The Fall Of The House Of Usher Review: A Macabre, Darkly Humorous Tale Of Death

Mike Flanagan has long served as Netflix’s horror maestro and, now that he has bid farewell to the streaming service, the writer-director gets one hell of a goodbye. The Fall of the House of Usher is Flanagan’s best Netflix show yet, an operatic tragedy that uses the works of Edgar Allen Poe to weave a web of one family’s horrifying depravity and, as the title suggests, their fall into the depths of hell. Flanagan’s work with Netflix has dabbled in everything from melancholic ghost tales to haunted house horror shows and meditations on faith by way of vampirism. The Fall of the House of Usher is a tragedy, yes, but it’s a stylistic, darkly humorous one, as riveting as it is contemplative. Not all the series’ many moving parts work but as a whole, it’s a brazen tale of horror and hubris told by one of the genre’s best creators.