Finally someone that has the same issues with the house of usher that I have. It was still a fairly entertaining watch but never really suspenseful or unexpected.

You make quite a few excellent points, and unfortunately I agree with them lol. The show teases moments of brilliance, but comes up short in more ways than his previous work. It's a complex project, but feels hollow in some crucial areas, making it feel like more of a melodrama than a mystery. Some of the things that Flanagan does in this show are absolutely incredible, which only emphasizes it's flaws. With everything that's baked into this story, I was hoping it would be another Flanagan masterpiece, but in the end, it couldn't fully sustain the literary horror and decadence of Poe's original work. There are some very high points in the show, and I liked it overall, but as a massive fan of Mike Flanagan, it was odd watching this show; with Hill House and Midnight Mass I felt like I was in the safest hands of a genius and could just sit back and be amazed, but with Fall of the House of Usher, some of the writing and choices ripped me right out of the experience.

To me it was the "how do they die" rather than anything else. Because, just as you point out, the "mystery" of what's gonna happen is gone within the first few minutes, so it's about the how. Iirc there's research out there that says spoiling people on media makes people enjoy it more, because instead of thinking "how will it end" they just enjoy the smaller details throughout the story. I think Flanagan tried to do that with this structure. You know how the story ends, so you're just there to enjoy the journey to that end.

Just know even if the clicks aren't always there you are one of the best film essayists on youtube and a huge inspiration Effing great Video! Greetings from Germany

Yet another awesome video essay. I love Mike Flanagan as well and it's disappointing that the house of usher fell short. Hopefully he can recover and continue to bring us great cinema. Keep up the work on these videos they are always top notch dude!

Hi Daniel, I hope you still enjoy doing those videos, I had a good time watching this one. You bring very good points, and even if I don't agree with all of them, I, like you, enjoyed the show as well as feeling a little... unfulfilled. But hey, it's still a good Flanagan take on a good source material.

Amazing to hear back from you again. Everbody has been "so amazed" by this series and I just dont get it (being the biggest Mike Flanagan Fan and I also took some Poe seminars at uni).

Fantastic analysis Daniel!

Oh this is scratching an itch I was only half-aware of, thank you! I have some thoughts I need to try to add. One thing about the Poe stories was that the main characters were caught at the transition, when they started to see something was wrong, and with the occasional up front 'this doesn't go anywhere good' in the set up (The Tell-Tale Heart is a testimonial about the main character's purported insanity). We watch as the characters lose their grips on reality, either as the set up to their demise, or as their demise itself. And many of them were victims of their own arrogance. It's got a bit of the "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" thing going. That ethos was excellent set-up for the modern Usher framing story of the wealth and attendant self-assurance née arrogance. What weirded me out was in part the angle of how they were humanized; Poe made his victims / villains relatable by their passions and the comfort of that self-assurance, a kind of charisma, not by their flaws which came in later. He then revealed the flaws as he destroyed the comfort and turned the passions poisonous. This doesn't hold exactly in every case, but it's a strong overall 'vibe' that affects a lot of Poe's work, as I read it. And Flanagan didn't do much with that, either! There were strong aspects of it just by using the structures of the stories, but rather than arrogant charismatic comfort unraveled, he made the characters up front awful and flawed, which feels like an attempt to shoehorn modern ideas about character writing in, against Poe's kind of singular and distinctive moral-psychological drama. Just reacting here, and think I should maybe 1) re-read the stories and 2) come up with my own damn essay to make this clearer, so apologies if this doesn't make much sense, but thanks for a chance to really dig into why this was such a gorgeous and rewarding disappointment... a hard feeling to come to grips with!

I completely agree. I overall enjoyed the show but it got tedious to know it was just a matter of how they would die and not that they were going to at all. I also wasn’t too into the Rian Johnson modernisms. I like it for Rian Johnson but I prefer Flanagan’s usual style. Bruce Greenwood made the show and I can’t believe he was the replacement.

Great vid. You raise some great points here especially as it pertains to tension. I did actually enjoy the modern setting although I think I’d always prefer a period piece and the not so subtle allegories to Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family and the futility of attempting to hold the c suite feudalists accountable.

Loved this!!! My favorite out of Flanagans work. Love hill house, but the final episode is trash. This was so consistent and disturbing. Loved it

I love that he casts a lot of the same actors, it's so fun to see them in different roles

I think that fitting in so many of Poe’s short stories, while a great goal, sort of became the structure of this series while suspense and character development were secondary.

