Skip to main content

The Fall of the House of Usher - A Sense of Insufferable Gloom

 


Mike Flanagan is undoubtedly one of the best gothic television series makers of the contemporary industry. Flanagan’s The Haunting series, The Midnight Club and Midnight Mass are the much praised examples of his style and work. Adding to his finest collection is his adaptation of Edgar Alan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”.

Divided into 8 episodes the series is a brilliant and modern tribute to Poe’s most celebrated short story. While Poe’s story of Usher remains the heart of the series, it is unified to the body by attaching different organs based on other works of Poe including The Masque of the Red Death, Murder in the Rue Morgue, The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, and many more. The nefarious Patriarch of the Usher family, Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood), whose legacy is maintained through his several wicked and selfish children , his equally ruthless twin sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell) who is loyal towards her brother and their opiate empire Fortunato and the investigator C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly), who serves as the recurring character in Poe’s stories , and the ever masquerading supernatural figure Verna (Carla Gugino) are the main characters of Flanagan’s series. 

As Roderick narrates his story and the bizarre and terrifying fate of his children and his part in it to Dupin, Flanagan plays with guilt, obsession and vengeance with his favourite actors. Without much jump scares, the series presents the eerie and bloody deaths in the dysfunctional Usher family as a result of their own moral corruption and obsession which eventually results in the fall of the dynasty. The viewers get to feel the constant presence of death hovering over each episode that has come to take what’s due from a family that profited off the pain of others.

Just like Poe, Flanagan uses gothic to explain the psychological thinking of the characters who lack morality and human values. Flanagan’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is an excellent amalgamation of Poe’s works and its characteristics with a great ensemble and is indeed a treat to the fans of his other shows.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gehraiyaan

  I have always felt that life is like a vast ocean. Most times it gets messy like the ocean, but we love it for it's calmness and the vastness. Even when it's messy we move with it, unable to predict the outcome. All our emotions that we hold, bitter or sweet, we let them grow with  us freely, just like the waves. We love and hate, we fight and cry, even if we don't want, we can't help ourselves from doing it. Because we have become so accustomed with the beauty it reflects.  We feel that we know everything about the people very close to us, but when we look deep into each one of them, just like the mysterious ocean, we get to see all the bitterness,  heartbreaks, insecurities and everything that they don't want us to see. We love and lose hoping to find a shore from the clutches of this chaotic mystery.  We move with our messy lives hoping  to clear the mess. But as the waves grow stubborn, it gets deeper and deeper we get entangled with it, leaving us in...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Let Myself Sink Into You

  I let myself sink into you,  Taking deep dips,  Not letting myself float.  You kept the rhythm of ocean Calm and said the waves To come another day.  I got lost in the tranquility of your arms,  Seeking an abode for eternity,  Reaching out in bliss.  Maybe If I could live here forever,  I would dance at a different pace,  guided by the warmth of your heart. I see no lines seperating us,  Shutting down the little fragments of overthinking,  I place you close to my bosom,  Never to let you go.  Making all the falsities disappear,  I'm riveted by the hold of your hands,  the sheer joy on your face  At the movement of my eyelashes,  Making me fall all over again.  You asked me if you could join in my agony,  If you could make me think of  Things of joy, Checking my pulse and it's  dramas,  You dived deep into me,  Untangling the mysterious cords,  that encircled me....
Post a Comment
Read more

YOU

Never did I think I could find something as attractive as you, You were like my morning coffee Without cream and muffins, My first prayer on every dawn And the last on dusk. My closet is indifferent without your cologne, Which lingered all day along the hall like fresh lavenders. And it was not the tequila in my margaritas that intoxicated me, but the constant sight of you, everytime I blinked my eyes. My psyche was away from the earthly realm wandering in the intricacy of your control. Flipping through the pages of  our rendezvous I couldn't see the excitement in me, which was halted by what seemed to be my clockwork routine. But your face projected  the blisters in your soul which apparently you hid under your attractive words. In and out, we failed  To be the hues of each other's life. And I tried to paddle my canoe to reach yours. Yet you reliquished, your last song of content was dedicated to my colourless juice which purified my face. I wish the time had stopped jus...
Post a Comment
Read more