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The Martian Chronicles, a 1950 collection of stories by Ray Bradbury, contains a novella called "Usher II," a homage to Poe. Its main character, William Stendahl, builds a house based on the specifications from Poe's story to murder his enemies. 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. The narrator and Roderick place her in a tomb despite her flushed, lively appearance. In the tale's conclusion, Madeline escapes from the tomb and returns to Roderick, scaring him to death. Fearing that her body will be exhumed for medical study, Roderick insists that she be entombed for two weeks in the family tomb located in the house before being permanently buried.
Roderick Usher
The eight-episode series, which premieres to the streamer on Thursday, October 12, follows the bleak, gory, and darkly comedic downfall of pharmaceutical magnate Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) and his richly diverse (and richly despicable) family. Once that initial confusion is out of the way, part of what makes it work is how each episode manages to tell its own self-contained story about the victim in question while also steadily advancing the overarching tale of what Roderick did to deserve this fate. The mystery, which seems so obvious early on, becomes more complicated and even darker than I first imagined.
'The Fall of the House of Usher': All the Edgar Allan Poe references - Entertainment Weekly News
'The Fall of the House of Usher': All the Edgar Allan Poe references.
Posted: Thu, 12 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
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Loosely based on various works by 19th-century author Edgar Allan Poe (most prominently the eponymous 1840 short story), the series adapts otherwise unrelated stories and characters by Poe into a single nonlinear narrative set from 1953 to 2023. It recounts both the rise to power of Roderick Usher, the powerful CEO of a corrupt pharmaceutical company and his sister Madeline Usher, the firm's genius COO, and the events leading to the deaths of all six of Roderick’s children. It stars an ensemble cast led by Carla Gugino as a mysterious woman plaguing the Ushers, Bruce Greenwood as an elderly Roderick and Mary McDonnell as an elderly Madeline. “The Fall of the House of Usher” updates the work of Edgar Allan Poe for the era of Big Pharma, turning his most famous tales into a sprawling story of the decline of a wealthy American family. It’s “Succession” meets The Tell-Tale Heart, a story of vengeance, power, betrayal, and bloody parts. Since The Haunting of Hill House debuted in 2018, Mike Flanagan has steadily built up an impressively diverse anthology of limited series on Netflix, with releases coming on a near-annual basis.
Episodes

The Fall of the House of Usher is an American gothic horror drama television miniseries created by Mike Flanagan. All eight episodes were released on Netflix on October 12, 2023, each directed by either Flanagan or Michael Fimognari, with the latter also acting as cinematographer for the entire series. But things start to get out of control after receiving a visit from his girlfriend, who will do everything to... Read allRoderick Usher returns to his family home after learning that his father is ill.
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Movies to Watch After THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER - Nerdist
Movies to Watch After THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER.
Posted: Thu, 12 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
English majors will likely know where some of the stories are going just by seeing the episode names. When the young and trendy Prospero Usher (Sauriyan Sapkota) decides to host an exclusive sex-and-drugs party at one of dad’s old factories in an abbey, readers of The Masque of the Red Death will know it’s going to be a gruesome scene. However, Flanagan is smart enough to shift the Poe narratives ever so slightly for a modern audience. His version of The Tell-Tale Heart is a modern gem, and “The Gold-Bug” is reimagined as a new brand for the Usher company.
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. In November 2023, Roderick Usher, the CEO of pharmaceutical company Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, loses all six of his children within two weeks.
How does it compare to Mike Flanagan’s other Netflix shows?
Gunning’s breakout role could also boost the chances of her co-star Nava Mau, who plays the love interest Teri, garnering attention for her performance. In 2002, Ken Russell produced a horror comedy version titles The Fall of the Louse of Usher. In 1989, The House of Usher was a film produced by American, British, and Canadian companies starring Oliver Reed. In the Roger Corman film from 1960, released in the United States as House of Usher, Vincent Price starred as Roderick Usher, Myrna Fahey as Madeline and Mark Damon as Philip Winthrop, Madeline's fiancé. The film was Corman's first in a series of eight films inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Cast & Crew
A second silent film version, also released in 1928, was directed by James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber. Roderick and Madeline are twins and the two share an incommunicable connection that critics conclude may be either incestuous or metaphysical,[7] as two individuals in an extra-sensory relationship embodying a single entity. To that end, Roderick's deteriorating condition speeds his own torment and eventual death.
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In 1956, NBC Matinee Theater on US television broadcast The Fall of the House of Usher starring Marshall Thompson and Tom Tryon for episode 197. In 1950, a British film version of The Fall of the House of Usher was produced starring Gwen Watford, Kay Tendeter and Irving Steen. During one sleepless night, the narrator reads aloud to Usher as eerie sounds are heard throughout the mansion.
“You could say she’s the executor of fate or the executor of karma,” said Gugino. Feast your eyes on a new clip above and learn more about the limited series below. 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. A television adaptation was produced by ATV for the ITV network in 1966 for the horror anthology series Mystery and Imagination.
After Roderick Usher claims that Madeline has died, the narrator helps Usher entomb Madeline in an underground vault despite noticing Madeline's flushed, lifelike appearance. The bedroom door is then blown open to reveal Madeline, bloodied from her arduous escape from the tomb. In a final fit of rage, she attacks her brother, scaring him to death as she herself expires. The narrator then runs from the house, and, as he does, he notices a flash of moonlight behind him. He turns back in time to see the Moon shining through the suddenly widened crack in the house. As he watches, the House of Usher splits in two and the fragments sink away into the lake.
When the dragon's death cries are described, a real shriek is heard, again within the house. As he relates the shield falling from off the wall, a hollow metallic reverberation can be heard throughout the house. At first, the narrator ignores the noises, but Roderick becomes increasingly hysterical. Roderick eventually declares that he has been hearing these sounds for days, and that they are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was entombed.
That combination, of course, is exactly what Flanagan is known for, and it remains strong in House of Usher... During a heated argument with Roderick, Madeline suddenly falls into catalepsy, a condition in which its sufferers appear dead. Roderick knows that she is still alive, but convinces Winthrop that she is dead and rushes to have her entombed in the family crypt beneath the house. As Philip is preparing to leave following the entombment, the butler, Bristol (Harry Ellerbe), lets slip that Madeline suffered from catalepsy.
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 first two episodes of The Fall of the House of Usher premiered at Fantastic Fest in September 2023 before the Netflix release the following month, being viewed more than 13 million times in its first two weeks. 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. Because of this, it starts out slowly as the show attempts to introduce all of its various parts.