Welcome to Up Subsequent, a recurring column keeping track of what’s new in TV. This week, TV critic Valerie Ettenhofer checks in with a overview of Mike Flanagan’s newest Netflix thriller, The Fall of the Home of Usher.
The Fall of the Home of Usher won’t be Mike Flanagan’s most profound Netflix horror sequence up to now (that’d be Midnight Mass), nor his most heartbreaking (The Haunting of Hill Home), but it surely’s actually his most enjoyable. The brand new restricted sequence reimagines the grisly poems and tales of Edgar Allan Poe in a shocking new context and has a blast with each twisted minute of it. Darkly humorous, sickly horny, tonally wealthy, and disturbing as all get out, that is simply the very best horror TV present of the 12 months – and among the finest exhibits of the 12 months, interval.
The Usher household’s story begins with Roderick (Bruce Greenwood, performed by Zach Gilford in his youthful years) and sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell and Willa Fitzgerald), who decide within the ‘70s that units them on a course in direction of corruption – and wealth – that appears to haven’t any restrict. Within the current day, Roderick sits atop the throne at an organization referred to as Fortunato Prescription drugs, which is actually a stand-in for Purdue Pharma, the true firm that manufactured the fashionable opioid epidemic. Roderick and his six grownup children could on some degree be stand-ins for the Sacklers, however a few of them additionally really feel like they may’ve walked straight out of Succession.
The present’s construction is easy: in an previous, empty home, Roderick tells an investigator (Carl Lumbly) how every of his six kids died. We all know early on that Goop knock-off wellness guru Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan), douchebag sport developer Napoleon (Rahul Kohli), acid-tongued fixer Camille (Kate Siegel), medical researcher Victorine (T’Nia Miller), celebration boy Prospero (Sauriyan Sapkota), and inheritor obvious Frederick (Henry Thomas) will die, however that foresight under no circumstances diminishes the expertise of watching them meet their maker. The Fall of the Home of Usher has a few of the most memorable kill scenes in latest reminiscence; almost each episode ends on an ideal, punctuating mic drop after we’ve simply seen one thing horrifying. The present methodically breaks down any preliminary sympathy we may have had for these characters, then revels in ripping them aside – generally actually.
As with most of Flanagan’s works, the sequence is gorgeously shot and edited, chock filled with cinematic shot compositions and ominous imagery. It additionally advantages from a tightness that not each entry within the fashionable horror grasp’s filmography has. Gone are nearly all of the loquacious, borderline-didactic monologues that make his works sensible or tiring relying on who you ask. The present luxuriates in ambiance and tone-setting, particularly in flashbacks that slowly reveal the character of the household’s authentic sin, but it surely in any other case strikes alongside at an addictive clip. In case your abdomen is robust sufficient to deal with an onslaught of disturbing and kinky eventualities – lots of them lifted straight from the thoughts of Poe himself – it’s straightforward sufficient to burn via this present in a single sitting.
This will even be Flanagan’s most bold venture up to now. The forged is sprawling, the references are plentiful (I counted 18 Poe works alluded to all through, however there are in all probability much more), and the message on the present’s heart, which it winds its method to in a kind of concentric circle story construction, is as centered and efficient as the rest within the filmmaker’s oeuvre. The present could not make audiences shed many tears – these characters are, by and huge, means much less likable than any in Flanagan’s earlier 4 Netflix exhibits – but it surely coalesces right into a scathing, scorching tackle the ethical rot of late capitalism. Overt in its condemnation of some very fashionable monsters, the present has a political edge that’s surprisingly satisfying.
The Fall of the Home of Usher makes use of many, many actors who’re by now most identified for his or her work with Flanagan, and whereas it’s a crowded enjoying discipline, most everybody brings their A-game. Ruth Codd, the proficient younger actress who broke out in Flanagan’s and Leah Fong’s short-lived teen present The Midnight Membership, returns right here in a task that sneaks up on viewers over time, culminating in a few of the present’s strongest moments. McDonnell and Fitzgerald additionally do phenomenal work right here, whereas Greenwood has full command over every scene he’s in. Mark Hamill even exhibits up, enjoying a scary, stoic household fixer who typically manages to menace with out even lifting a finger.
After all, there’s additionally the Poe of all of it. Literary students and die-hard Poe followers could also be cut up on the present’s incorporation of the writer’s works, because the diversifications could be thought-about free at finest and at odds with Poe’s intentions at worst. Some Poe tales play out almost the identical as they do on the web page, whereas others carry little greater than their title from the poet’s bibliography. The artistic liberties aren’t inherently dangerous, although, they usually’re typically very, superb. When an episode does totally nail the supply materials, it’s not due to what Flanagan stored the identical, however due to what he and the writers’ room modified to make every story sharply fashionable and ultra-specific. By now, although, it’s secure to say that the filmmaker is delivering the kind of wealthy, genre-expanding texts that should be studied in their very own proper. That is one in all them, and it’s one you shouldn’t miss.