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A mere glimpse of the Usher mansion inspires in the narrator “an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart.” Upon entering the house, the reader as the narrator navigates through a series of dark passages lined with carvings, tapestries, and armorial trophies. Poe draws heavily on Gothic conventions, using omens and portents, heavy storms, hidden passageways, and shadows to set the reader on edge. This time, Flanagan’s ghoulish crew is entering familial territory, as ruthless siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher have built Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into an empire of wealth, privilege, and power. But past secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying at the hands of a mysterious woman from their youth. In November 2023, Roderick Usher, the CEO of pharmaceutical company Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, loses all six of his children within two weeks.
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The eldest of the Usher “bastards,” Victorine has made helping people her life’s work, but like her siblings, the true source of her ambition is her desire for her father’s approval and affection. After Roderick shows interest in Victorine’s revolutionary new heart technology — still in its testing phase — Victorine bends the rules of clinical trials to start testing on human subjects. “It’s batshit crazy in the best possible way,” Carla Gugino told Netflix during production. “It has quite a lot of very dark humor, but also really touches the soul.” In the series, Gugino portrays a shape-shifter named Verna, whose origins can be traced back to a — let’s just say — very famous Poe character. “There is a fantastical supernatural element to the story, and she is the manifestation of that,” she added.
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Flanagan has form with making tributes to some of horror’s most beloved oeuvres. He took on Shirley Jackson in The Haunting of Hill House (which was fabulous), Henry James in The Haunting of Bly Manor (spooky but saccharine) and Christopher Pike in The Midnight Club (meh). Thankfully, Flanagan and Poe’s sensibilities prove a winning pairing, staying on the edge of terror without cascading into jump scares and sentimentality. Guilt permeates every frame of Flanagan’s Poe universe, and buys into not so much the horror as the terror.
Who Is Verna? 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher' Character Explained - Women's Health
Who Is Verna? 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher' Character Explained.
Posted: Thu, 19 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
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The Fall of the House of Usher Episode Two Recap - www.autostraddle.com
The Fall of the House of Usher Episode Two Recap.
Posted: Fri, 13 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The narrator then runs from the house, and, as he does, he notices a flash of moonlight behind him. He turns back in time to see the Moon shining through the suddenly widened crack in the house. As he watches, the House of Usher splits in two and the fragments sink away into the lake. The first two episodes of The Fall of the House of Usher premiered at Fantastic Fest in September 2023 before the Netflix release the following month, being viewed more than 13 million times in its first two weeks.
It was met with positive reviews, with critics praising its production values, directing, and performances (in particular from Gugino, Greenwood and Mark Hamill), although they were divided on its narrative, notably in relation to the source materials. Many of the celestial-themed jewels were conceived by famed designer Jean Schlumberger, whose tenure with Tiffany & Co. began in 1956 and lasted until his death in 1987. His talent was so prolific, the high-jewelry workshops in the jeweler’s Fifth Avenue Landmark building continue to produce new pieces based on his archived sketches, many featuring signature elements that range from nature motifs to artful settings that mix yellow gold and platinum. That [denial] sort of seeps in more and more and more,” Miller said. Throwing a bookend at Alessandra’s head “was not out of spite or cruelty,” said Miller.
The feeling that something awful is imminent makes for an engaging watch. Poe was often dismissed by contemporary literary critics because of the unusual content and brevity of his stories. When his work was critically evaluated, it was condemned for its tendencies toward Romanticism. The writers and critics of Poe’s day rejected many of that movement’s core tenets, including its emphasis on the emotions and the experience of the sublime.
short story by Edgar Allan Poe / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Martian Chronicles, a 1950 collection of stories by Ray Bradbury, contains a novella called "Usher II," a homage to Poe. Its main character, William Stendahl, builds a house based on the specifications from Poe's story to murder his enemies. In the Roger Corman film from 1960, released in the United States as House of Usher, Vincent Price starred as Roderick Usher, Myrna Fahey as Madeline and Mark Damon as Philip Winthrop, Madeline's fiancé. The film was Corman's first in a series of eight films inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
One selfish choice seals the Usher family’s fates forever when twins Roderick (Zach Gilford) and Madeline Usher (Willa Fitzgerald) meet an omnipotent harbinger of fate, Verna (Carla Gugino), at a bar on New Year’s Eve 1979 in Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher. She's first present tending bar when Roderick and Madeline stop in on New Year's Eve 1979, and we don't know what's going on with them, but we know they're nervous about something. Throughout the rest of the series, Verna continues to show up—more than 40 years later, always looking exactly the same as the day she met them. She shapeshifts, and knows everything, always letting the Usher children know exactly what the universe needs them to know before their time is up. As we approach the finale of The Fall of the House of Usher, after learning of Frederick's (Henry Thomas) grisly death in the penultimate episode, it would seem that we've finally caught up with the present, where Roderick sits, drinking expensive cognac and speaking with Dupin.
