Spoilers were thinking more like a small apartment.

Okey, let’s deal with the bias first. You don’t need to see every show by Mike Flanagan first. He tends to use a lot of the same cast to the point that some shows blend together. He’s kind of a mixed bag but fortunately this one does bring in mystery and intrigue although not without its flaws. As for horror, it does borrow concepts and themes from Edgar Allan Poe, but I can’t say it’s an adaptation. You’ll recognize elements, but only a few stories fall close to the original premise, with the rest just borrowing the title for flavour.

(Credit: Netflix)

The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) is created by Mike Flanagan. The various chapters take some degree of inspiration, character name, iconic theme or sometimes just the title from the stories (and one poem) of Edgar Allan Poe’s body of work. Usher siblings Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline (Mary McDonnell) are at the top of the ladder of the Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, having dodged numerous allegations that their products have major side effects and cause addiction. The show also borrows Poe’s characters, C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly) as the district attorney trying to prosecute the Ushers, and Arthur Gordon Pym (Mark Hamill) as the Usher’s shady lawyer.

The story is told as a retrospective as Roderick has called over Dupin with the promise of a confession after all his children have perished in mysterious and horrific accidents. Each chapter is a discovery of the lives let by the Usher family, Frederick (Henry Thomas), Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan), Napoleon “Leo” (Rahul Kohli), Victorine (T’Nia Miller), Camille (Kate Siegel) and Prospero “Perry” (Sauriyan Sapkota) as well as their spouses, lovers and Roderick’s only grandchild Lenore (Kyliegh Curran). As each Usher meets their end, a commonality appears in the presence of a mysterious woman that resembles a bartender named Verna (Carla Gugino) who has not seemed to age a day.

The underlying story as Roderick tells his story and is constantly haunted by ghosts, is also accompanied by a flashback to the days of old. We see younger versions of Roderick (Zach Gilford) and Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald) as they strive to rise to the ranks of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals all the way from the bottom. We also get their backstory of their mother Eliza (Annabeth Gish) as she passed away and then came back to life, and how that ties back to the company. But as the Ushers try to bring down the current CEO, Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco), they find an unlikely ally in young C. Auguste Dupin (Malcolm Goodwin). Incidentally, there is a single scene in which Dupin demonstrates his powers of deduction, a callback to his original character as Poe’s invention of the first detective before the term “detective” was coined. We’ll eventually have the meeting of Roderick and Madeline with the mysterious Verna in a bar in 1980, but you’ll have to wait to find out what ended up transpiring that night.

It works even though I wished it didn’t. It builds an alternate version of Poe’s body of work without forgetting his poems and using a lot of his legendary iconography. The cinematography looks decent and the storytelling, although it starts a bit stale, eventually improves and flows smoothly as the show progresses. It does have to dedicate a lot of its run to cast introduction (the same as this review), but it manages to add some character development sparingly. You can tell when dialog and/or statements are added just to make the character a mouthpiece for the filmmaker’s opinion on topical subjects even though they’re not particularly relevant or seem out of place in the time period of that specific scene.

Verna’s character, which is supposed to be as mysterious and as dark as this show gets, has a preachy moment which just took me out of the scene completely. If not for that, she’s one of the better characters and props to Carla Gugino on her performance. I also found the entire shadowy persona of the family lawyer/fixer Arthur Pym, as played by Mark Hamill, very intriguing. However, the one to watch is manipulative and conniving young Madeline Usher herself, Willa Fitzgerald, who nails the character and steals the scene anytime. On a personal note, I couldn’t help but notice independent filmmaker and actress Toby Poser on a small role.

Highly recommended with reservations. Given the size of the cast and the volume of stories to tell, it’s almost an anthology and I can’t deny it’s Mike Flanagan’s own tribute to Poe. It has horror elements, but it’s mostly a mystery drama with very engaging characters. Despite a couple of preachy moments, it has some genuinely great performances by Carla Gugino and Willa Fitzgerald. It does take a moment to hook you, so you’ll have to wait a couple of episodes before you can pass judgement. Worth a watch.

That will do for now.