Mike Flanagan has made a name for himself in the horror genre after bringing Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game to screen, as well as the Netflix shows The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and most recently Midnight Mass. His next project is the Edgar Allan Poe story The Fall of the House of Usher, which despite some contradictory comments, appears to be already underway filming.
The Fall of the House of Usher is probably one of Flanagan’s most ambitious projects to date, and the director took to his Twitter account to share an image of a clapperboard announcing the filming of scene 5.25. He wrote the simple caption, “And we’re off.”
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The classic tale of growing suspense seems to fit well with Flanagan’s style choices, with his Haunting series and Midnight Mass both unfolding slowly across the episodes, with more details about what is going on not being revealed until quite a way into the story. The Fall of the House of Usher “recounts the terrible events that befall the last remaining members of the once-illustrious Usher clan before it is — quite literally — rent asunder. With amazing economy, Poe plunges the reader into a state of deliciously agonizing suspense.”
Mike Flanagan Will Bring Other Poe Stories Into The Narrative of The House of Usher
While the basis of the story will likely remain the same as Poe’s work, Flanagan recently teased that the series would be incorporating elements from other stories by Poe, which will mirror the director’s approach to The Haunting of Bly Manor, which combined a number of parts from Henry James’ novels. In a Twitter post last year, Flanagan talked about the project. He wrote:
“This miniseries is a modern remix of some of the most iconic works of Edgar Allan Poe. This miniseries is unique for Intrepid, we’ve never done anything quite like this before. I’m so grateful to be working with my long-time collaborator Michael Fimognari, who will be directing four of the eight episodes, and my producing partner and executive producer Trevor Macy. We’ll see you on the other side. In the meantime, dim the lights, light a fire, and just imagine a deep voice in the dark, quietly intoning… ‘Once upon a midnight dreary…'”
The cast of the new series includes Frank Langella, Carla Gugino, Carl Lumbly, Mary McDonnell, Mark Hamill, Kyleigh Curran, Samantha Sloyan, Rahul Kohli, Kate Siegel, Sauriyan Sapkota, Zach Gilford, Katie Parker, Malcolm Goodwin, Crystal Balint, Aya Furukawa, Daniel Jun, Matt Biedel, Ruth Codd, Annabeth Gish, Igby Rigney, and Robert Longstreet.
The work of Edgar Allan Poe has provided inspiration to many modern horror writers, including Stephen King, and adaptations of his work has included the likes of The Pit and the Pendulum, one of the early movies that gained an X-certificate and promised to have audiences vomiting in terror, The Black Cat, Murders in the Rue Morgue and although it had a serious movie, The Simpsons’ use of Poe’s poem The Raven is one that will always stick in the memory. While the House of Usher was previously adapted as the Roger Corman directed 1960 Vincent Price movie, we can expect a modern retelling when Flanagan’s version arrives.
Netflix Orders More Horror from Mike Flanagan with The Fall of the House of Usher
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Anthony Lund
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Anthony Lund is an author, songwriter and puppeteer from a small village in the U.K. with an avid love of all genres of TV and film. As well as keeping up with the lastest entertainment news and writing about it for MovieWeb, he works as a video editor, voice over artist and production designer. A child of the 80s, he is the owner of almost 2000 books, more toys than his children, three Warner Bros. Store Gremlins and a production used Howard The Duck movie script.
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