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Mike Flanagan's "The Fall of the House of Usher" (Netflix, 12 October 2023) - Official Trailer

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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I'll be watching as soon as it drops. Mike Flanagan has been on a tear the past 7+ years, I mean: Oculus, Hush, Gerald's Game, Doctor Sleep: Director's Cut, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass and The Midnight Club is a streak any horror director wishes they had. I know people weren't bullish on The Midnight Club but that was a YA adaptation and in that vein it was pretty well done. I know people felt the meandering monologues and lack of outright horror in Bly Manor and Midnight Mass made those worse than Hill House but they were still more adult horror done well than most stuff out there.

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CitizenVectron

CitizenVectron

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31 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

I'll be watching as soon as it drops. Mike Flanagan has been on a tear the past 7+ years, I mean: Oculus, Hush, Gerald's Game, Doctor Sleep: Director's Cut, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass and The Midnight Club is a streak any horror director wishes they had. I know people weren't bullish on The Midnight Club but that was a YA adaptation and in that vein it was pretty well done. I know people felt the meandering monologues and lack of outright horror in Bly Manor and Midnight Mass made those worse than Hill House but they were still more adult horror done well than most stuff out there.

 

While Hill House is probably his best Netflix run so far, I thought that Midnight Mass was absolutely on the same level, as with Bly Manor (just in a different way). Midnight Club was also great as a YA horror show.

 

I'm very excited for this, as it appears to be a greatest hits of Poe short stories.

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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3 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

While Hill House is probably his best Netflix run so far, I thought that Midnight Mass was absolutely on the same level, as with Bly Manor (just in a different way). Midnight Club was also great as a YA horror show.

 

I'm very excited for this, as it appears to be a greatest hits of Poe short stories.

 

Yeah I would agree - honestly in some ways the atmospheric horror or Bly Manor coupled with its more intense personal dramatic scenes between relative strangers makes me like it a bit more than Hill House, or it's at least more accomplished. Midnight Mass I feel the same way - it's just not trying to do what Hill House did in the first place. And The Midnight Club gets a bad rap, I'm with you - as a YA adaptation it is very well done and is pretty sad and has good teenage acting.

 

3 hours ago, TheLeon said:

Hell yeah! I need to finish Midnight Club. I think I only got halfway through it. 

 

I definitely recommend you do! Just be aware the show was supposed to get at least a second season but due to the fallout between Mike Flanagan and Netflix, Netflix cancelled the show. The show still completely works as just one season, but Mike Flanagan released his pretty detailed plans to adapt additional books and where he had the unfinished plotlines going for a season 2. I definitely recommend reading what he had planned on doing once you finish the show as you'll get answers to any lingering questions. 

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Moa

Moa

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5 Episodes in I have to admit I'm not enjoying it as much as I hoped. Everything feels just a little too obvious and constructed. None of the characters feel real. The show is kind of bumming me out because I feel like all of his previous series' have blended a meaningful story with horror in a way few other directors can manage, and this show just really isn't doing anything for me on either front. Maybe the next few episodes will turn it around for me, I wasn't really feeling Bly Manor until the last few episodes.

 

One thing I've noticed about Flanagan's series and recent movies is that the sets and lighting tend to look incredibly artificial. I know this show is about the ultra-wealthy, but nothing in these scenes appears lived-in. 

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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I finished the show and I thought it was pretty good! In the way that Hill House tackled Shirley Jackson and Bly Manor tackled Henry James, this show tackles Edgar Allen Poe. That means a lot of raven stuff, which was cool. I do agree with others this didn't have the formalism of Bly Manor or the scares of Hill House - this isn't really a scary show at all. It's more a mystery thriller show with really well-written dialogue and strong characterizations for the intentionally unlikeable cast of characters. I enjoyed the anthology-esque structure of the show, with each episode killing off an Usher at the end with the smash cut to "the fall of the house of usher", reminding us what will ultimately be happening here. Some really good set pieces, especially the night club scene. 

 

I think the biggest weakness of the show is that there are no surprises or twists or scares and everything plays out relatively straightforward once you know how the structure of the show operates. But I found watching it all play out anyway as very compelling, mostly to see how the characters would continue to react. And the little hints of a bigger Poe universe the show drops when Carla Gugino says things like: "when you creatures first started making cities" or when Roderick Usher implies that Mark Hamill (who was great in this) saw some serious shit on the Transglobe Expedition, like supernatural stuff was pretty cool. I know Mike Flanagan is done with Netflix but I look forward to seeing what he does at Amazon. Hopefully The Dark Tower.

