i feel similarly about fall of the house of usher that i feel about bly manor; there are several aspects that i like a lot but on the whole it really feels flat and lackluster. i guess a big part of it is flanagans trademark lack of subtlety or ambiguity, which i think is the downfall of a lot of his work. i just feel like this show tells me peoples motives and relationships, tells me about capitalism and pharmaceutical companies, tells me exactly where its gonna go from the start, but i never really Feel it, im never invested in it. mike flanagan takes rich gothic source material and often flattens it into straightforward human drama; and i like drama, and i think his hill house series is the best of his adaptations (ironically when not compared to its source material), but the more of them we get the more i am bored by his simple hamfisted themes wearing the mask of gothic literature.
10/10
All Gold
What a high to
Leave Netflix on
as Mike Flanagan
crosses over to
Amazon Prime.
The Fall Of The House
Of Usher
Is an Outstanding
edition to
The Flanaverse
it's an absolute
Masterpiece
as was
Hill House and
Bly Manor.
at this point he's
god damn Willi
fcuking Wonka
and he has a golden
ticket to success
in the projects he
creates in the universe
he's formed.
The guy could
sell "Lemons"
and make a shit Load
of money because he's
a frickin genius and the
Phenomenal stories he
tells are
"Perfectly Splendid"
(With Amazon giving
Mike even more creative
control than Netflix did,
I'm Super Stoked
and i can't wait to see what's
Next from the Boss Man).
Weird to me that no mention of Edgar Allan Poe is attached to this project.
As a Edgar Allan Poe reader before you watch ı advise you to go read his whole stories. Its better to read them and imagine than to watch this boring complicated tv show. They fascinated from edgar but in my opinion they couldn't make it..
This was a pleasant surprise.
What a wild ride. I waited for about a year for this to come out, and it didn’t disappoint one bit. I would put this in the top 3 TV series for Mike Flanagan, along with “Midnight Mass”, and “Haunting Of Hill House”. I also like how you see a lot of familiar faces from his past projects.
A very good and tense series. Keeps your interest all the way through, with some gruesome scenarios in each episode. Well worth a watch :thumbsup_tone1:. You make a deal and someone always comes to collect. :thinking:
At this point Mike Flanagan is like 90% of the reason why I'm still subscribed to Netflix.
Meh. I'm not impressed. Not at all.
Would of been a lot better if it was 3 hours shorter. Also had so many gay characters, it was unrealistic...
mike flanagan im obsessed with ur mind
Carla Gugino could end me and i’d simply thank her
The best thing Mike Flanagan ever done, a masterpiece that brings Edgar Allan Poe stories to life, Carla Gugino is phenomenal
He’s done it again, folks.
Mike Flanagan has again proven that he’s a master at what he does, creating a tragically stunning Frankenstein’s monster combining “Succession” and “Final Destination”. This series beautifully weaves in and out of Edgar Allan Poe’s canon, from his headliner works like “The Raven” and “The Telltale Heart” to the lesser-known ones such as “Gold Bug”. Names, locations, episode titles; it’s all in reference to Poe. Some inclusions are extremely clever in how they’re worked in (Rue Morgue) while some are not quite as smooth/slightly too anachronistic (the names Tamerlane and Prospero).
This series does feel quite different from Flanagan’s other Netflix projects in a few ways. It has more levity to it (though there still isn’t much) and it’s significantly more sprawling. Where his other shows have generally stayed focused on a small group of people in one location, House of Usher springs from locale to locale with a huge ensemble of characters (all marvelously portrayed by Flanagan’s usual coterie of actors, particularly Carla Gugino). It works spectacularly.
My only critique of the show is that, by the second episode’s end, you can see the formula that each episode is going to follow. I only wish there was slightly more surprise to it like Flanagan’s other works. However, despite a semi-foreseeable ending, the final episode still had me in tears, and some scenes throughout the series still viscerally shocked me.
This is a great addition to the Flanagan/Netflix canon - and just in time for Halloween.
A Series of Unfortunate Events… but for adults.
Once I realized the story was built on the opioid epidemic they had me hooked. The Usher family is brutal and a little evil, but sometimes in a way that you have no choice but to love them for it because it's self-preservation. Some of the monologues are pieces of art; Kate Siegel, Willa Fitzgerald, and Bruce Greenwood blew me away. So powerful. Displacement and sublimation speech? Like, talk dirty to me. I'll never look at a lemon the same way again.
Episode 1 got me curious, 2/3/4/5 owned me, but 6/7/8 lost me a bit. It seemed the more of the mystery the series lost, the less invested I was. Overall very enjoyable, but it didn't have its hooks in me the whole way through.
(Shout out to Rahul in the YNWA hoodie)
Poe must be spinning in his grave. If Mike Flanagan aimed fior the worst interpretatuon of the classic - kudos! He made it.
