TV MINISERIES

Title: The Fall of the House of Usher

Year: 2023

Stars: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Mary McDonnell

This miniseries follows on from creator Mike Flanagan‘s impressive efforts in The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass, among others and a bunch of movies to boot. This outing mines the works of Edgar Allan Poe, with episodes tapping particular works and featuring plenty of nods; The Raven is influential throughout. Among the new faces joining Flanagan returnees is a delightfully menacing Mark Hamill. The Usher family has built its wealth on painkillers (the semifictionalised docuseries Painkiller, also out this year, makes compelling complementary viewing) but now the, ahem, ravens are coming home to roost, with gruesome murders culling the family tree as a landmark court case unfolds. Flanagan knows how to set up his mood pieces and mix tension and gore, and Usher hits just the right mix of horror and camp as two old adversaries provide a narration of events leading up to the unfolding tragedies. Takeaway: I need to refresh my Poe.