The narrator is impressed with Roderick's paintings and attempts to cheer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the guitar. Roderick sings "The Haunted Palace", then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be alive, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it. Further, Roderick believes that his fate is connected to the family mansion. At the start of the meal, Tiffany executive Alexandre Arnault gave a toast welcoming the assembled, while also noting that the Cinderella evening would conclude with a pumpkin moment. As luxury brands jockey to outdo one another creatively to throw spectacular launch events and parties, Tiffany & Co. outdid itself on Thursday night with a bash at one of the most historic mansions in Los Angeles. Gunning’s breakout role could also boost the chances of her co-star Nava Mau, who plays the love interest Teri, garnering attention for her performance.
And so Roderick invited Madeline over to their childhood home, where their mother once died (and rose again, only to strangle a man to death before finally dying herself), to share a drink. Late one stormy night, Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) invites an investigator named C. He offers to lay out the truth about his family’s criminal, violent history. All of these nightmarish visions are attached to the family drama that Usher offers up for Dupin, giving the season a clever episodic structure in that each chapter intertwines a different Poe source into the overall saga of the Ushers. When Poe began writing short stories, the short story was not generally regarded as serious literature. Poe’s writing helped elevate the genre from a position of critical neglect to an art form.
Usher has been reimagined as the head of a massive pharmaceutical company he runs with his twin sister, Madeline (Mary McDonnell). Every episode includes flashbacks to a young Roderick (Zach Gilford), Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald), and Annabel Lee (Katie Parker), Roderick’s first wife. These fill in how the Ushers made their fortune, but they’re kind of a narrative drag.
She possessed the warmth and moral compass of Annabel Lee, he thought, the “best of her without a broken heart.” She’s the one who called 911 and saved her mom from her father’s brutality. Her death brings Verna no joy, but she does tell Lenore about all the good her mother does in the future thanks to Lenore’s heroic choice to save her — before allowing the youngest and kindest Usher to die peacefully. Roderick and Madeline sold their souls the night they killed Fortunato CEO Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco) — the same night they met Verna, on New Year’s Eve 1979. Using Griswold as a fall guy to begin Roderick’s takeover, the twins drugged him on the night of the company holiday party. When Griswold woke, he found that they’re sealing him behind a brick wall in the basement of the new Fortunato building he’s constructing.
On the one hand, the house itself appears to be actually sentient, just as Roderick claims. Its windows are described as “eye-like,” and its interior is compared to a living body. On the other hand, there are plenty of strange things about the Usher family. For one, “the entire family lay in the direct line of descent,” meaning that only one son from each generation survived and reproduced. Poe implies incestuous relations sustained the genetic line and that Roderick and Madeline are the products of extensive intermarriage within the Usher family.
From his arrival, the narrator notes the family's isolationist tendencies, as well as the cryptic and special connection between Madeline and Roderick, the final living members of the Usher family. Throughout the tale and her varying states of consciousness, Madeline completely ignores the narrator's presence. After Roderick Usher claims that Madeline has died, the narrator helps Usher entomb Madeline in an underground vault despite noticing Madeline's flushed, lifelike appearance. The Fall of the House of Usher is an American gothic horror drama television miniseries created by Mike Flanagan. All eight episodes were released on Netflix on October 12, 2023, each directed by either Flanagan or Michael Fimognari, with the latter also acting as cinematographer for the entire series.
Roderick’s first wife and only true love, Annabel Lee (Katie Parker), leaves him after he betrayed his sense of integrity and threw young investigator C. Auguste Dupin (Malcolm Goodwin) under the bus to get ahead at Fortunato. Auguste (portrayed in the present by Carl Lumbly) later tells Roderick that the only reason he trusted him back then was because he trusted the good-hearted Annabel Lee.
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