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Moa

Moa

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I feel like the horror genre struggles with identifying meaningful themes that cannot simply be explored better through a different genre. What Flanagan really gets is that horror is uniquely situated to address the flailing desire for immortality.

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Moa

Moa

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In classic Flanagan fashion, he manages to stick the landing. It still wasn't my favorite of his series, but I liked it well enough.

 

Spoiler

Among the many things I like about Flanagan's work, he understands that endings should be built up to. It's far worse to have a twist that betrays the story than to have a predicable but good ending.

 

Pym deserved better.

 

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Fizzzzle

Fizzzzle

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19 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

Maybe I didn’t learn the right lessons from this series, but Carla Gugino can haunt me any day. :daydream:

I've had a reserved boner for her ever since she was in Entourage.

 

I guess I just feel like the ending felt unsatisfactory for reasons that I haven't yet been able to put into words. Like @Greatoneshere said, you know what it is before it's dropped, and that doesn't bother me. It's just like... the extra stuff about Egyptian mythology just felt tacked on? I know it makes sense thematically, and I know they foreshadow it, but it still felt weird. Also I didn't like that there was never a payoff for Daupin. He's literally one of the two main characters throughout the series and he never gets a payoff or resolution. He's just... there, and then he goes "oh shit!" and the series ends. All of the nods that he sacrificed just as much as Roderick are threads that are left woven. That bothered me.

 

Still a great series worth watching, but not even close to the greatness that was Midnight Mass. If you haven't watched that, get on your ass and do it.

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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6 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I've had a reserved boner for her ever since she was in Entourage.

 

I guess I just feel like the ending felt unsatisfactory for reasons that I haven't yet been able to put into words. Like @Greatoneshere said, you know what it is before it's dropped, and that doesn't bother me. It's just like... the extra stuff about Egyptian mythology just felt tacked on? I know it makes sense thematically, and I know they foreshadow it, but it still felt weird. Also I didn't like that there was never a payoff for Daupin. He's literally one of the two main characters throughout the series and he never gets a payoff or resolution. He's just... there, and then he goes "oh shit!" and the series ends. All of the nods that he sacrificed just as much as Roderick are threads that are left woven. That bothered me.

 

Still a great series worth watching, but not even close to the greatness that was Midnight Mass. If you haven't watched that, get on your ass and do it.

 

I think the payoff for Dupin was: 1) winning, which he did since Fortunato is destroyed and 2) he realized truly how "rich" his life is compared to Roderick Usher. The Egyptian mythology stuff was random but relegated to just Madeline's plotline obsessing over immortality, like the AI thing I think it was a red herring since neither goes anywhere.

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Greatoneshere

Greatoneshere

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3 minutes ago, Moa said:
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The AI stuff, the heart mesh, and the general obsession with immortality were Madeline and Roderick's attempts at finding a loophole in the deal. If they never die then their family gets to live.

 

 

I should have been more clear: 

 

Spoiler

a red herring in that none of that stuff worked in creating a loophole or doing anything at all ultimately.

 

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Kal-El814

Kal-El814

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I've got 2 episodes left.

 

I like it so far, but it's no Midnight Mass or even The Hauntings.

 

The individual episode vibes are good as expected, but I don't think this one is coalescing. I appreciate that the family here is dysfunctional and that's the point but nothing is really gelling. Leo seemed really close to Prospero, but when Camille died it barely came up? And Tamerlane can't move her MLM launch despite 4 of her siblings dying in what... the last week? I get everyone is either on drugs, mentally ill, or both, but this isn't really working for me as an actual show instead of a series of episodes.

 

Also as someone who spent almost 20 years in the clinical trials industry, I find it just endlessly funny that Roderick, who would absolutely know how these things work, just goes to Vic and is like, "we finished monkey studies yesterday, we're in human trials tomorrow, right?" And when Vic says "yea sure pops" he's just relieved as opposed to wondering how she pulled off 18 months worth of work in 15 minutes, doesn't think the company should do a press release, isn't asking what sites are participating in the trial, is somehow completely unaware or uninterested in the FDA and IRB approval process, etc. Also the way Vic consented Verna into the clinical trial is almost as bad as the training videos they give at investigator meetings about how NOT to do that. Not a complaint at all, just makes me laugh since it was related to my job for most of my adult life. It'd be like if one of them worked in a garage, was looking under the hood at Madeline's car, and said, "yeah this car needs more carburetor and you've got a V6 setup but there's only five valves," or something. :p 

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