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Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) attends a joint funeral for a number of his adult children, and in a montage of press coverage, we see how a series of “freak accidents” has wiped out his entire bloodline. The Usher patriarch then sits in a dilapidated mansion with Carl Lumbly’s Auguste Dupin (based on Poe’s famous recurring character who is considered the first detective in fiction) and offers him a confession. We then flash back a few weeks to when the Usher clan were on top of the world, having become Sackler-esque billionaires peddling opiates that have inflicted untold misery on the American public, and begin to watch their painful demise. Late one stormy night, Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) invites an investigator named C. All of these nightmarish visions are attached to the family drama that Usher offers up for Dupin, giving the season a clever episodic structure in that each chapter intertwines a different Poe source into the overall saga of the Ushers.
The Fall of the House of Usher review – a gleefully terrifying take on Edgar Allan Poe
Flanagan has form with making tributes to some of horror’s most beloved oeuvres. He took on Shirley Jackson in The Haunting of Hill House (which was fabulous), Henry James in The Haunting of Bly Manor (spooky but saccharine) and Christopher Pike in The Midnight Club (meh). Thankfully, Flanagan and Poe’s sensibilities prove a winning pairing, staying on the edge of terror without cascading into jump scares and sentimentality.
How did Lenore, Madeline, and Roderick all die?
One of the most interesting and perplexing threads of the finale comes with the way Arthur Pym's story wraps up. That left only two Ushers—the ones who entered the world together, and had to go out as well. While Madeline tried to skirt the system by having Roderick overdose on his own Fortunato meds, Verna wasn't letting that happen. And so Roderick invited Madeline over to their childhood home, where their mother once died (and rose again, only to strangle a man to death before finally dying herself), to share a drink. The limited series will consist of eight episodes, with Flanagan and frequent collaborator Michael Fimognari each directing four installments. The limited series will mark Flanagan and producing partner Trevor Macy’s fifth project at Netflix; Fimognari and Emmy Grinwis (Snowfall, Mrs. Davis) also will serve as executive producers.
Limited Series – The Fall of the House of Usher
The Fall of the House of Usher review: Mike Flanagan’s Poe Cinematic Universe - Vox.com
The Fall of the House of Usher review: Mike Flanagan’s Poe Cinematic Universe.
Posted: Fri, 13 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Feast your eyes on a new clip above and learn more about the limited series below. ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ can also be analysed as a deeply telling autobiographical portrait, in which Roderick Usher represents, or reflects, Poe himself. After all, Roderick Usher is a poet and artist, well-read (witness the assortment of books which he and the narrator read together), sensitive and indeed overly sensitive (to every sound, taste, sight, touch, and so on). Many critics have interpreted the story as, in part, an autobiographical portrait of Poe himself, although we should be wary, perhaps, of speculating too much about any parallels.
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. 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. ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ is probably Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous story, and in many ways it is a quintessential Gothic horror story. We have a mysterious secret afflicting the house and eating away at its owner, the Gothic ‘castle’ (here, refigured as a mansion), premature burial (about which Poe wrote a whole other story), the mad owner of the house, and numerous other trappings of the Gothic novel.
It was met with positive reviews, with critics praising its production values, directing, and performances (in particular from Gugino, Greenwood and Mark Hamill), although they were divided on its narrative, notably in relation to the source materials. The secret that is buried and then comes to light (represented by Madeline) is never revealed. The symbol which represents the secret – Madeline herself – is hidden away by Roderick, but that symbol returns, coming to light at the end of the story and (in good Gothic fashion) destroying the family for good. In 1979, Italian state channel RAI loosely adapted the short story, together with other Poe's works, in the series I racconti fantastici di Edgar Allan Poe.[33] It was directed by Daniele D'Anza, with Roderick Usher played by Philippe Leroy; music was composed by pop band Pooh. During one sleepless night, the narrator reads aloud to Usher as eerie sounds are heard throughout the mansion. He witnesses Madeline's reemergence and the subsequent, simultaneous death of the twins.
In exchange for this protection, both Roderick and Madeline had to consent to the bargain that at the end of Roderick's life, just before he was fated to die anyway, his entire bloodline would die with him. Roderick and Madeline would also have to die at the same time, leaving this world the same way they came into it. The siblings agreed to the deal, left the bar, and soon after became convinced that the whole thing had been a shared delusion.
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These fill in how the Ushers made their fortune, but they’re kind of a narrative drag. It’s important that Roderick and Madeline are cruel, selfish creatures—less so how they got that way. What’s more interesting is to watch how the fallout of their decisions fell on Roderick’s many children, all torn apart by some of Poe’s most memorable creations. Siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher have built a pharmaceutical company into an empire of wealth, privilege and power; however, secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty sta...
On the other hand, there are plenty of strange things about the Usher family. For one, “the entire family lay in the direct line of descent,” meaning that only one son from each generation survived and reproduced. Poe implies incestuous relations sustained the genetic line and that Roderick and Madeline are the products of extensive intermarriage within the Usher family.
As these first look photos and posters reveal, Verna isn’t one to be played with. “You could say she’s the executor of fate or the executor of karma,” said Gugino. Roderick then invited Madeline over to their childhood home, where he poisoned her drink and set to work mummifying her. It was shortly after this that Auggie arrived at the house to hear Roderick's confession. Only, as evidenced by the noises coming from the basement, Madeline wasn't quite dead.
Might we then interpret Roderick as a symbol of the conscious mind – struggling to conceal some dark ‘secret’ and make himself presentable to his friend, the narrator – and Madeline as a symbol of the unconscious? Note how Madeline is barely seen for much of the story, and the second time she appears she is literally buried (repressed?) within the vault. When Roderick speaks, he states that his illness is hereditary and withoutcure, which causes him to have highly reactive senses.
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