I loved it, the story, the characters, the take on the source material. Not what I was expecting from a mystery horror based around Edgar Allan po.
If you cross SUCCESSION with AMERICAN HORROR STORY you get this. Which is lucky, because I love both of them! 8/10
Very gory but enjoyable, they managed to reveal the context at a good pace. Good casting and soundtrack. I recommend it, but only if you have the stomach for this kind of genre.
Repetitive episode structure and poor Poe references stifle good dialogues.
Mike Flanagan wants to mix a certain social commentary on devouring capitalism, looking askance at the Sackler family and their opioids, with an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's stories that don't feel connected to the boring and cumbersome main plot. One dead son per episode, this Roderick Usher, who also looks askance at Charles Foster Kane, ends up amplifying the tendency to philosophize that Mike Flanagan has in his scripts, but in this case it is a long and redundant digression on his usual themes. But the main problem is that it never ends up effectively conveying Poe's gothic atmosphere, which is the least that could be asked of it.
This a series we wanna love, we feel we are not truly linking it, and finish it saying we love it. I am not sure if I am by now blind and incapable to have an honest opinion on Flanagan’s work. It brings some of the most incredible moments in Netflix series. Hill House is the best ever, Bly made me scream and cry, midnight was so creepy, mass made cry even more. This one touched my values, made me question the morale of those people and sometimes mine. The scary parts where below normal, predictable. I liked the add in of gore into some of them. The drama became obvious at some point, when you are faced with the same routine in each episode. But the ending! Wow, I cried a river and felt truly afraid of one day being visited by the raven.
fear is a lot more difficult to feel when the first 3 minutes tell you what's going to happen
Completely woke from the get-go. It can only get worse from here.
Everyone is either gay or married/dating another race.. or both.
I have absolutely no problem with mixed relationships.. but come on.. EVERYONE?!
The story is mediocre at best and weird too.
Visually it's pretty good... I liked the 'feel' of the show.
I'm sure it may (or may not) make sense at some point, but I'm not interested enough to follow along on the journey.
3.5/10
Super pumped for this mike doesn't disappoint with his horror series's
Definitely an entertaining watch, it's like Succession meets Final Destination
I managed to watch four episodes and was just bored. The only interesting part is the "Why?" and I frankly can't bother to waste even more time for the answer.
I'll admit that most actors performed well above average though. They aren't to blame that I didn't feel entertained or any sort of suspense.
Brilliant horror drama miniseries that melds the major works of Edgar Allen Poe into a single cohesive narrative, all the while offering up pointed modern social commentary, unsettling visuals and several of the best performances of the last decade.
Between the writing, direction, cinematography and acting, everyone involved brought their absolute A-Game.
What a show!
Top Top Top one of the best if not the best series I have recently :heart::top: great storey é great great characters and actors loved the horror and suspense .. interstate beginning é perfect ending
There were some things in the series that I could have done without but otherwise Mike Flannigan crushes it again.
This one won me back on the Flanagan train for one simple reason- it’s mean. It’s sardonic, it’s bitter, even a bit righteously cruel. And that tone makes it a fresh standout in his collection of series. Sure, some of the satire is a bit blunt or heavy handed, but it’s sold with enough conviction by the performers and disdain in the script to shine, and there’s some killer shots with the deaths- the telltale heart’s big unveiling being the biggest highlight. The cast all give 100%, which helps a lot as this is as much anthology as it is straight horror drama. Usher puts a bit of darkness into a well trodded formula to make it really pop again.
I have had a book of Poe short story collection for a long while and this show is what prompted me to start reading many chapters of it, going by episode name before watching each actual adaptation. The book is missing the episode namesake story of premiere and finale ("The Raven" and its famous line "A Midnight Dreary") even if the finale resembles "The Fall of the House of Usher" very closely.
This is a long-winded way of saying that I'm glad I went that route, since going in fresh may make half the episodes feel too blatantly "working backwards from Poe premise updated to modern day" in plotting and thus come off too random for me. The show is also the inverse of most Flanagan series, which usually stress on season-long arc followed then by little individual stories contained within them, while this show is led primarily by individual stories first and foremost above its arc by virtue of adapting Poe's stories, to some mixed effects even if I loved the ensemble and general tone. Siegel is so deliciously unapologetically amoral in this, while Bruce Greenwood provides the strong grounding force tying it all together for the show.
Edgy, without the appeal of its predecessors.
I have to say it was quite satisfying when I forced myself to finish Episode two after turning it off a couple weeks earlier due to the obvious woke agenda pushing. I gave it another try cause a friend of mine praised it..
What happens to the character I hated most in this Show (the youngest son) when the „Sprinklers“ turned on made the fantastically shocking scene even better because he, along with all the rest of those disgusting people at the party, got what they deserved. It made me watch the rest of the Show and I have to say, it was very satisfying! Every single character got what they were born for and deserved.
