The Fall Of The House Of Usher Netflix Series Will Be 'Insane,' Mike Flanagan Teases
Mike Flanagan's next Netflix horror series is "The Fall of the House of Usher," which will adapt several different works by Edgar Allan Poe. And according to Flanagan, we're in for something crazy. The filmmaker, who created and directed the recent "Midnight Mass," dropped some info on the upcoming show, promising a series that's "just violent and insane and horrific as anything I have ever done." And while no casting has been announced yet, Flanagan confirmed that several players from his previous projects will be appearing on the show – with new folks, too. The eight-episode series will feature four episodes helmed by Flanagan and four directed by Michael Fimognari.
A Brush Fire
This sounds like someone bragging about an indie band that suddenly got big, but I've been following Mike Flanagan's work since his feature debut "Absentia." That film did so much with so little that I immediately wanted to see more from the filmmaker. Since then he's helmed films like "Occulus," "Gerald's Game," "Hush," and "Doctor Sleep." He's also worked on the Netflix horror shows "The Haunting of Hill House," "The Haunting of Bly Manor," and the recent "Midnight Mass."
And now he has "The Fall of the House of Usher" on the way. The Netflix series draws not just from the Edgar Allan Poe story with the same title, but also Poe's work in general. This is similar to the approach of "The Haunting of Bly Manor," which used Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" as its primary inspiration, but adapted several other ghost stories James wrote as well. And speaking with Bloody Disgusting, Flanagan promises that "House of Usher" is going to be a little different than his usual horror work. "A lot of the stuff I do is a slow burn. 'The Fall of the House of Usher' is a brush fire," he said, adding:
"A lot of the stuff I do is a slow burn. The Fall of the House of Usher is a brush fire. It is an explosion. It is as aggressive and rock 'n roll and over the top and just violent and insane and horrific as anything I have ever done... by a lot. We're gonna pull all the all stars from the Intrepid group of actors and some great new faces and we're just gonna f***ing jam."
I like Flanagan's slow-burns, but I'm excited to see what he does with an "aggressive and rock 'n roll and over the top and just violent and insane and horrific" show.
Buckets of Blood
In the same interview, Flanagan went even further on selling how wild and crazy he wants to make "House of Usher," saying:
"We want just buckets of blood pouring out of the ceiling on page two. And we're just gonna go ballistic. And we're gonna do it all to the music of one of the most intensely effective gothic horror writers. This is what we've been craving. A chance to just go ballistic on something. The entire catalogue of Poe is wide open. It's all public domain. We can cherry pick whatever we want and put it into one giant, crazy, heavy metal riff that's just blood-soaked and wild. In a sense, we get to blow off steam after five very emotional years. And it lets me play in a corner of the genre I haven't gotten to play in in a long time. It's a relief really. It's fun to have fun."
All of this is music to my ears (or eyes, I guess, since I'm reading it), and I look forward to seeing "Fall of the House of Usher" whenever it arrives. Before we get to "Hill House," though, we'll see the Netflix series "The Midnight Club," which Flanagan created and directed. There's no release date for that just yet, but since the show is currently in post-production, we'll likely see it sooner rather than later.