The Art of Comeuppance in The Fall of the House of Usher

Mike Flanagan’s new mini-series explores the brutal poetry of Poe’s literary work

Edgar Allan Poe was one of my favorite authors when I was in high school. I was captivated by the dark worlds that he created and claimed his works as among my favorite reads — particularly stories such as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Cask of Amontillado.” I printed out copies of “The Raven,” pasted them in my binders and fell in love with the word “nevermore”.

Although I haven’t read Poe’s work in years, when I learned that Mike Flanagan had adapted Poe’s works into a mini-series, I was immediately invested. Flanagan has been the show runner on some of my favorite horror series, including The House on Haunted Hill and The Haunting of Bly Manor (both gorgeous adaptations of classic horror novels) and Midnight Mass — all of which beautifully combined horror with deep emotional themes, such as family, love, and belief.

By comparison, The Fall of the House of Usher is much less emotionally weighty — but I love it nonetheless. Instead, it reflects some of the themes of Poe’s work, which involve death, madness, loss, and comeuppance. Somehow weaving together the plots and symbols from multiple short stories and poems into a cohesive whole…