Except the poor innocent girl..
In the end I was actually able to look past all the extreme wokeness and actually couldn’t stop watching! It was great! Loved it! lol
Show and season rated a 6.7
I tuned into this one coz I've had a long time crush on Carla Gugino since Spin City, Sin City and Night at the Museum among others, as well as Mary McDonnell and Mark Hamill.
But sadly even with these and other excellent actors I couldn't stay connected to the story. It looks like it's only a one season show I guess I'm not going to miss much.
Boring. Very underwhelming show. I expected more. It was a struggle to get through all 8 episodes.
It's not just a horror show! It's a series that flirts with a few other genres like drama and family saga (but in compact form); a taste of a thriller... But yes, it's the horror that dominates, and I will say it's all about bad people getting what they deserve. Something that happens really rarely in real life!
Oh, and Carla Gugino was amazing! I really loved her in The Haunting of the Hill House, and here she establishes herself as a versatile actress—the one who can play on both sides of the good and the evil spectrum with equal grace and talent. The entire cast was great, but she shined brightly!
This is the show that made me go back and try Mike's shows again. I wasn't really into it for the first episode, but from the second episode on I was definitely in. The second episode has one of the most messed up scenes I have ever seen in a show (in a good way). Gugino is fantastic in this. I also quite enjoyed Kohli's character as well.
Dear god, save me from this absolute mince.
Grandma’s Halloween meatloaf that blends elements from Poe’s tales and poems within a modern setting reminiscent of Succession. Although I found it mostly watchable, I’m pretty sure we'll forget about it within two weeks.
The shallow social critique is smeared in your face through the usual clichés, and the characters remain barely sketched caricatures incapable of inspiring any kind of empathy. All characters meet similar deaths and fall victim to similar vices, within similar episodic structures. Even from a visual standpoint, we barely get anything else than the usually glossy look of Netflix series. During the (few) horror moments, things sometimes veer into unintentional comedy territory.
The true charm of the series lies in its milfy antagonist, perfect for the role and fascinating in every incarnation.
The best series of Mike Flannagan since Hill House. Engaging, interesting, and the adaptations over Poe's work felt natural and well done. The acting was overall great, specially Gugino's and Greenwood's; but to be honest, those 2 never dissapoint. Also, Kate Siegel is here again, so i'm all in for it. Great new chapter in the Flannagan world. Strong 8,5 for me
For me, this was the only really good thing that the overrated Mike Flanagan has regurgitated, so far. And he still has Edgar Allan Poe to thank for it.
This was definitely an enjoyable watch. As a stand alone horror story, it holds its own pretty well. I think one flaw in it is the length of the series as a whole. I wish it had a few more episodes because I think that would have given viewers more time to get to know the characters a little better and then we would have been more impacted by everyone’s deaths. It’s a bit more difficult to feel sad about a character dying when you have only seen them in one episode. Still, I think the show is definitely worth watching for Edgar Allan Poe fans. It provides a lot of nice little moments based on various works of his. I enjoyed that. But at the same time, being a fan of Poe and having read a lot of his works did make some of the events in the story a bit more predictable. But, overall, I would definitely recommend this show. It was entertaining.
Barely sneaks its way in to a rounded up score of 9/10 for me, for yet another great show this year. This is my introduction to Mike Flanagan's work regarding these horror series he's done. I've been wanting to watch his other stuff for a while now but just haven't gotten around to it, but this makes me want to get into his other stuff even more. This had such a gothic and dark yet beautiful look and atmosphere to it. I found myself so intrigued by this story and this mystery as it was playing out, always needing to start the next episode to get more information. It slowly reveals itself to you throughout, while on top of it all we get a really cool structure with each episode focusing in on one of these deaths and the present time centered around Roderick and Auguste in the old Usher house. It doesn't feel like true horror always, but when it does delve into that realm it executes its horrific and creepy aspects really well. Some of the imagery surrounding these deaths were just incredible, and Flanagan also clearly knows how to craft horror elements including how to pull off jump scares in ways that actually work. The ending was visually stunning and satisfying as well. There's also a lot of commentary that was really well done. The show just kept finding ways to shock or surprise me, while maintaining its grounded yet supernatural atmosphere in a really impressive way. Some episodes were better than others, but overall I really enjoyed the show. It's like a dark gothic Succession, and is just as good as that premise sounds.
8.5/10 -- Excellent
2023 TV Shows Ranked --> https://trakt.tv/users/justinnumerick/lists/2023-tv-shows-ranked?sort=rank,asc
I've seen different cineastic adaptions of Poe's work and found this one to be the best so far.
It isn't very close to the source material but weaves in the poetry nicely into a high-quality, modern horror mini-series.
Mike Flanagan and everyone else who contributes to his creations truly are champions of cinema.
