Tuesday, September 12, 2023

"The Fall of the House of Usher" on Netflix



"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a new Vancouver-lensed, live-action, horror drama TV miniseries created by Mike Flanagan, based on an 1839 short story by Edgar Allan Poe, streaming October 12, 2023 on Netflix:


"....t
he story is narrated by a childhood friend of 'Roderick Usher', the owner of the 'Usher' mansion. This friend is riding to the house, having been summoned by Roderick Usher, a gifted poet and artist, having complained in his letter that he is suffering from some illness and expressing a hope that seeing his old friend will lift his spirits. 


" When he arrives, the narrator finds a gloomy and vaguely menacing atmosphere, and his friend, Usher, is much changed since he last saw him: overly sensitive to every sound and sight, and prone to dramatic mood swings. 


"Meanwhile, Roderick’s twin sister 'Madeline' is afflicted with a disease which, Roderick tells the narrator, means she will soon die. These twins are the last in the family line, the last descendants of the 'House of Usher'.


"Several days later, Roderick tells the narrator that Madeline has died, and they lay her to rest in a vault. In the days that follow, the narrator starts to feel more uneasy in the house, and attributes his nervousness to the gloomy furniture in the room where he sleeps. 


"The narrator begins to suspect that Roderick is harboring some dark secret. Roderick grows more erratic in his behaviour, and the narrator reads to his friend to try to soothe him. In a shocking development, Madeline breaks out of her coffin and enters the room, and Roderick confesses that he buried her alive. Madeline attacks her brother and kills both him and herself in the struggle, and the narrator flees the house. It is a stormy night, and as he leaves he sees the house fall down, collapsing into the lake which reflects the house’s image..."


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