The Fall of the House of Usher spoiler-free review – Deliciously dark hungers of the human heart

Nevermore. Nevermore shall new projects from writer-director Mike Flanagan come to Netflix. After several years of creating films, and, more famously, series for the streamer, Flanagan and creative partner Trevor Macy, along with their production company Intrepid Pictures, are off to work with Prime Video. Before that though, Flanagan, who has made a name for himself as a contemporary horror master thanks to the likes of Hush, Oculus and Doctor Sleep on the big screen, and The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass on the small screen, has one final Netflix release: The Fall of the House of Usher.

In much the same way that Flanagan repurposed the writings of Shirley Jackson for Hill House, and Henry James for The Haunting of Bly Manor, the contemporary-set The Fall of the House of Usher uses as its foundation the short stories and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, the father of Gothic literature. That fact helps to explain the form and tone of the new miniseries. Because if The Haunting of Hill House is Flanagan’s most terrifying series, The Haunting of Bly Manor the most heart-breaking, Midnight Mass the most profoundly soul-shaking, and last year’s The Midnight Club the most contemplative about matters of mortality, The Fall of the House of Usher is the most wicked, malicious fun.

Poe’s work is all fever dreams, brushes with madness and/or supernatural forces, torment from beyond the grave, and guilt-stricken evildoers getting their comeuppance. And that’s The Fall of the House of Usher in a nutshell. Although it becomes considerably more self-reflective, and poetry-heavy in its final few episodes, for the most part, the series revels in the hyper-emotional, the shocking (brace for jump scares) and the grotesque.

In terms of plot, The Fall of the House of Usher centres on a multi-generation family whose ruthlessness has turned Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into a billion dollar corporation, and also the epitome of Big Pharma Evil. Twins Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline (Mary McDonnell) head up the dynasty, which includes Roderick’s two legitimate children (played by Henry Thomas, and Samantha Sloyan), four other illegitimate offspring (Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli, T’Nia Miller, Sauriyan Sapkota), all their partners, and Roderick’s granddaughter Lenore (Kyliegh Curran). During yet another court case to bring Fortunato to justice, the morally bankrupt Usher heirs start dying mysteriously. Evidently involved in every incident is a woman (a scene-stealing Carla Gugino) that Roderick and Madeline met one fateful night decades previously, forcing them to face secrets they’ve tried to suppress and forget.

Structurally, The Fall of the House of Usher repurposes Poe’s most famous tales, as well as character names, quotes, plus other references to his bibliography and biography, to depict the grisly demise of each Usher in turn. The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Masque of the Red Death are all recognisably updated here, and are in fact used as episode titles, cueing viewers as to what to expect.

The Fall of the House of Usher is also stuffed with familiar faces if you’re familiar with Flanagan’s work. Just a few of the returnees not already mentioned include Zach Gilford, Michael Trucco, Annabeth Gish, Katie Parker and Ruth Codd. It feels like a bit of a frequent collaborator reunion tour, with the standout newcomers to the House of Flanagan being Willa Fitzgerald as the younger, steely Madeline, and a nearly unrecognisable Mark Hamill as the Ushers’ unassuming but devastatingly effective attorney Arthur Pym.

The sheer scale of the ensemble means that some fan-favourite stars exit stage left early on in the series, or receive limited screen time. Then again, The Fall of the House of Usher doesn’t labour over character development and making figures likeable. Understandable yes, likeable never. Though there are a handful of genuinely sympathetic characters in the large cast, the eight-episode series follows a formula of focusing in on horrible, ultra-privileged people who treat others with cruelty and consistently choose the worst, most destructive path in life… before being force-fed their gory just desserts. Goodbye, ravenous devils.

This form of entertainment that won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but if you relish the idea of watching the decadent one percent (well, more like 0.001% in this case) being subjected to cosmic arbitration for their callousness, The Fall of the House of Usher delivers. Well, at least until the end, when its pace slows substantially, and things manage to become both gloomier and more eye-rollingly overwrought.

Flanagan fans should still devour it though. The Fall of the House of Usher is the showrunner let rip, free to indulge his creative appetites – for better and worse – like the spoiled Ushers. So, elevated by excellent performances there are the usual razor-sharp, if on-the-nose monologues about socially relevant topics like the machinations of Late Stage Capitalism (listen out for the “When Life Gives You Lemons” speech), and the role of the US government in stimulating hunger non-stop in its struggling population while also trapping them.

The Fall of the House of Usher is happy to let its characters lecture, and some of the comments pierce straight to the nerve, although it’s hard to call the show thematically dense. Perhaps its strongest message is that children typically inherit the consequences of their parents’ actions, with the Boomer generation particularly dismissive about throwing their descendants under the bus in return for instant gratification of superficial desires.

Ultimately, watching The Fall of the House of Usher is like overindulging in a bowl of Halloween candy. You know it’s not especially nutritious, and in fact it can leave you feeling quite sickly, but its moreish nature encourages you to keep dipping your hand in for one more sticky, sugary hit until it’s all gone. The show is a good binge option come the 31st.

All eight episodes of The Fall of the House of Usher can be found on Netflix now, having launched on the streamer on 12 October.