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Loosely based on various works by 19th-century author Edgar Allan Poe (most prominently the eponymous 1840 short story), the series adapts otherwise unrelated stories and characters by Poe into a single nonlinear narrative set from 1953 to 2023. It recounts both the rise to power of Roderick Usher, the powerful CEO of a corrupt pharmaceutical company and his sister Madeline Usher, the firm's genius COO, and the events leading to the deaths of all six of Roderick’s children. It stars an ensemble cast led by Carla Gugino as a mysterious woman plaguing the Ushers, Bruce Greenwood as an elderly Roderick and Mary McDonnell as an elderly Madeline. It turns out that almost every branch of the Usher family tree has been cut by violent horror.
Henry Thomas - Frederick Usher
And luckily for us, that all comes to fruition and then some. She possessed the warmth and moral compass of Annabel Lee, he thought, the “best of her without a broken heart.” She’s the one who called 911 and saved her mom from her father’s brutality. Her death brings Verna no joy, but she does tell Lenore about all the good her mother does in the future thanks to Lenore’s heroic choice to save her — before allowing the youngest and kindest Usher to die peacefully. Roderick and Madeline sold their souls the night they killed Fortunato CEO Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco) — the same night they met Verna, on New Year’s Eve 1979.
Greatest Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Deluxe Hardbound Edition)
Much to the narrator’s surprise, Roderick claims that the Usher mansion is sentient and that it exercises some degree of control over its inhabitants. According to Roderick, Madeline suffers from a cataleptic disease that has gradually limited her mobility. As Roderick talks about his sister’s illness, the narrator sees her pass through a distant part of the house. It's through this framework—Roderick telling stories to Dupin—that we learn just about everything that has happened to the present point. We learn about the violent and untimely deaths of each of Roderick's children—whether from Annabel Lee (Katie Parker) or "bastards"—and how in every case, it was their own failings that led to their demise.
Carl Lumbly - Auguste Dupin
Poe’s writing helped elevate the genre from a position of critical neglect to an art form. Today Poe’s short stories are lauded as masterpieces of fiction. “The Fall of the House of Usher” stands as one of Poe’s most popular and critically examined stories. BY THE TIME you reach the final episode of The Fall of the House of Usher, the latest of Netflix's horror limited series from writer/director Mike Flanagan, there have been a lot of scares, a lot of violence, and a lot of lore. But, still, a few lingering things remain that need to click in order for the series—based on the collected writings of Edgar Allen Poe—to really all fall into place.
Full Cast of Fall of the House of Usher: Every Main Actor & Character In Netflix Show
As the doting mother of both Frederick and Tamerlane, Annabel Lee was devastated to lose custody of her children after Roderick gorged them with money they couldn’t refuse. We discover in the final episode, when she appears as a vision to Roderick, that she literally could not live without them. Annabel Lee reveals that she’d tell people “he’s rich” when they’d ask how he stole her kids away.
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Instead of bringing comfort or release, Roderick uses artistic endeavors to wallow in his anxiety. Roderick Usher is the patriarch of the Usher family and the CEO of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, which his twin sister, Madeline, helped to acquire. While he has plenty to offer his six children, generally, his fatherly affection isn’t included. The series is a modernized take on the stories of Poe, centering around corrupt CEO Roderick Usher (Greenwood), who, along with his scheming twin sister Madeline (McDonnell), built a global pharmaceutical empire.
Poe's Wildest Story Inspired House of Usher's Scariest Moment - www.autostraddle.com
Poe's Wildest Story Inspired House of Usher's Scariest Moment.
Posted: Tue, 07 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Most of the flashbacks to a young Usher and Dupin are thin, especially compared to the wicked fun on display in the fates of the Usher children. It feels like padding to get episodes to a full hour when Flanagan and company could have leaned even more into the episodic structure that highlights a single Poe per chapter. English majors will likely know where some of the stories are going just by seeing the episode names. When the young and trendy Prospero Usher (Sauriyan Sapkota) decides to host an exclusive sex-and-drugs party at one of dad’s old factories in an abbey, readers of The Masque of the Red Death will know it’s going to be a gruesome scene. However, Flanagan is smart enough to shift the Poe narratives ever so slightly for a modern audience. His version of The Tell-Tale Heart is a modern gem, and “The Gold-Bug” is reimagined as a new brand for the Usher company.
