Quoth the raven...

Continuing my trip down Empire's Top 50 TV Shows of 2023 

#14 : The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Mike Flanagan brought his Netflix era to an end with a darkly mischievous take on Edgar Allen Poe, spinning not just The Fall Of The House Of Usher but a handful of other poems and stories too into a wicked web of sex, death and dodgy drug dealings. Rather than go traditional gothic, Flanagan brought a subversively glossy sheen to the story of a corrupt family (here imagined as pharma pioneers) picked off one by one by a vengeful spirit; if the look was high-camp trash with lashings of Grand Guignol (the term ‘acid rave’ just got a whole new meaning), the usual Flanagan substance shone through. Boasting his usual ensemble – Bruce Greenwood, Samantha Sloyan and Carla Gugino on particularly fine form here – plus the added bonus of Mark Hamill as a formidable ‘fixer’, all were given the opportunity to chew on Flanagan-assisted Poe prose. This was a raucous wrap-up on the horror master’s astonishing decade; not quite up there with Hill House or Midnight Mass, but it’ll still have you raven. (Sorry.)

Horror isn't generally my thing, but I have heard The Haunting Of Hill House was good (and the clips I saw on Gogglebox looked fantastic and seemed pretty scary) so I was interested to watch this, particularly because I wouldn't have watched it otherwise.

And you know what - I quite enjoyed this (and surprised myself by doing so).  It's quite a nice set-up - the season is constructed around the head of the family telling a detective how come all six of his children were unfortunately killed in the preceding two week period, with flashbacks to "explain" their deaths, with further flashbacks to many earlier periods also being lovingly recreated to further "explain" matters.  The timelines are all very well interleaved - it could quite easily be very confusing but I found myself following it pretty easily.  You don't really need to know any more detail than that, but you can possibly read something in to my use of quotation marks around "explain". 

Yes, it's all very silly, but it's also EXTREMELY stylish and it takes itself very seriously in its silliness/stylishness.  The family are not exactly slumming it on the breadline so many luxury locations are involved and the level of detail involved is impressive.  It also goes without saying that the deaths are inventive and spectacularly horrific - there's been a lot of thought go into them and they work well, with an interesting variety of sins involved.

The whole thing is written very well - and I feel it was over my head in at least a couple of ways.  It's all somewhat based around the works of Edgar Allen Poe and, I don't know but I suspect that if you're familiar with his canon, it's all very cleverly written.  However, it also has some nice real-life elements weaved in to the story - I picked up on several Sackler family references and a nice Trump side-swipe, but I'm sure there was plenty more going on that I missed out on.  

And then there's all the use of standard horror tropes - some of which I got, but plenty of which I suspect I missed.  We have jump scares, masks, mirror shards, acid, drugs, swinging pendulums, ghostly/spiritual entities, ravens - you name it, it's there!  Having said that, it's funny how one of the scariest things in the whole season is a cat (black, of course) - it's a very good creature for creating jump scares in terms of sudden movements, the "gifts" it leaves and where it leaves them.

As well as being well written, it's very well shot - it feels pretty filmish in terms of budget (but, from what I saw of The Haunting Of Hill House, this feels like what Netflix has generally given Mike to play with).  It all very stylish and has some very lovely apartments and houses in it - although a lot of them don't remain that way, because there's some serious destruction going on.

It's also very well acted - with a surprisingly large ensemble cast (that happens when one of the characters has six children and it covers an extended period of time).  Bruce Greenwood is good as Roderick Usher (the patriach) but doesn't have a load to do other than be mean until the last episode - Zach Gilford as his younger version has more to work with.  Conversely, Carl Lumbly (who I knew from Supergirl and The Falcon & The Winter Soldier) has a lot more to do as C. August Dupin (the detective) than Malcolm Goodwin as his younger version - and is a lot better as a result.  The other role that has two distinct timeframes is Madeline Usher (Roderick's sister) and there's a good argument that Mary McDonnell (plenty of things, but Donnie Darko and Battlestar Galactica stand out for me) and Willa Fitzgerald (Reacher) eclipse them both for me.

Looking at the kids, Henry Thomas as Frederick (who has quite the journey), Samantha Sloyan as Tamarlane (there's a good argument that episode six, Goldbug, with its claustrophobic portrayal of the descent into madness is the best one) and Kate Siegel as Camille (who feels like she could have had a bigger role, but has a great death) are the best characters for me, but I can see that others will have different favourites (and that's fine - there are plenty of characters to go round!).

And looking slightly further afield, I have to admit I didn't recognise Mark Hamill at first but he's very good in this - particularly in his scenes in the last episode, even though he has to act even more deadpan than he has previously.  Carla Gugino is also great as Verna who has a role of uncertain origin (but it's no coincidence that Verna is an anagram of raven) and I'd have to say she's looking very good for the ripe old age of 52 (which is obviously younger than I am, so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it).

There are plenty of other characters involved but I'm only going to call out Kyleigh Curren as Lenore (daughter of Frederick) who is great as the innocent party in a family of monsters, who you desperately hope isn't doomed - but can't help but feel her days are numbered (no spoilers though!) and Ruth Codd as Juno, a very much not innocent party in a family of monsters, but possibly detached enough from the collective guilt to be spared (no spoilers though!).

There were quite a few phrases I recognised from what I believed to be the general cultural universe but I now know to be the Poeverse but only one moment completely surprised me because I never knew that "all that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream" was from him because I just knew it from the Propaganda song, "Dream Within A Dream".

Personally, I wouldn't necessarily describe this as horror - it has a lot of those tropes but for me it's more of a supernatural drama because most of it is grounded in the real world (with a supernatural element).  Having said that, an awful lot of it is utterly ridiculous - so don't expect it to make too much sense or you'll be disappointed (if you've seen it and want to argue with me, then just try to explain what occurs with their mother!).  

But, it has a strong narrative (generally one dead child per episode), enough of a thread that made me want to come back to it and a decent enough ending that I wanted to watch each episode, was happy where the season ended and will be happy enough either if they decide another season is required or if they don't (which is quite the skill these days).  I was glad I was made to watch this and am very tempted to check out The Haunting Of Hill House and Midnight Mass - they're all on Netflix if you fancy them.

#15 - Enjoyable nonsense
#12 - Yeah, this was good with a very strong cast