31 Nights of Horror The Fall of the House of Usher
Platform: Netflix
Director: Mike Flanagan
Release Year: 2023
Watch Date: October 14 & 15, 2023
My Rating: 9.2
I know this isn’t technically a movie, but since it is a limited series, I will count it. First of all, I adore Edgar Allan Poe. I know his works are dark, but for some reason, they really speak to my soul. When other kids were reading Goosebumps, I was feasting on Poe, Mary Shelley, Brahms Stoker, and Stephen King. My favorite, which turns out to be a big focal point of this series, is The Cask of Amontillado.
From the minds that brought us Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Haunting of Bly Manor (I haven’t actually seen this one…I’m not a fan of The Turn of the Screw) comes The Fall of the House of Usher. Every character is named for someone in Poe’s works. The main cast of characters is:
Roderick Usher - The Fall of the House of Usher
Madeline Usher - The Fall of the House of Usher
Frederick Usher - Metzengerstein
Tamerlane Usher - Tamerlane
Victorine LaFourcade - The Premature Burial
Napoleon (Leo) Usher - The Spectacles
Camille L’Espanaye - Murders in the Rue Morgue
Prospero (Perry) Usher - The Masque of the Red Death
Morella Usher (Frederick’s wife) - Morella
Bill T. Wilson - William Wilson
Lenore Usher (Frederick’s daughter) - The Raven
Annabel Lee - Annabel Lee (obviously😁)
Arthur Pym - (Played by Mark Hamill!) The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
Juno Usher - Possibly The Fall of the House of Usher where the asteroid Juno is mentioned.
C. Auguste Dupin - C. Auguste Dupin
Rufus Griswold - Not a poem, but named after Poe’s real-world nemesis.
Verna - Fun fact: her name is an anagram of Raven, which is consequently the poem she comes from.
In the Series, Madeline and Roderick make a deal with an unspecified entity that looks human (demon, angel, whatever you want to call her) on New Years Eve 1980. They have just bricked their boss, the CEO of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, into the foundation of their new office building after poisoning him with cynaide in some amontillado (squee!!! he’s even dressed up as a jester like Fortunato in the story…only they were celebrating Carnivale and not New Year).
This deal, which of course you don’t find out about until the last episode, is that they will have a long prosperous life but that all of their offspring will die at the same time they do. Enter the whole show. The kids are killed off in the order that they came into the family Prospero, Camille, Napoleon, Victorine, Tamerlane, and then Frederick. Each one going a little bit crazy before they die (well, except Propero…). Each death follows a Poe story with Madeline and Roderick dying in the very last episode as the house of Usher comes tumbling down….literally on top of them.
The stories used are:
Masque of the Red Death (you should always make sure you are hooking up sprinklers to water and not to corrosive acid)
Murder at the Rue Morgue (when someone tells you that you don’t have to be somewhere, take time to pause and wonder if you really should be)
The Black Cat (if you lose your partner’s cat….or think you killed it….just be honest about it - don’t try to get a questionable copy)
The Tell-Tale Heart (another favorite. You can’t get away with murder forever)
Goldbug (take care of yourself, get enough sleep, and let other people help you)
The Pit and the Pendulum (don’t be an ass-hat. Frederick became quite the monster at the end. Jealousy and suspicion is dangerous).
The first and last episodes reference The Raven. The death I was the most sad about, and it was clear that Verna was the most sad about, was Lenore’s. She was the only reasonable member of the family and was a genuinely good person. Her death is the only one that wasn’t violent. Verna apologized, told her about all the good her mother is going to do in her name after she heals from the caustic acid, and taps her on the forehead to kill her.
I found it interesting that she gave everyone, except Frederick, a chance to change their fate so they would have a less violent death like Lenore got. But none of them changed their ways or thought twice about whether they should be doing what they were doing. Frederick didn’t get a chance because Verna was apauled by how he treated his wife…especially when he pulled out her tooth with a pair of pliers.
Anyhow. I tried to give good detail, but not full detail. Whether you are a Poe fan and want to geek out by all of the Poe references or you aren’t, I think this show is very enjoyable. I will be watching it again. I’m sure I missed some details.
Photo Credit: imdb.com