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But the themes remain the same—guilt, obsession, vengeance, and a supernatural sense of justice. Roderick Usher’s children are getting what they deserve, not merely because they are the fruit of a very poisoned tree but because they have made horrific decisions to stay in the shelter of wealth and privilege. As Roderick finishes his story, an eyeless and bloodied Madeline suddenly bursts out of the basement and attacks Roderick as the house begins to crumble around them. In a final burst of strength, Madeline strangles Roderick to death as Auggie flees collapsing home—a sequence that mirrors the ending of Poe's "House of Usher." In November 2023, Roderick Usher, the CEO of pharmaceutical company Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, loses all six of his children within two weeks. Auguste Dupin, an Assistant United States Attorney who dedicated his career to exposing Fortunato's corruption, to his childhood home, where he tells the true story of his family and unveils the Ushers' darkest secrets.
Roderick's Lemon Monologue
This initial description the narrator gives of his approach to the House of Usher establishes the frightening tone of the story. Poe makes use of a literary device called the “objective correlative,” a technique where objects such as the setting of a story reflect the mood or emotions of its characters. The bleakness and decay all throughout this passage hint at Roderick’s mental state within as well as Madeline’s physical decline. In addition, the spooky atmosphere sets the tone for this rather Gothic tale. Sloyan’s history with Mika Flanagan’s work goes back to the movie Hush, and she would go on to team back up with the filmmaker for The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and The Midnight Club. The actress can also be seen in The Morning Show, Minx, SEAL Team, and more.
But then he starts experiencing disturbing and violent visions — attacks from the cat, dead animals — to the point where he uses Thor’s hammer (a gift from Chris Hemsworth, naturally) to tear his apartment apart looking for the cat. Thinking he sees the feline out on his balcony, he chases after it in a rage… and falls off the ledge to his death on the street below. The bedroom door is then blown open to reveal Madeline, bloodied from her arduous escape from the tomb. In a final fit of rage, she attacks her brother, scaring him to death as she herself expires. The narrator then runs from the house, and, as he does, he notices a flash of moonlight behind him. He turns back in time to see the Moon shining through the suddenly widened crack in the house.
All eight episodes were released on Netflix on October 12, 2023, each directed by either Flanagan or Michael Fimognari, with the latter also acting as cinematographer for the entire series. Fearing that her body will be exhumed for medical study, Roderick insists that she be entombed for two weeks in the family tomb located in the house before being permanently buried. The narrator helps Roderick put Madeline's body in the tomb, whereupon the narrator realizes that Madeline and Roderick are twins. The narrator also notes that Madeline's body has rosy cheeks, which sometimes happens after death. Over the next week, both Roderick and the narrator find themselves increasingly agitated. When Poe began writing short stories, the short story was not generally regarded as serious literature.
The teens are in for an adventure and scary time while trying to solve this mystery. The narrator provides this description of his room upon seeing it for the first time. As he has emphasized from the moment he first saw the house, everything about it feels old in a way that evokes decay and death. We also are first introduced here to the works and tools of art, the literature and musical instruments, that surround Roderick. The narrator’s comment that they “failed to give any vitality to the scene,” that is, make it feel lively or lived in hints at the role art plays in the story.
And as Roderick Usher got sicker and sicker in real life—his rare form of vascular dementia gave him horrific hallucinations, including Griswold's Jester costume and his various children's dead bodies—his bill came due, and all of his children died in front of him. Roderick and Madeline’s trauma begins when their devout mother, Eliza (Annabeth Gish), dies at home, and the twins bury her in a homemade coffin in the backyard. Eliza claws her way out and exacts vengeance on William Longfellow (Robert Longstreet) — her married boss, CEO of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, and Madeline and Roderick’s neglectful father. From the start of the first episode of The Fall of the House of Usher, we know that all of Roderick Usher's children are dead. It's the how and the why of their deaths that plays out over the course of Mike Flanagan's new horror anthology series, now streaming on Netflix. She appears near the narrator, but never acknowledges his presence.
After Roderick gives Auguste his final confession, Madeline bursts through the door of the basement and strangles her brother to death — the same way their mother killed their father. Their childhood home crumbles around them, finishing the job. Auguste stands outside in horror, as Verna stands atop the wreckage. That [denial] sort of seeps in more and more and more,” Miller said. Throwing a bookend at Alessandra’s head “was not out of spite or cruelty,” said Miller. Unlike other people in this episode, her death wasn’t about that.
Roderick and Madeline are the only remaining members of the Usher family. This description appears during the narrator’s description of the storm. The otherworldly atmosphere of the stormy night helps heighten the tension of the story’s climax and creates a decidedly ghostly atmosphere. The eerie light echoes the strange luminosity portrayed in Roderick’s painting, as if he had foreseen the terrible night of Madeline’s return from the vault. Even though the narrator explains away the glow as an electrical phenomenon, the word “unnatural” leaves room for supernatural interpretations. The phrase “gaseous exhalation” also sounds phantasmagoric, with the word exhalation suggesting that the fog or mist comes from something breathing instead of nature.
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