Mike Flanagan Says Fall Of The House Of Usher Adaptation Is Unlike Anything He's Ever Done

There are few things more fun than watching an expert horror storyteller get down with their bad side. Think Sam Raimi subjecting poor Alison Lohman to all manner of gross, gooey torment in "Drag Me to Hell" or James Wan writing his love letter to the Giallo genre in big bloody splashes with "Malignant." If the horror movie and TV show-producing machine that is Mike Flanagan is to be believed, then he's about to unleash his own wild vision on the world with "The Fall of the House of Usher."

Created by Flanagan, the upcoming Netflix miniseries adapts Edgar Allan Poe's short story of the same name (which was first published in 1839) while mixing in elements both original and borrowed from the author's other horror literature. But where previous Flanagan horror shows like "The Haunting of Hill House" and "Midnight Mass" are measured, slow-burn meditations on grief, familial trauma, and faith interrupted by bursts of supernatural mayhem, Poe's source material is a windswept Gothic romp where the only thing crumbling faster than the eponymous mansion are the tormented aristocrats still residing within its walls.

In other words, Poe's tale hews closer to Guillermo del Toro's "Crimson Peak" than any Flanagan project to date. Speaking to The Wrap about his new series, "The Midnight Club," Flanagan echoed that sentiment, along with his prior comments about the difference between "House of Usher" and his other work (particularly the "Haunting" anthology):

"It's crazy. It is unlike anything I've ever done, but in the other direction. My favorite way to describe it to people is like 'Hill House' is kind of a string quartet, and 'Bly Manor' is this delicate, kind of beautiful piece of classical piano music, and 'The Fall of the House of Usher' is heavy metal. It's rock and roll."

"The Midnight Club," which is mainly based on Christopher Pike's 1994 novel of the same name, sees Flanagan diving into the pool of YA horror for the first time. Indeed, it's a show that seems geared toward young adults in a way his other work never has, between its record-breaking jump scare count and skin-deep look at heavy topics like terminal illness — the combo of which makes for a horror series that feels almost superficial by Flanagan's admittedly high standards. That may also explain why audiences seem a little cooler on the show than they were on Netflix's previous Flanagan shows. Even /Film's Chris Evangelista, an avowed "Fanagan," was left disappointed by "The Midnight Club," calling it "a bust."

Luckily, it sounds as though "The Fall of the House of Usher" has Flanagan going in a completely different direction from "The Midnight Club," which is only befitting for an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation. To quote Flanagan on the matter:

"It's the closest I will get to Giallo. It's wild. It is colorful and dark and blood-soaked and wicked and funny, and aggressive and scary and hilarious. I've never gotten to work on anything like it. We left everything on the field with it, and it's just bombastic fun. I'm really excited for that to find its way out because I especially think both 'The Midnight Club' and 'Usher' just go off in their own drastically different directions, and next to each other they're fascinating to me."

If nothing else, Flanagan is certainly doing a bang-up job of selling horror enthusiasts on his next project.

"The Fall of the House of Usher" has yet to receive an official release date but is expected to begin streaming on Netflix in 2023.