The first trailer for The Fall of the House of Usher, the next Netflix series from The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass creator Mike Flanagan, is here – and it brings a modern twist to Edgar Allan Poe.
Inspired by the 1839 short story of the same name, the original tale follows an unnamed narrator who arrives at the House of Usher after hearing that a mysterious illness has infected its residents. Flanagan's series, however, propels the tale into the modern day.
In this adaptation, the family patriarch is Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood), the CEO of a corrupt pharmaceutical company, and the trailer opens with a prosecutor telling a judge that "no matter how much evidence is stacked against them, the Usher crime family stands stronger and darker than ever before."
"Anyone comes after us, we will exhaust our arsenal until the threat's neutralized," another Usher tells her assembled family members. "By neutralized do you mean sued into oblivion, on the streets?" a relative asks. "Neutralized, like dead," she replies, deadpan.
The Ushers' 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.
The show's ensemble cast includes Mary McDonnell, Willa Fitzgerald, Carl Lumbly, Mark Hamill, Henry Thomas, Crystal Balint, Kyliegh Curran, Samantha Sloyan, Matt Biedel, Kate Siegel, Rahul Kohli, Daniel Jun, T’Nia Miller, Paola Núñez, Sauriyan Sapkota, and Ruth Codd.
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.
