The Fall of the House of Usher

I’ll say this for Mike Flanagan… He’s a human being. Probably breathes air and everything! Okay, he’s also incredibly consistent. The thing is, that can be a positive or negative depending on your feelings about the dude’s stuff. Because nobody is happy to hear, “Hey, here’s more shit you hate. Which feels almost identical to the other shit you hate.” But, seriously, he has a style that you can pick out of an unlabeled lineup. Glacial pacing paired with disturbing body-horror visuals, a couple jump scares usually involving a cat and dialogue that feels straight out of the slightly modernized Edgar Allen Poe AI machine. It’s horror, but only sometimes. It’s drama, but not that dramatic. It’s kind of a mushy mix of gothic whatever and almost b-movie-feeling cheese. It’s Mike Flanagan. And it’s The Fall of the House of Usher.

Do you know your Poe? Because, if you do, I imagine this series might be more enjoyable for you. Or more interesting, at the very least. Or, perhaps, it might make you hate it. Because, being a non-Poe guy, I found all of this stuff way too on the nose. Way too rote. And maybe that’s how Poe is? Or maybe that’s Flanagan just flattening Poe’s otherwise more subtle, nuanced tales. Because this is an amalgam of Poe’s writings, not just the namesake short story. We get it, though. In order to gain fame and fortune, you must sell your soul. And that entity to whom you sell it will some day come for her payment. In this case it’s Verna (Carla Gugino), an un-aging femme fatale who is essentially the angel of death. Or the devil. But whose dumb name — and you have to be a total genius to figure this one out — is just an anagram of “raven.” Like the raven. You know, the one who says “nevermore.” Subtle. She makes a deal with a young Roderick Usher (Zach Gilford) that essentially says that he will rise to a position of prominence and wealth, but that his entire genetic line will die right before he does. So worth it, right? Of course he and his twin sister, Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald), take the deal and off they go.

Years later, older Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline (Mary McDonnell) have become the Sacklers, heading a giant pharma company that has poisoned America with their Oxy stand-in. And, of course, gotten very wealthy from it. Flanagan flexing his late-to-the-game social commentary that is about as sharp as an axe made of cooked pasta. Roderick’s kids are terrible ne’er-do-wells, who are an amalgamation of multi-culti actors that make about zero sense as Greenwood’s children. They give an excuse that four of the six are illegitimate, and we never meet their moms, but… Like I know genetics can be tricky, but I think maybe someone is pulling Roderick’s leg that T’Nia Miller could in any way be his daughter. It feels very unlikely. But Flanagan always puts her in his stuff, so might as well shoehorn her in. Logic be damned. Anyhow, each one of his kids we know has to die in new and stupid ways. And, boy howdy, do they. I will give it to Flanagan that he hires some decent sound effects people. Because those sounds of squishing and squashing and squelching and sizzling skin are way more effective than Flanagan’s sometimes oddball use of lowball CGI and cheeseball visual effects. Which, like I said, do feel incredibly consistent with his other stuff. There’s a certain artificial look to his work that just has to be intentional at this point. Maybe some people like it for some reason. I do not.

The acting is also a bit all over the place. None of it is terrible per se, but from person to person it doesn’t always feel like everyone is in the same show. Some, like Gilford and Willa Fitzgerald, are doing pretty straight-forward humanistic acting. They seem like normal humans. Others, like Mark Hamill and Mary McDonnell are doing character work. Hamill is barely recognizable as the gruff, weathered family fixer, Arthur Pym, lookin’ like the Nazi dude from Raiders who burns his hand on the Staff of Ra headpiece at Marion’s bar. And McDonnell is using this weirdo, tight oldey-time Mid-Atlantic Jennifer Jason Leigh accent that makes it seem like she’s had 27 face lifts and a couple broken jaws. It is completely unclear what Henry Thomas is doing, however, as Roderick’s eldest son, Frederick. His character is a moron. Though I’m not certain he’s supposed to be. I’m just not sure if he’s playing it for laughs, or if he just made the poor choice to have his ponytail-guy shitheel cuckold use this strange voice and prance around and slowly and ineptly murder his incapacitated wife like he’s, again, doing a bit in a totally different television show. It’s real weird. The best person by far, though, is Greenwood. The guy is asked to constantly act against shit that ain’t there — which has to be a pain — but he plays a really decent entitled rich guy who is coming to terms with his mortality. He’s very watchable and he delivers the so-so script in a convincing way that none of the others can quite get to. It’s as if he red-lined the script he was given and crafted it in a way that he knew he could deliver a kick-ass performance. The dude is a pro.

And then the end comes. And it’s bonkers. It feels like the end of one of those Mummy movies that I feel like I’ve seen, but probably haven’t. Not to besmirch Brendan Fraser (or Tom Cruise, I guess), but I really hate ancient-ish supernatural queen-ghost stuff. Probably the same reason I bumped on Moon Knight. It just kind of comes out of nowhere and relies on ancient magic and artifacts that feel completely incongruous with the rest of the tale. I feel like Poe deserved better, perhaps? Even though, again, I’m not a fanboy or anything. A Poe Joe? Is that what they’re called? I suppose it’s better than, uh, Flanafans? Fanagans? Whatever you would call people who like Mike Flanagan. Whose patience, I imagine, might be wearing a little thin at this point. The dude needs to stretch a little. Inject a little more gritty reality and personality into his glib, gothic tales of rich people in their dead houses.