The Fall of the House of Usher: Mike Flanagan brings Poe series to Netflix

Genre filmmaker Mike Flanagan and his writing team drew inspiration from multiple different Henry James stories when crafting the Netflix series The Haunting of Bly Manor. Now Flanagan is set to do something similar with the works of Edgar Allan Poe for a Netflix limited series called The Fall of the House of Usher.

Exactly which Poe stories will be brought to the screen in this show – other than the obvious The Fall of the House of Usher – was not revealed in the announcement. Here’s the set-up for the titular story:

Roderick Usher and his sister Madeline are the only two surviving members of the aristocratic Usher family. For many years, they have lived together in the ancient mansion which is their ancestral family home. Madeline Usher has been ill for a long time and is not expected to live much longer. Partly due to his sister’s illness and partly, he believes, due to the negative influence of the old mansion in which he lives, Roderick Usher has fallen into a deep melancholy. To help recover his spirits, he summons his old friend, the story’s unnamed narrator, to come visit him. 

Coming to us from Netflix and Flanagan’s production company Intrepid Pictures, The Fall of the House of Usher will consist of eight episodes. Flanagan will be directing four of those episodes, and the other four will be directed by Michael Fimognari, who previously directed the films To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You and To All the Boys: Always and Forever. If Fimognari seems like an odd choice for this show based on those credits, it should be noted that he is also a cinematographer who has been working with Flanagan for years. He shot Oculus, Before I Wake, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and the Flanagan / Netflix shows The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass.

Flanagan and Fimognari are executive producing The Fall of the House of Usher with Trevor Macy and Emmy Grinwis.

I watch everything Flanagan is involved with, so I will be watching this show for sure and I look forward to seeing how the Poe stories will be blended together over the course of the eight episodes.