May they continue evermore.
The series starts with a high C, then the subsequent "accidents" bore us a bit, and in the end the final show its claws. As a bonus, we also have a feeling of pity for our consumerism, but that's already been done in other movies/shows.
Carla Gugino's performance is sublime!
welp, that's it? bummer. I wasted 8 episodes for that ending.
I love Mike Flanagan's stuff, and this just adds to his extensive filmography, especially because it keeps up with a technical quality i have come to expect: great shot composition, killer editing with some insane transitions, all the actors giving great performances, and very deep character studies with these ensemble casts. It's where Mike Flanagan is at his best here, in my opinion, and some of the jumpscares, while pretty uh, jumpscarey, deliver on their tension, but the subject matter is what terrified me the most!
I personally think though that this series could have benefitted from more time spent in the writing room. Don't get me wrong! I do like this, and I'm biased towards Mike Flanagan, but this series very much felt like more of a contractual Netflix obligation than something made out of passion and love for the genre and for the characters (see: Midnight Mass and Bly Manor)(I also know the irony in saying "love for the characters" with this show - I more mean that this feels more like Netflix requires a show every October!)
I think that having more time to flesh out and tie in these mulitple short stories into the respective characters, as well as give the characters much more room to breathe and feel a bit more like characters rather than satirical farces (which is what they are: make no mistake, this series is a horror-drama-satire about how much rich people suck!), but that's my own personal feeling about it.
Everything else is really awesome, the music grew on me but still felt weirdly out of place and samey, and hearing a lot of it over the course of 8+ hours kinda grates on you. I really appreciate and love the shock value of so much that's here; if you live excessively, you'll die excessively. Looking at you, Prospero! Gay furry rights is having your doomed party have men in pup hoods serving up drinks before they get melted by acid sprinklers!
Overall! The show is good, Mike Flanagan standard stuff, but it leans into a heavily satirical format with horror elements as a way of Mike Flanagan saying "Fuck you, rich people and corporations! And fuck big pharma!" Good stuff, probably (and unfortunately) my least favorite of Mike Flanagan's stuff I've seen so far (even Doctor Sleep: I fucking love that movie), and ultimately just made me want to watch Midnight Mass again lol
Mike Flanagan's worst, by a mile! All sauce and no substance. Boring, uninteresting, complicated... and really doesn't make you want to watch more. I lasted nearly two episodes. Mike Flanagan is so overrated!
Carla Gugino is FIFTY-TWO human years old. She is both #goals and #wifey. I literally don't understand how she is not one of the biggest stars of all-time because when that bitch is on camera, she EATS. I'm glad that we're get to enjoy her as the most elevated scream queen in history. She absolutely fucking kills it here.
Mary McDonnell slays as Madeline. She IS a queen and dominates every scene she's in. Seeing her and Gugino square off was one of the most satisfying things ever.
HOWEVER.
I am a raging anti-capitalist SJW femi-Nazi pushing both a trans and gay A G E N D A and this shit was too didactic for ME. The long monologues nearly directly into the camera got old FAST and I found myself audibly growing when one would start up in every. single. episode.
Overall, still an enjoyable binge and an undeniable work of art. Huge props to the creativity of all the deaths, I was shocked and captured by all of them. I appreciated this had one story instead of being separate stories for each poem, and I think that aspect of the writing (the overarching narrative and how it connects to each poem) was handled extremely extremely well. Masterfully, in fact. The more I think about the show, the more I appreciate the thought put into the stories.
Gorgeously crafted, well acted, technically masterful, but also sometimes proposterously heavy-handed.
I liked this better than Midnight Mass. Some of how Poe's stories and poems were integrated into this narrative is just brilliant. It was done without it being ostentatious or artsy-fartsy. Just really well-done horror where you wanted to see what would happen next.
:heart:x7
This is a very interesting series. There is a lot of uniqueness here. There are also a couple of spectacular death scenes - first one is in episode 2 (you'll know it when you see it) and the mirror scene in episode.
I was surprised to see that Mark Hamill was in this show. And even more surprised by his performance.
How I rate:
1-3 :heart: = seriously! don't waste your time
4-6 :heart: = you may or may not enjoy this
7-8 :heart: = I expect you will like this too
9-10 :heart: = movies and TV shows I really love!
a good homage to Edgar Allen Poe. I slept through most of it but got the gist. not a contender for Flanagans other works.
Shout by GK3BlockedParent2023-10-13T05:20:56Z
This is the role of a lifetime for Carla Gugino. She’s transcendent in her role and deserves every award under the sun for this performance.
Every actor in here gives a performance of a lifetime, but the role that Miss Gugino plays is the biggest scene stealer. Quite reminiscent of The Man in Black from Stephen King’s work. Mark Hamill being a close second to her.
Kudos to the whole ensemble and crew for this masterpiece.