Haven’t watched the series yet but I still found what you had to say intriguing. Also, given that I now know you liked the Netflix adaptation of the haunting, have you seen the original 1960s film? It’s amazing.

I very much agree with some of these points. I wish I felt more for the characters.

Quite early on I was highly suspecting, that it was going to be revealed that Rodrick purposefully had several children by different mothers (most of whom he had no closer connection with) in order to ward off death. It didn't seem to fit the early depiction of his character as a faithful married man nor his latter (why would someone power/money hungry willingly involve his 'bastard' children in the company? I get his early stance due to his back story but I figure he would have forsaken that morality later on). Say he was aware that each of his children would meet a gruesome fate but insure his longevity/wealth, thus leading him to sire as many as possible without rising suspicion and involving them in the business to keep a closer grasp on them/ ensure at least a naturally long life. I already forgot a good chunk of the early plot, but it seemed to me to be heavily implied that he knowingly agreed to such a deal instead of just kind of unknowingly being served it. And it does seem unlikely that he didn't link Verna's 'deal' with his success, his knowledge of said deal would have made his having several children even more nefarious (and his character more interesting, he seemed too passive imo).

I enjoyed it but I didn’t love it the way I did Haunting of Hill House or Bly Manor.

I liked the show well enough. For me the major thing that threw me off was the tone. I went in expecting something more in line with Hill House and Bly Manor but got hit with something more like American Horror story. The characters were incredibly unlikable and the horror was bombasticly over the top, but once I'd realigned my expectations I was able to enjoy it for what it was.

Daniel we need you, where is the content 🎉

I liked it, but I agree with all your takes here. It would've made for a better, more Flanaganean story. Seems re mystery he was less concerned with the Why, Who, and When, and put all his chips on the How. Like we knew they had probably murdered Rufus (or the CEO of the company they'd inherit) in the first episode, but we didn't know how. Seems like he placed more emphasis on that (and even then I knew it'd be a play on the Amontillado several episode before it happened), which I think was the wrong decision. Still had a good time - but oh the potential!

I think Flanagan was getting bored with his Netflix deal. I was really hoping it would have that AIP/Corman Poe adaption feel

Personally i enjoyed the structure, to me the suspense was from the how not the why of everyone dying.

The way they show's structure focuses' on the Usher children is more like a series of short stories, or an anthology show, so they end up feeling really disconnected even though they fit within the larger themes. The show became somewhat repetitious and predicable due to that structure which left me feeling quite bored, even though I enjoyed certain episodes like Tamerlane's. There's similarities between this and What Remains of Edith Finch, but I think that game hit me way harder.

I wasn't crazy about 'The Fall of the House of Usher'. In fact, I didn't bother with the last episode. I just didn't care enough about anyone to finish, and it was easy to see where all was headed. Flanagan's 'Hill House' was a fine miniseries, although it had very little to do with the book it was based on, and I would rather it had simply been presented as an original work. Even so, it was still better than 'Usher'. Just my opinion. :)

Too many modern storytellers become fixated on too many characters at the expense of a tight, well paced story. The modern fascination with “lore” might be to blame.

I gave it a fair try. But stopped at 5 episode, cause I was not enjoying it. The only thing that was interesting for me is the mystery, but there was too much drama and unrelated stories in between. I know that most Flanagan shows are drama that mask themself as horror movies and it's my main issue with his shows, but at least his previous works had interesting setting and more horror elements. The fact that absolute majority of characters in this show are very unlikable also didn't helped.

Interesting, but largely disagree. This was Flannigans best so far. The predictable argument is valid, but also moot. It’s kinda the shape of the show and I really liked it that way. It got me excited for the next episode knowing it was going to focus on another child.

So it was a predictable meh show that ultimately ignored the actual familial curse of the Ushers for evil big pharma gets punished and was for those ignorant of Poe's classic tales as the episode titles spoiled the plot of everything. The only great thing about the show was the original score that kept me engaged enough to put up with the 8 episode slog info dumps rechow the bloodline was killed off with lousy ghost ugh jumpscares istead of actual suspense. Eta: of course no one is ever going to improve upon Corman and Price's collaboration on Gothic Poe adaptations.

It's weird this is a subjective opinion. Usually art is all about objective facts. Bold move cotton.

They killed Kate Siegel and Rahul Kohli too soon.

I turned the show off after the second interracial gay couple was introduced.

Atleast the dad isent racist