Zagłada domu Usherów

Well, Flanagan disappointed me here. I have read all of Edgar Allan Poe’s work, and “The Fall of the House of Usher” is quite possibly my least favourite. This miniseries, however, has nothing of Poe's aesthetic, it just glues together selected elements of his works in a very clumsy way in the form of the execution of the unsurprising murders of minor characters, and ties it all together with a main storyline whose final denouement is very weak. For as much as I enjoyed Flanagan's brilliantly plotted Midnight Mass two years ago, I had a hard time finishing this one. And the hamfisted all-encompassing inclusion in Netflix shows eye is starting to get solidly annoying, too. (25.10.2023)

The reparation for the Midnight Club was a success. For me, it’s weaker than both Hauntings and probably even than (the second half of) Midnight Mass, but the director and his court actors should still be applauded for this modern take of E.A. Poe's stories. Flanagan has become a conceptual creator who always has it all very nicely thought out, planned out, refined into a compelling, meaningful whole that's not always something to actively fear, but mostly something to think about. The first episode hooked me reliably, the six middle episodes were made a little less interesting by their identical structure (again, it could have been shortened and condensed), and the last episode concluded satisfyingly. Succession in a horror package and with the phenomenally charismatic Carla Gugino. (23.10.2023)

I liked Flanagan's Doctor Sleep a lot (despite its slightly excessive running time), and Poe's stories, while I'm not very familiar with them, have an attractive aura for readers and viewers alike, so The Fall of the House of Usher was a pretty obvious choice. After watching it, however, I have to say that I have mixed feelings. Personally, I would have shortened both the running time of the episodes and the miniseries as a whole, as it was a really slapdash and unnecessarily drawn out in places. You watch a whole cast of characters who are disgusting and who can’t help but die. The creators could have easily increased the cadence of the deaths, which were always foreshadowed anyway (a less suspenseful variation on Final Destination?), and thus reduce the overall running time. I was also struck by the overly obvious inclusiveness – as if the creators had taken an imaginary RAL formula and just ticked off ethnicities and sexualities: the unwritten rule of "less is more" certainly applied in this case. Of the characters, I most enjoyed the older versions of the siblings played by Bruce Greenwood and Mary McDonnell, and of course the "devilish" Carla Gugino. If The Fall of the House of Usher as a whole had ridden on the atmosphere of the last episode, which I enjoyed immensely, I wouldn't have hesitated to give it a higher rating, but the nice finale was unfortunately preceded by seven poorly crafted episodes. (09.11.2023)