The Fall of the House of Usher is currently creator Mike Flanagan's highest-rated Netflix series on Rotten Tomatoes – and his highest-rated project ever.
The upcoming limited series has a score of 97% on the review aggregator site – Flanagan's highest-scoring series since 2018's The Haunting of Hill House, which has a score of 93%. "Bloody, campy, and a far cry from Hill House and Bly Manor, The Fall of the House of Usher sees Mike Flanagan mix Edgar Allan Poe, American Horror Story, and Succession – and the result, while not perfect, is fun," reads 12DOVE's 3.5-star review.
The Fall of the House of Usher is inspired by the 1839 short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe, in which an unnamed narrator arrives at the House of Usher after hearing that a mysterious illness has infected its residents. Flanagan's series, however, moves the narrative into the modern day.
In this adaptation, the family patriarch is Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood), the CEO of a corrupt pharmaceutical company, and the Ushers are a seemingly unshakable crime family. Their grip on the world starts to loosen, though, when a mysterious force begins picking them off one by one – and, because this is a Flanagan joint, you can guess exactly what kind of force that might be.
This is Flanagan's fifth and final series for Netflix, as the showrunner will no longer work exclusively with Prime Video after he struck a new deal with the streamer last year. Starting with The Haunting of Hill House, he also helmed 2020's The Haunting of Bly Manor, 2021's Midnight Mass, and 2022's The Midnight Club for Netflix.
The Fall of the House of Usher arrives on Netflix on October 12. In the meantime, check out our picks of the best Netflix shows to add to your watch list right now.
