Mike Flanagan's Latest Work Is 'Succession Meets Haunting of Hill House'
The director's take on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher, bears similarities to both the recent HBO hit and his previous TV gem.
Over the past few years, Mike Flanagan has made a name for himself as a horror filmmaking prodigy, responsible for some of the greatest modern installments in the genre.
From Gerald's Game to TV shows like The Haunting of Hill House and several others, the filmmaker has consistently delivered scares that have earned him the love of countless fans.
Flanagan even managed to do what many thought was impossible and create a great sequel to Stanley Kubrick's cult classic The Shining, as his film Doctor Sleep was a perfect blend that paid respect to both Stephen King 's novel of the same name and the iconic 1980s film.
With all that in mind, it's no wonder that expectations were extremely high for the director's latest effort, the TV series The Fall of the House of Usher, but the result is well worth it, even if it's a bit different from Flanagan's previous projects.
Based on the works of the legendary Edgar Allan Poe, the show adapts several of the author's stories in addition to the titular tale, and is best described as "Succession meets The Haunting of Hill House."
Similar to the recent HBO hit series, we see the heirs to a pharmaceutical empire competing for their father's favor, but in this case many of them die horrible deaths in the process.
The story structure, with multiple flashbacks and non-linear storytelling, resembles the filmmaker's aforementioned previous TV masterpiece, albeit with an atmosphere more akin to gothic horror than supernatural horror drama.
Many familiar faces from the director's previous works return, but Carla Gugino as a mysterious figure from the Usher patriarch's past arguably overshadows them all with her chilling performance.
However, as fans point out, the slow pacing and the strangeness of some of the story elements, which is in typical Poe fashion, may not be to everyone's taste.
Some of them rate it higher than Flanagan's other works, others lower, which only proves how different the show is from the director's other projects, despite the obvious similarities.
So if you are a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, you will definitely love The Fall of the House of Usher, but if not, the thick gothic atmosphere of the series along with a very slow pace might be a negative if you were expecting something more like The Haunting of Hill House.
Source: Reddit