemingly endless series of monologues. Monologues are kind of Flanagan's thing, and sometimes, he nails them, as was the case with "Midnight Mass." Here, they fall flat, and they start to grow tiresome in how they're all shot the same way — the camera slowly pushing in on someone's face as their voice slowly rises along with the score (courtesy of the Newton Brothers). "Usher" attempts to spice these moments up by injecting some of Poe's actual prose, but it clashes with the modern dialogue to the point of exasperation.
This is one of Flanagan's lesser series, and I think the secret to the filmmaker's success is when he tackles an entire show himself. Both "The Haunting of Hill House" and "Midnight Mass" were helmed entirely by Flanagan, and they're phenomenal. Here, he shares directing duties with Michael Fimognari, and the results are less-than-stellar. But I remain in Flanagan's corner. He has a knack for horror, especially when he blends it with familial trauma. And while "House of Usher" begins to sag under its own weight, it still occasionally delivers, and the "Succession" meets Poe scenario might be enough to thrill you this Halloween season. If not, you can always revisit "Hill House" instead. I think that's just what I'll do.
/Film Rating: 5.5 out of 10
"The Fall of the House of Usher" premieres on Netflix on October 12, 2023.